PORT TOWNSEND — It’s about to get hot in here.
Hips will swivel, waists will turn fluid, men will work up a sweat while women glow — all because they cannot resist that seductive thing called salsa.
And for the first time, in the name of celebrating salsa, a pair of Port Townsend players are partners, partners who’ve cooked up a blend of Latin jazz and dance with classes and public dances March 18 through 21.
“It hit me one day: This would be a natural fit,” said Gregg Miller, the dance and chamber music program manager at Centrum.
For some 40 years, Centrum has hosted arts workshops at Fort Worden State Park, turning the former military base into a place where people come for concerts and readings and courses in music and writing.
Most of the events happened in summertime, Miller said, so a few years back Centrum’s orchestrators decided to add in some nonsummer workshops.
The Latin Jazz and Salsa Dance intensives, as it turns out, have one foot in winter and one in spring. The workshops start on March 18; the first day of spring is March 20.
The pair of courses — which feature two community dances on the Friday and Saturday night — mark a new beginning not just for Centrum but for its partner, the Madrona Mind-Body Institute at Fort Worden.
Allison Dey and Aletia Alvarez opened Madrona as a dance and yoga center “for every body” in June 2007, and have since offered weekly drop-in classes and longer courses with teachers from across the country.
So Miller and Jordan Hartt, Centrum’s director of programs, walked across the campus to ask Madrona’s founders about throwing a four-night-and-day Latin music-and-dance party.
“They took the ball and ran with it,” Miller said.
Alvarez invited teachers from the Century Ballroom in Seattle and the Harbour Dance Centre in Vancouver, plus DJ Victor Chavez of Seattle, and mapped out footwork and styling classes on Thursday night and all day Friday and Saturday, plus the public dances and beginners’ instruction Friday and Saturday night.
To cap the weekend, Alvarez will spice Madrona’s Soulfull Sunday free-form dance gathering with Latin music.
Beginners and masters
Just as other Centrum workshops match masters of the arts with ardent participants, the salsa intensive is for dancers who’ve already had ample instruction.
Those students will get to mix with — and perhaps demonstrate for — beginners during the two open dances.
Those thirsty for a taste of salsa instruction are invited to lessons during the hour preceding the dance parties.
And those parties will go on into the night, Alvarez promised, just as they do in Cuba, Colombia and Puerto Rico.
They will take place in Madrona’s 2,500-square-foot ballroom, with Chavez dishing out a soundtrack; on Saturday night, the musicians taking part in the Latin jazz intensive will play, Miller added.
He, Alvarez and Hartt are looking forward to a weekend of shaking off winter’s stiffness. Latin beats have the power to liberate the joy reflex, relax the spine and loosen the legs. They are, after all, a blend of African, European and American influences that resonate with dancers the world over.
‘Passionate about salsa’
“There are so many people,” said Hartt, who grew up in Jefferson County, “who are passionate about salsa.”
In Port Townsend, the Upstage at 923 Washington St. hosts beginning and intermediate lessons and dancing on the second Sunday of every month; the next salsa night starts at 6 p.m. March 14, with admission at just $5.
As for the musicians who concoct the rhythms to inspire all this twisting and swerving, Miller said they’re a breed apart from purveyors of more intellectual jazz forms.
“It always sounds like the people playing [Latin jazz] are having so much fun,” he said, adding that these players’ calling is pure: to “make sure people have a good time.”
During the intensive weekend, the two tracks of instruction will cross over, Alvarez said.
The Latin jazz players, bassist and bandleader Oscar Stagnaro and percussionist Paulo Stagnaro, will discuss with the dancers how rhythms are built. As for the dancers, they will have the chance to engage in conversations with the music students about how Latin beats inspire them.
This partnership between Madrona and Centrum came together thanks to Fort Worden State Park, Alvarez said.
In public forums during 2007 and 2008, added Hartt, community residents overwhelmingly called for the fort to be reshaped into a lifelong-learning campus, a place where people of all ages and abilities could come and expand themselves.
“Our intent is to keep working together and trying out new things . . . How it’s going to work will keep emerging,” said Alvarez, through collaborations like the Latin jazz-salsa pairing.
“We’re all still learning,” about how to make partnerships work, philosophically and financially, she added.
“It’s fun to explore how to collaborate.”
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
