In New York, You Want Salsa With That?

By William Powers
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, October 7, 2007

When it comes to salsa dancing, I've got a bit of Manhattan Guy in me. Maybe you remember him from "Sex and the City." Miranda dumps him after she discovers that he hasn't left the island of Manhattan for 10 years. What, he insists, could possibly exist beyond the bridges and tunnels?

When I'm not traveling, I call Queens home, but I suffer from a mild case of borough envy. Every weekend I cheat on my neighborhood, abandoning Queens for Manhattan's smooth salsa.

Wouldn't you? Manhattan is unquestionably the best place in America for Latin jazz -- perhaps the best in the world. And nowhere in the Big Apple can top the famous Copacabana. When not changing locations (the club has moved three times since its founding in 1941, and is currently looking for a new space; see box below), it's been featured in such Hollywood hits as "Goodfellas," "Tootsie" and "Raging Bull," and celebrated in Barry Manilow's 1978 song "Copacabana."

Before its most recent temporary closing in June, I went to Copacabana on a Saturday night with my old high school friend Dudley, who had just returned from a decade in Beijing studying Chinese medicine. And Chinese salsa, I surmised, as he beelined it to the first girl he saw, bowed aikido-style and began dancing.

Dudley, not a tall man at 5-foot-8, moved this woman, a tall Latina, around perfectly. My blond, blue-eyed friend executed a vast array of spins, some that I didn't know existed. They didn't exist. Dudley was improvising a tai chi and salsa fusion.

I prefer my salsa straight up, por favor. Asian fusions make for great dining and terrible dancing. I learned in Latin American salsa joints like Manizero in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, where the dancing spills out onto the sidewalk at sunrise.

Perhaps that's how I unwittingly became the first Irish American salsa teacher in Bolivian history. My fellow expats, fed up with a Cuban teacher -- who was too darn talented to teach nursery school salsa to Germans and Brits -- heard that I had my friends dancing after a single class. Sometimes it takes a gringo to know a gringo. My two-step method is simple: rhythm and relaxation (R&R).

First, I march my students around the room for an hour like a drill sergeant, hammering the 1-2-3 rhythm into them. Second, I tell them to completely forget that rhythm and let their body relax. They do. Their feet automatically keep the beat, but they are enlightened by the secret of salsa: It's not about the hips. It's about the feeling of trust and groove you have with your partner. Get the basic rhythm down and then just have fun.

But back to Saturday night at Copacabana, with Dudley. He was on a mission to dance kung fu style with every girl in the club. I soon found my perfect match, a 29-year-old American doctor in the first year of her residency. As Puerto Rico's top bands crooned, it felt like destiny. But I soon discovered it was fatigue. This gal had melted into my lead not out of passion but exhaustion after a 25-hour shift. With a yawn, she waved goodnight.

That's when I had my first doubts about Manhattan salsa. When that overworked MD fell asleep on the dance floor I knew there was something missing at Copas. They call it la joda in Bolivia; in Colombia, la rumba. La joda is alert play, floating on an undercurrent of that fatalist ethos popularized by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: We're alive only briefly, so let's enjoy.

A few days later the obvious hit me: I live in Queens! The borough is home to a quarter-million Latinos. My neighborhood is just three subway stops from Roosevelt Avenue, a melting pot of Latin America. Going into Manhattan for salsa is like living in Italy but crossing into France for a cannoli.

I Googled "Queens NYC salsa," already sensing the strong pulse of la joda.

* * *

On Roosevelt Avenue at 11 on a Saturday night, my dozen trips through Latin America hit me all at once. Street vendors offered Salvadoran pupusas, Colombian arepas and Mexican chimichangas. In Ecuadoran, Peruvian and Argentine restaurants, people spoke Spanish in speedy Caribbean, curt Andean and lispy gaucho dialects. Taped inside a shop window across from the Banco Andino was a sign: "English Spoken Here."

I knew where I was heading -- sort of. On SalsaNewYork.com, the reviewer, another Manhattan Guy, had posted a disclaimer: "I have not been to any of these places. This is all hearsay. I hear these Queens clubs are fresh, but cannot confirm this." Give up his Saturday night at Copas to confirm it? ¿Estas loco?

One of the better-sounding clubs on his list was Chibcha, a "very nice Colombian restaurant serving excellent food, with a club in the back featuring live cumbia and salsa." Sounded perfect.

"A la rumba!" Chibcha's bouncer was calling out until he saw me and went mute. A gringo! He took me under his bulked-up arm and led me inside.

"We have 70 different women here. You like skinny-ones-tall-ones-fat-ones?" he asked, pinching a woman in a miniskirt on the behind.

I fled in horror. Outside, everything suddenly looked threatening. Strip clubs, narcos, tons of cops -- not my idea of a lighthearted Saturday night. Just about to give up and take a cab to Manhattan, I saw Hairos, another of the hearsay clubs from the Queens list, and on a whim ducked inside.

I asked the bouncer about the cover charge and he held up two fingers, murmuring, "dos pesos." I paid the $2, then headed for the bar and ordered a Cuba Libre, taking in the vibe.

Señor Manhattan Guy got it right this time. The narrow, mirrored joint was filled with a hundred or so people dancing to the freshest of Latin jazz. No Chinese salsa here, and nobody seemed to give a damn about fancy spins. I felt a certain tingle in my spine -- a sign of la joda in the making -- downed my Cuba and ordered another.

"¿De donde eres?" the man next to me at the bar asked.

"I'm from here, in Queens," I said.

"You don't look like it."

People gathered around, talking with me, curious. The man next to me, Juan, was from Bogota but had been working for 20 years in a midtown Manhattan restaurant. He invited me to eat there sometime and then turned to introduce me to his co-worker, a stunning 24-year-old from Medellin with almond-shaped eyes and long black hair. "Dance with her," he said.

I did, and the instant I sat down afterward I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see a barrel-chested woman in her mid-30s still breathing heavily from the last dance. "Bailamos!" she exclaimed, with a wonderful smile. "Let's dance!"

She was Angelica from Cali and was studying communications. We danced several times that night. Through my dance partners' references to their home cities, I revisited in my imagination beloved spots in Colombia: Bogota, Cartagena, Santa Martha, Medellin. Often we'd switch partners mid-song, or form wedding-party-style lines under a canopy of outstretched arms.

The energy built as more folks packed in. More Cuba libres. Lots of laughter. Everyone was out for la joda. At one point the music stopped abruptly. Hands reached into pockets for raffle tickets -- the ones included with the $2 cover.

The winner screamed with delight. The music kicked back in and my new friends and I danced until 4. Finally, exhausted, I collapsed into a taxi and said to the cabdriver: "A la calle ochentaitres." The Pakistani man grinned and shrugged. "To 83rd Street," I corrected, and we sped off down Roosevelt Avenue, the street stalls closing up for the night.

Would I give up the splendor of Manhattan's salsa for Queens? Not on your life. But whenever my soul aches for la joda, I don't have to leave home. It's right here in Queens.

In William Powers's most recent book, the Latin America memoir "Whispering in the Giant's Ear" (Bloomsbury), he visits Manizero, Bolivia's hottest salsa club.