In today's class, the topic of salsa types/styles came up and The Hustle was briefly touched on. Though we have yet to see a bunch of examples of various salsa styles, I think it's safe to say that we all have a pretty general understanding of what salsa dance is "supposed" to look like. Here's a vid (rather small) of two people doing the hustle.
http://www.dancedancedance.com/jg_hustle.html
What similarities/differences between "typical" salsa and the hustle can you all point out regarding the movements, dance steps, music, style, etc.?
At first, I was having trouble finding similarities between these two dances, believe it or not. I had to actually turn the volume down and focus on the movements before making a comprehensive comparison. I guess that shows it was really the music more than anything that was throwing me off; Sylvester's "You Make Me Feel" is a far cry from Tito Puente's mambo stylings. Still, hustle takes its cues from salsa, and the similarities are there--the fluid movements and rapid interplay between dancing partners especially. I remembered reading in the "Mambo On 2" article about how salsa dancing became very theatrical and exaggerated, due to dancehalls being in close proximity to theaters, among other influences. That same exaggeration is definitely apparent in this hustle video, especially when the two dancers break off and start doing hand motions separately. In fact, I'd say this video places more of an emphasis on hand and arm movement than hip movement. This makes sense to me, as the "four to the floor" beat in disco is a lot more "nailed down", if you will, than the syncopated, loose style of salsa. It's probably easier to flow with the hands on such a faster and stricter beat than to continuously shake the hips....
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, hustle was and still is sometimes called "Latin hustle," which shows the Latino influence on disco! Here are some Puerto Rican dancers performing "Latin hustle":
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAyxTI23MuQ
I think you're right that while some of the floor patterns, turns, and styling are the same or similar in salsa and hustle, the body motion is quite different. It's a lot easier - and makes more sense - to use isolations and contrary motion with polyrhythmic music like salsa than with the more on-beat rhythm of disco.