Salsa Celebration

by Tiffany N. Garlic

Women in high strappy sandals and men in dress shirts all groove to the same rhythm of blasting trumpets and soul-shaking drums. Even the most timid pull their hands out of their pockets and break away from the bar to attempt some sultry steps.

Perlé is bringing the New York salsa scene to downtown New Brunswick.

Every Thursday, the small Paterson Street nightclub trades in its Top 40 playlist for the pulsating beat of salsa. Started in 2009 as a response to the growing interest in Latin dancing and music, the salsa-themed dance night attracts enthusiasts of all skill levels.

A beginner’s class kicks off the festivities at 9 p.m., when instructors from the Highland Park-based Scarlet Mambo Latin Dance Studio, which promotes the weekly event, teach basic steps and turns.

“The nightclub is the perfect place for people to be exposed to Latin music and dance,” said Dany Joshua, artistic director for Scarlet Mambo. “There are classes around here, but this is a place where they can learn and be social.”

The hour-long class shows dancers how to transition from move to move and add their own flavor.

“Do a different pose every time, make it your own,” Joshua urged a group of about 30 people earlier this month.

Later, as the lights go down and the music turns up, the floor is not empty for long. Dancers show off fierce footwork, dizzying turns and hip rolls that would give professionals a run for their money. The sophisticated crowd ranges from mid-20s to early-50s, all displaying fascinating styles of Latin movement and rhythm.

Though you may feel more comfortable bringing a partner along, don’t be afraid to go solo, since it’s not uncommon for a stranger to ask someone to dance. The low-pressure environment is ideal for dancers of all levels to watch, improve their skills and soak up the culture.

There’s enough seating to perch on after you’ve built up a sweat from the fast-paced choreography. But pay attention as you make your way across the floor, in order to avoid collisions — it’s easy to get tangled up in twirling couples.

Rose-colored lighting adds a warm and exotic vibe to the crimson and chocolate-brown space, which shimmers with pearl white furniture. The main room serves as the dance floor while the secondary bar often hosts bands and provides a more intimate lounge atmosphere for conversation.

Melanie Thompson, 31, of Highland Park said she has been coming to the salsa night for about three weeks and couldn’t think of a better place to learn and socialize.

“It’s all about moving and feeling good and knowing your own vitality,” she said. “Plus, technically, everyone’s learning here, so there’s not as much pressure.”

Richard Reque, 43, of Plainfield, said it was hard to find a place to salsa without trekking to New York, but the salsa night ensured a full dance card each week.

“It’s very friendly,” he said. “We share the desire to dance and show off the steps that we’ve learned and really have a good time.”

Jorge Palomino, 28, of Milltown came to the salsa night for the first time and said it was exciting to see salsa in motion outside of class.

“I like that you can see beginners and professionals dancing together,” Palomino said. “It’s cool to actually show off what I’m learning and pick up steps from everyone else.”

Salsa Thursdays at Perlé Night Club & Lounge
Where: 13 Paterson St., New Brunswick
How much: $10 cover charge with free dinner buffet from 7 to 10 p.m. and a free salsa lesson from 9 to 10 p.m. (texting SALSANJ to 46786 can get the cover reduced to $5 or lower). Call (732) 391-1110 or visit scarletmambo.com.

For centuries, dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise. More recently we’ve seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.

Then most recently we’ve heard of another benefit: Frequent dancing apparently makes us smarter. A major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one’s mind can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia, much as physical exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing also increases cognitive acuity at all ages.

You may have heard about the New England Journal of Medicine report on the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging. Here it is in a nutshell.

The 21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

The study wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity. They discovered that some activities had a significant beneficial effect. Other activities had none.

They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

Reading – 35% reduced risk of dementia

Bicycling and swimming – 0%

Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a week – 47%

Playing golf – 0%

Dancing frequently – 76%.

That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.

Quoting Dr. Joseph Coyle, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who wrote an accompanying commentary:
“The cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which are critical to these activities, are remarkably plastic, and they rewire themselves based upon their use.”

And from from the study itself, Dr. Katzman proposed these persons are more resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses. Like education, participation in some leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia by improving cognitive reserve.

Our brain constantly rewires its neural pathways, as needed. If it doesn’t need to, then it won’t.

Aging and memory

When brain cells die and synapses weaken with aging, our nouns go first, like names of people, because there’s only one neural pathway connecting to that stored information. If the single neural connection to that name fades, we lose access to it. So as we age, we learn to parallel process, to come up with synonyms to go around these roadblocks. (Or maybe we don’t learn to do this, and just become a dimmer bulb.)

The key here is Dr. Katzman’s emphasis on the complexity of our neuronal synapses. More is better. Do whatever you can to create new neural paths. The opposite of this is taking the same old well-worn path over and over again, with habitual patterns of thinking and living our lives.

When I was studying the creative process as a grad student at Stanford, I came across the perfect analogy to this:

The more stepping stones there are across the creek,
the easier it is to cross in your own style.

The focus of that aphorism was creative thinking, to find as many alternative paths as possible to a creative solution. But as we age, parallel processing becomes more critical. Now it’s no longer a matter of style, it’s a matter of survival — getting across the creek at all. Randomly dying brain cells are like stepping stones being removed one by one. Those who had only one well-worn path of stones are completely blocked when some are removed. But those who spent their lives trying different mental routes each time, creating a myriad of possible paths, still have several paths left.

The Albert Einstein College of Medicine study shows that we need to keep as many of those paths active as we can, while also generating new paths, to maintain the complexity of our neuronal synapses.

Why dancing?

We immediately ask two questions:
# Why is dancing better than other activities for improving mental capabilities?
# Does this mean all kinds of dancing, or is one kind of dancing better than another?

That’s where this particular study falls short. It doesn’t answer these questions as a stand-alone study. Fortunately, it isn’t a stand-alone study. It’s one of many studies, over decades, which have shown that we increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes. Intelligence: Use it or lose it. And it’s the other studies which fill in the gaps in this one. Looking at all of these studies together lets us understand the bigger picture.

Some of this is discussed here (the page you may have just came from) which looks at intelligence in dancing. The essence of intelligence is making decisions. And the concluding advice, when it comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision making, as opposed to rote memory (retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical style.

One way to do that is to learn something new. Not just dancing, but anything new. Don’t worry about the probability that you’ll never use it in the future. Take a class to challenge your mind. It will stimulate the connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways. Difficult and even frustrating classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need for new neural pathways.

Then take a dance class, which can be even better. Dancing integrates several brain functions at once, increasing your connectivity. Dancing simultaneously involves kinesthetic, rational, musical and emotional processes.

What kind of dancing?

Let’s go back to the study:
Bicycling, swimming or playing golf – 0% reduced risk of dementia

But doesn’t golf require rapid-fire decision-making? No, not if you’re a long-time player. You made most of the decisions when you first started playing, years ago. Now the game is mostly refining your technique. It can be good physical exercise, but the study showed it led to no improvement in mental acuity.

Therefore do the kinds of dance where you must make as many split-second decisions as possible. That’s key to maintaining true intelligence.

Does any kind of dancing lead to increased mental acuity? No, not all forms of dancing will produce this benefit. Not dancing which, like golf or swimming, mostly works on style or retracing the same memorized paths. The key is the decision-making. Remember (from this page), Jean Piaget suggested that intelligence is what we use when we don’t already know what to do.

We wish that 25 years ago the Albert Einstein College of Medicine thought of doing side-by-side comparisons of different kinds of dancing, to find out which was better. But we can figure it out by looking at who they studied: senior citizens 75 and older, beginning in 1980. Those who danced in that particular population were former Roaring Twenties dancers (back in 1980) and then former Swing Era dancers (today), so the kind of dancing most of them continued to do in retirement was what they began when they were young: freestyle social dancing — basic foxtrot, swing, waltz and maybe some Latin.

I’ve been watching senior citizens dance all of my life, from my parents (who met at a Tommy Dorsey dance), to retirement communities, to the Roseland Ballroom in New York. I almost never see memorized sequences or patterns on the dance floor. I mostly see easygoing, fairly simple social dancing — freestyle lead and follow. But freestyle social dancing isn’t that simple! It requires a lot of split-second decision-making, in both the lead and follow roles.

I need to digress here:
I want to point out that I’m not demonizing memorized sequence dancing or style-focused pattern-based ballroom dancing. I sometimes enjoy sequence dances myself, and there are stress-reduction benefits of any kind of dancing, cardiovascular benefits of physical exercise, and even further benefits of feeling connected to a community of dancers. So all dancing is good.

But when it comes to preserving mental acuity, then some forms are significantly better than others. When we talk of intelligence (use it or lose it) then the more decision-making we can bring into our dancing, the better.

Who benefits more, women or men?

In social dancing, the follow role automatically gains a benefit, by making hundreds of split-second decisions as to what to do next. As I mentioned on this page, women don’t “follow”, they interpret the signals their partners are giving them, and this requires intelligence and decision-making, which is active, not passive. This benefit is greatly enhanced by dancing with different partners, not always with the same fellow. With different dance partners, you have to adjust much more and be aware of more variables. This is great for staying smarter longer.

But men, you can also match her degree of decision-making if you choose to do so. (1) Really notice your partner and what works best for her. Notice what is comfortable for her, where she is already going, which moves are successful with her and what aren’t, and constantly adapt your dancing to these observations. That’s rapid-fire split-second decision making. (2) Don’t lead the same old patterns the same way each time. Challenge yourself to try new things. Make more decisions more often. Intelligence: use it or lose it.

And men, the huge side-benefit is that your partners will have much more fun dancing with you when you are attentive to their dancing and constantly adjusting for their comfort and continuity of motion.

Dance often

Finally, remember that this study made another suggestion: do it often. Seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a measurably lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week. If you can’t take classes or go out dancing four times a week, then dance as much as you can. More is better.

And do it now, the sooner the better. It’s essential to start building your cognitive reserve now. Some day you’ll need as many of those stepping stones across the creek as possible. Don’t wait — start building them now.

Press Release – 2010.08.02 – Salsa Glam (PDF)

New Brunswick, NJ (August 2, 2010) – As the Latin beats of Salsa music play in the background and beautiful Salsa dancers in three-inch strappy heels move to the rhythm of the Latin percussion, New Jersey Fashion designer Elena Vasilevsky is preparing to unveil her newest fashion collection to the public at “SALSA GLAM”, her fashion show at PERLÉ Nightclub on August 19, 2010. Salsa dancing, the newest sensation throughout the U.S. and the world, has inspired Ms. Vasilevsky (Elena V) to create a special line of clothing aimed to showcase female Salsa dancers.

Salsa dancing is an exploding sensation in cities all over the U.S. and around the world with thousands of female dancers looking for trendy outfits to express their passion for Salsa. “My designs express my soul and my passion for dancing. Fragile femininity, mixed with high voltage passion drives me to design collections that radiate sensuality mixed with confidence”, says Ms. Vasilevsky. It is no secret that Salsa has grown from an underground club dance to a fully-mature art form with professional dancers teaching and traveling around the world. But Ms. Vasilevsky aims to energize regular, everyday women with sensuality to help them realize their dazzling potential on the dance floor.

“Any garment will look good on a professional fashion model. My creations reveal personalities and allow women to refine their own unique beauty, highlighting individuality regardless of perfect proportions. My goal is to discover and celebrate the diversity and beauty of every woman through my designs”, expresses Ms. Vasilevsky. Her fashion show at PERLÉ Nightclub will feature New Jersey’s professional salsa dancers, instructors and performers as models of her “Rhythm Collection”, which is inspired from the energy of Salsa dancers, as well as legendary icons like Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly and Marilyn Monroe.

For this event, Ms. Vasilevsky has collaborated with Mr. Dany Joshua to host the fashion show at PERLÉ Nightclub. They have attracted some of the most talented dancers from New Jersey. Mr. Dany Joshua promotes Salsa dancing in New Brunswick, New Jersey, at PERLÉ Nightclub every Thursday night, “Salsa Thursdays at PERLÉ with Dany J” is the title of this regular event.

Ms. Vasilevsky, originally from the Ukraine, is a graduate from Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
Mr. Dany Joshua is Salsa dance instructor, Salsa disc jockey and Salsa promoter dedicated to the promotion of Salsa music and Salsa dancing. Dany Joshua is a dance instructor at Rutgers University.

Press Release – 2010.08.02 – Salsa Glam (PDF)

Jayson Molina @ PERLÉ Nightclub
Salsa Thursdays w/ DANY J
June 10, 2010

JAYSON MOLINA – Photo Album 1

JAYSON MOLINA – Photo Album 2

Blue $1 $4
Green $1 $1
Purple $3 $20
Red $2 $7
Pink $23 $33

So, purple is catching up to pink. Remember that 100% of this fund-raiser will go to Web of Compassion to benefit the “Haiti Relief Effort” through the Haitian Consulate. Don’t be afraid to vote with $5 and $10 bills, remember that those votes count more than the Washington $1 votes.

EDDIE TORRES & GRISELLE PONCE – “YARE”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7PByUUOHbY

EDDIE TORRES & GRISELLE PONCE – “GOZA TIMBERO”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th2xZmoi5es

There are about 300 photos below.

Eddie Torres & Griselle Ponce
@ PERLÉ w/ Dany J PHOTOS

Eddie Torres PHOTO ALBUM 1

Eddie Torres PHOTO ALBUM 2

As a disc jockey, I have always felt that I was missing something when I played music. Years ago when I played Latin Rock in my weekly radio show at WRSU 88.7FM, I wished that I could play Salsa. And when I spun Salsa records at socials and nightclubs, I wished that I could play Latin Rock. It’s remarkable that after more than 10 years of spinning music, I have the opportunity to join two of the genres that I love.

Our Thursday night party at Perlé got an official megabuster addition. The RED ROOM, the 2nd lounge at Perle will open every Thusday featuring Latin Rock, Latn Pop, Latin TOP 40, World Beats, and Tropical. This ad-hoc party is called TACUBA THURSDAYS @ PERLÉ. It starts on March 4th, every week.

For more info, visit the Upcoming Events page.

Let’s clarify. SALSA THURSDAYS will continue as usual in the main room. TACUBA THURSDAYS will be take place in the RED ROOM. Two parties. Two rooms.

In my not so humble opinion, I have put together a killer team of disc jockeys. DJ LEO G, DJ LEO COTTO, DJ La C. GUAPA, and yours truly DJ DANY J will be in the rotation of disc jockeys for TACUBA THURSDAYS. And along with DJ RICKY V, this team promises to rock two (2) parties on Thursday night.

Soon, I will introduce each member of the team, along with his/her respective biography and photograph. So stay tuned.

Oscar D’Leon sings “Sigueme”, a video/song about Twitter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLNcRp33Xp0

If you liked this video, follow me on twitter. Twitter.com/DanyJoshua

The soundtrack song can be downloaded at no cost at the official website of the “La Sangre Y La Lluvia” film.

La Sangre Y La Lluvia Soundtrack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygrwd463mQA

For up-to-the-minute updates, follow me on twitter:
Twitter.com/DanyJoshua