Sounds glamorous, doesn't it? For those not familiar with the word, it's a region in southern France on the Mediterranean sea near Nice ( no, not "naice", it's "neece", a gorgeous city similar in many ways to SF, only more beautiful. Next door to Cannes with its world renowned film festival, and Monaco - another country - with its world famous casino attracting the rich and famous, French Riviera is a playground for those who can afford the rides.
I was lucky enough to spend 4 weeks in Nice and explore the local dancing scene.
SALSA
My first impression was disappointing: most dancers are on beginner or intermediate levels and Cuban style prevails. But then it's the impression every visitor will get attending local SF clubs with advanced dancers rarely making an appearance these days. However, as I dug deeper, I uncovered some master salseros in both Cuban and what they call Porto styles - you just need to know where to go and when.
Stationed in Nice city I've had very little opportunity to explore beyond its boundaries until I met Enzo and Armelle from justsalsa.com - two of the rare instructors who teach on2. They have afternoon dances on Sundays and they were kind enough to give me a ride to a fun dance at Joa Casino in Antibes (where you cannot enter without an ID even if you just want to buy a sandwich at the bar by the entrance.) Both places had some advanced dancers. The centre of the Porto style in the city is La Bodeguita on Sunday nights where you can dance on1 and on2 to mostly old style salsa. Same club Wed. nights is empty for inexplicable reasons.
Those sparse experiences would have been it for me if I did not have a chance to meet Jean, a retired factory manager who created the most popular salsa site on the Riviera, websalsazur.com with the most up to date info of events, classes, workshops, photos and videos. Moreover, even swing and its derivatives get a spotlight there. Jean makes rounds of dance spots almost every night carrying his video and photo cameras and snapping pictures by the hundreds! The next day they all appear on the site! Every dancer immediately refers you to it.
Jean was kind enough to take me along on his rounds for my remaining week and thanks to him I saw a variety of places, dances, styles and abilities. The most popular by far is L'Idem in Juan les Pins that is packed with salseros week after week. Here you have a different instructor every night. The arrangement is different from SF. No cover charge, students pay instructors directly and he DJs the rest of the night for the privilege to use the dance floor. The club survives thanks to the purchased drinks and with big classes instructors can make pretty good living. Most are guys who rarely use a partner. But, they all dance with their students throughout the night!
Another difference is a wild variety of music and dances in some clubs. Besides an (over)abundance of bachata, there's zumba, other Latin dances, reggaeton that they do in line following "animateurs"- instructors and even a rare cha-cha or mambo. It was amazing to watch almost everyone eagerly crowding the floor and getting excited about line dancing. One fitness studio went even further changing the music periodically between the 2 floors so the dancers favoring Latin styles had to switch with swing lovers every few minutes going up and down the stairs! Why, you ask? Because many folks here like them all and want an opportunity to dance them all. - something we should encourage. My attempts to introduce French songs that we love here were met with indifference at best - no one is a prophet in his own land. Only one DJ played some French swing and salsa tunes by a Tunisian-French singer Dany Brillant who dabbled in both styles. Very basic voice and even more basic tunes with 2-3 chords, but some are catchy enough to please the public.
Of course, as everywhere in salsa scene, strangers are not exactly "popular" (unless they're young and gorgeous) and I would remain glued to my chair if not for generous leaders (and gorgeous hunks) like Enzo and Sebastien who accepted my invitation with a smile. Besides those 2 gentlemen, I met other great dancers like very creative Arno (who even asked me a few times), local "diva" Vladimir, a fellow Canuck of Haitian descent Nico, a Congolese Steve Bacula (both DJ and play the occasional mambos) and a a few others. The stars of the local salsa scene, however, are Parisian transplants Mike and his lovely and very gracious partner Erelle from U-tribe. They travel most of the year teaching and performing.
Some dancers even drive to a small Italian town of Sanremo famous for its old international singing competition that started in the 60's maybe earlier - long before American Idol. By some Porto style lovers there's great dancing in Italy and it's all within 1 hour drive. Milan, the current home base of many star salseros like Juan Matos, brothers Vasquez and other American transplants, is only 2 hours away.
SWING
My first shock: almost total absence of regular swing venues. None in Nice and very few in the outlying areas as far as 1 hour drive. Local instructors Olivier and Natasha tried to introduce lindy, but most folks here prefer WCS. Nevertheless, the event with mixed salsa-swing msic was full. The second shock: almost everybody was over 40! Coming from the overwhelming majority of young lindy-hoppers in SF it was surprizing to see almost total absence of dancers under 30. The only swing night dedicated solely to WC and lindy did not bring out many people and the only advanced level dancers were the instructors including Jay from Toulouse who prefers lindy and charleston, but must teach the WC to make a living.
This sad situation is partly due to demographics: retirees are overrepresented in these areas. However, there's a large university in Nice and the French Silicon Valley is close by so maybe better promotion is needed to attract new blood.
While in Nice, a casino Ruhl show titled Swinging Fantasy attracted my attention. For about 2 hours poor voices were killing all the golden tunes form the past and some disco. I expected better from French cabaret experts.
It was an unusually cold and rainy November, I did not dance much, I'm not too keen on the never dying double kiss greeting of the French (man to man too) and yet I want to come back. Once you taste the French savoir-faire and joie-de-vivre you'll heal your "heart left in San Francisco'.
DIP (dance-in-peace)
Maya Salsaloca
