BY WENDY ZHANG
Ay Pachanga: The Story of Salsa
Cadencia Productions
Manning Bar, Sydney, 30 March
Ay Pachanga, the story of salsa and a celebration of Latin music from the ‘60s and ‘70s, transformed the Manning Bar into a Latin dance fiesta. There was a lot of chemistry between the band, dancers, and guests as they partied all night long to the music of the 10-piece band.
Manning Bar, located at the heart of the University of Sydney, was already packed with a crowd of about 60-70 people before the band started. The guests all seemed to know what they were in for and had dressed up for the night – the ladies in particular were wearing colourful dresses and stood close to the dance floor, ready to plunge into action. When the band finally came up on stage, the host introduced the members – brass section including three trumpet players; percussion section consisting also of three members; and a guitarist, keyboardist, and two singers. I noticed the percussion section was particularly large for a 10-piece band with some interesting instruments I’ve never seen before – conga (tall, single-headed drum from Cuba) producing powerful beats, smaller hand-held instruments including maraca (also called rumba shaker), and tambourines in two different sizes.
When the band started playing, I could immediate feel a strong sense of rhythm from the percussion players; and the fact that the venue’s acoustics were excellent transformed Manning Bar to a pumping night club. At first, I felt the sound was a bit too loud for my liking. But I soon started to enjoy it more – especially the percussion instruments producing simple and powerful rhythmic patterns.
Two singers joined the band– Carmen Alicia’s voice was powerful and penetrating; and Richard Valdez had a deep and sensual timbre, which complemented Carmen’s well. There were also four dancers on stage at various times of the performance (two girls wearing matching green dresses, and two guys in black shirts). With no salsa background whatsoever, I was intrigued to see the female dancers were paired, as were the male dancers at first; and then with a change of music, the duos switched their partners and the dance itself grew romantic and sexy. The dancers were young, energetic, and exuberant and added characters and movement to the music.
In between songs, a documentary was shown which explained the origins of Ay Pachanga – the colourful salsa street styles born in New York in the 1960s and ‘70s, and the record label that propelled the genre to the world stage: Fania Records. It was noted in the documentary that the part-performance, part-dance party format was actually a replicate of what it was like back in the days in New York, and I felt privileged to experience first-hand this type of performance which belonged to an era before I was born.
Towards the end of the night, the band played a popular song and all dancers came up on stage. The lighting rotated and changed with the music, providing a disco feel for the stage. The song had a catchy tune and rhythm. The singers tackled it first (Carmen and Richard, joined by the guitarist, the keyboardist, and the two female dancers), before asking the crowd to clap and sing along with them. It was a powerful moment when everyone sang together. There were eight dancers who came up and danced energetically, to which the audience went wild.
After the dancers left, the guests gathered on the dancefloor all at once and started dancing, salsa-style. It was amazing to see such great energy from everyone in the room, and at that moment in time, there were no passive spectators anymore. Everyone became active participants of this performance, and dancers/musicians of this vibrant and colourful show.
Image supplied. Credit: Klick Photography.
