Millie Escobosa and partner Leo Figuereo have created a salsa scene in Hampton Roads
By Malcolm Venable
The Virginian-Pilot
Monday, April 3rd, 2006
IF THERE’S ANYBODY sure to be among the crowd at the Eddie Palmieri show Thursday, it’s Millie Escobosa of SalsaVA.
Whenever there’s a live performance of salsa music in Hampton Roads, you’re likely to spot Escobosa and her dance partner, Leo Figuereo, with their band of followers, spinning and twirling about.
“We have so much fun,” said Escobosa. “Ninety percent of what we do is about having fun.”
Escobosa, a Bronx native of Dominican heritage, immediately noticed that there wasn’t much of a scene for salsa dancing when she moved to Hampton Roads in 1997.
Encouraged by a friend, she started giving occasional lessons. In 2004 she started SalsaVA, which finds participants through word of mouth, its spontaneous performances at shows around Hampton Roads and its Web site, salsava.com.
“When I first got here, there were no instructors that taught New York Style,” she said. “There was a lot of ballroom style, but not a lot of freestyle.”
Her biggest challenge in converting from dancer to instructor, she said, was learning to teach what came naturally.
“You have to learn to break down the footwork in order to teach someone else.” She and her sister, Sandra, who teaches classes at the Granby Theater, recall dance as an integral part of their upbringing.
“As Hispanics, music and food are two of the most important things,” Millie Escobosa said. “During family gatherings, those two are always present. We learned to dance with my father. We would dance in the kitchen, standing on his feet.”
She teaches mambo style, which involves “dancing On-2”.
“Mambo On-2 is the original salsa,” Escobosa said. “There is really a large On-1 community, but On-2 has really grown. It’s like a cult.”
The On-2 style, which refers to how dancers change movement on the second and sixth beats, came to New York from Cuba in the 1970s, Escobosa said. It also happens to be the dance style that compliments the music played by jazz pianist Eddie Palmieri.
His concert is one of four performances from the ninth annul Ella Fitzgerald Music Festival at the Ferguson Center for the Arts in Newport News.
“We are so excited about him coming here”, Escobosa said. “He is old school mambo.”
With almost 50 albums to his credit, Palmieri is known for fusing Latin with more traditional jazz influences, such as the work of Thelonious Monk and Herbie Hancock. Getting his start in 1955 with traditional Latin music, he started mixing salsa with R&B, rock and jazz in the mid-70s. Though much of his older, groundbreaking work is out of print in the United States, the 69-year-old, seven-time Grammy winner is certainly not out of the public eye, having released albums in 2003 and 2005.
In addition to Palmieri, Tiempo Libre, a Miami-based band that mixes Latin jazz with rhythms of their native Cuba, will play Thursday.
SalsaVA hosts classes at Manila Avenue Nightclub in Virginia Beach every Tuesday and Wednesday. More than 30 men and women meet weekly at the space, a nondescript club with a small dance floor, mirrored walls and Christmas lights inside a strip mall. Manila Avenue pays Escobosa for the lessons, so she can teach the club’s patrons for free.
“It’s been very beneficial,” having them there for two years, said Robert Crawley, one of Manila Avenue’s owners. “They know how to keep the class fun, and they’re building a sense of community.”
While the movements Escobosa teaches, when combined, might look a little intimidating to the novice, she tries to keep her focus light.
“If you get too technical and are not having fun, you’ll lose them. It’s about sharing and learning something different – maybe even learning a little bit of Spanish too. We want people to learn from our culture.
Reach Malcolm Venable at (757)446-2662 or malcolm.venable@pilotonline.com