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Enjoy Salsa In The New Zealand Winter

With Hanmer Salsa Winter Fest 2021

The longest and continuous annual event of Afro-Caribbean music in New Zealand since 1995 brings this year dancers from all over the country for you to enjoy moving to the rhythm of Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, Cha-Cha, Kizomba, and Zouk in the snow. Join this festival even if you are a dance professional or a beginner, you will always have something that suits you.

Hanmer Salsa Winter Fest 2021 is an event for the whole family!

Couple dancing at Hanmer Salsa Winter Fest 2021 — Latin Party Ticket (Online): $30 or $40 at the door

According to the authorities, New Zealand continues in the Level 2 category concerning the Covid-19 pandemic, which means that dancing as a couple is allowed as part of active recreation and is classified as a sport.

At alert level 2, the contact is possible:

Keeping track of peers
Constant hygiene of hands and surfaces
Using the masks (Optional)
Also, you can dance with only one partner if you choose not to be part of the rotation. (Swapping pairs in classes)

This year Hanmer Salsa Winter Fest presents ten Workshops:

Greydis (Cuba) dancing in the hanmer Salsa — Instructor for Salsa workshops: Greydis (Cuba)

Afro-Cuban – Palo: Recommended for all those who want to learn the Afro-Cuban roots. It is open to all levels. (Palo Monte belongs to the West African region of the Congo and is part of the Bantú religion).

Cuban Salsa Casino Partnerwork & Rueda Intro: The Cuban style will be worked in pairs and Rueda. In the Rueda style, a man (leader) turns instructions, and everyone executes the specific movements while exchanging pairs. Level: Intermediate. Duration: 60 minutes.

Afro Cuban – Oggun: This workshop will be held on Saturday at 10 AM, and that is ideal to continue learning about Afro-Cuban roots. Dancers of any level can access it. (Oggun: is a god of the Yoruba religion).

The Cuban Salsa Shines: It is recommended for dancers of intermediate and advanced levels. Here you will improve your footwork in the Cuban style.

Cuban Salsa Casino Partnerwork & Rueda: Workshop dedicated to improving your dance technique as a couple and in Rueda. If you have not practiced it for years, I recommend doing the Cuban SalsaCasino Partnerwork & Rueda Intro workshop first.

In addition to these five Salsa workshops, you can also learn to dance Kizomba and Bachata. The Bachata workshops include partner work and mergers with Sensual Bachata, while the kizomba workshops will be focused on improving transitions.

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On Friday night, the Salsa parties and other Latin rhythms begin on a large dance floor and with an incredible sound system. The DJs in charge will be DJ Reuben and DJ Dave. Time: 9 PM – 12 AM. During this party, at approximately 10:30 PM, the dance animation will enter. A fun solo dance style like Zumba. Get ready to have fun and meet new friends here.

Information to access the Hanmer Salsa Winter Fest

For the first day, you must arrive 5 to 15 minutes earlier than the stipulated time to obtain the bracelet that will guarantee your priority entry to any of the workshops.

If you are one of those with a single entry, don’t worry, you can access the class if any member of the full access entries is not on time. Payment will be made on the same day of the workshop.

There is no set limit for people to enter for the late-night Latin parties. The passes will be available online until a week before the event.

Date: Friday, August 27^th – Saturday, August 28^th

Address: Hanmer Memorial Hall. 1 Jollies Pass Rd, Hanmer Springs. New Zealand

These Data May Interest You:

Thermal pool with snow around — In Hanmer Spring, you can enjoy the snow while relaxing in the thermal pools

Hanmer Springs is a small town in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. Winter in this country runs from June to August.
At this premier alpine spa destination in New Zealand, you will find a complex of Thermal Pools, as well as new pools, and incredible attractions.
Taking a bus or driving is recommended if you want to save a little. It is an average trip of 1.5 to 2 hours.
Hanmer Springs Village is located a 90-minute drive from Christchurch International Airport. If you want to take the tour, you will travel through the hills of the wine country, the rugged coastal route, and the picturesque mountain pass, if you come from the west coast.

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Meet The Amazing Fasching Jazz Club In Sweden

The Home Of The Best Live Jazz Since 1977

Group of musicians playing in Fasching — Fasching offers an intimate setting where you get a good view of the stage regardless of where you are sitting

Located in the heart of the Swedish capital (Stockholm), the Fasching Jazz club has been the residence of lovers of this genre for 44 years. Thousands of people certify and endorse it as the protagonist of the numerous presentations of renowned artists or future stars of the national and international music scene.

Fasching has hosted 350 events per year of which more than 70% have been live concerts, obtaining an astronomical total of approximately 80,000 guest artists. In this club, bar, performance area, and restaurant in the Venice of the North, you can also go on stage on Monday afternoons because the upstarts also have their space here.

In Fashing, the art of improvisation thrives!

This home of jazz entertainment can host 360 people, distributed in 110 seated and 250 standing. Some nights they offer live music in the lobby bar with free admission and annually, during the fall, it is the main venue for the city’s Jazz Festival.

In the discotheque there are age limits: only those over 23 years old can stay inside the facilities on Fridays, while people 20 years and older on Saturdays. At concerts, the minimum age to witness them is 18 years old, and most of the time these live performances start at 8 PM and end at 10 PM with a short break between the two sets.

Fasching currently follows the guidelines of the Public Health Agency regarding the number of people in the audience and the respective distance meter between the groups. Likewise, they maintain sanitary measures such as dew on tables and public spaces between concerts at night to keep the risk of contagion low and at the same time keep you safe within the areas of the premises.

History Of Fasching Jazz Club In Stockholm

Melissa Aldana with hat — Melissa Aldana (Chilean Saxophonist)

One of the oldest jazz clubs in Europe is Fasching. The only one that is the principal owner is the Swedish Jazz Musicians Association (FSJ its Swedish acronym) and the Friends of Fasching Association (as co-owner) with almost 2,000 members.

FSJ managed to acquire the current premises located at Kungsgatan 63 in 1977 with state support, thus achieving its highest aspiration of having a meeting place for musicians and the public to help improve the conditions of professionals of this genre and to publicizing Swedish Jazz and its interpreters.

Since 2004, Fasching has been given the task of ensuring the artistic content, initiating and executing several musical and educational activities from the Ministry of Culture, politicians, and even city officials.

At the end of the 80s, this incredible club through the Jazz Musician Association decided to award an annual scholarship to a young virtuoso of this musical style. By 2019, this financial aid had reached the figure of 40,000 SEK due to the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Association and although this year the distribution of this scholarship was not made due to the pandemic, the possibility that be reactivated shortly.

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However, the events in Fasching continue and Chilean saxophonist Melissa Aldana will participate in the Stockholm Jazz Festival which will be organized in the club’s concert hall.

Saxophonist Melissa is credited with exceptional talent and an unmistakable sound. From a very young age, she occupied a privileged place in the Jazz scene of Santiago de Chile. She has performed with Randy Brecker (Spring 2006) and was accepted to Berklee College of Music in Boston (USA) as a researcher and student of composition and improvisation. She graduated and changed her residence to New York in 2009. This same year Melissa was nominated for a Grammy for best solo improvisation and two years later her biggest dream came true when she signed with the Legendary record company Blue Note.

Melissa Aldana, moreover showing her music in countless clubs and concerts in New York City, has shared the stage with figures such as George Coleman, Antonio Sánchez, Marc Copland, Kendrick Scott, and the female group Artemis.

Date: Saturday, October 23^rd

Address: Kungsgatan 63, 111 22 Stockholm, Sweden

Tickets: Tickster

Fasching also broadcasts its concerts live through Facebook free of charge. You have to like their official page, and they will send you a notice when they have a performance live on the doorstep.

By doing so, you will receive a link to the event hours before its start. When the link is active, an image of the Fasching stage will appear, exactly at the time, the concert will be broadcast. Therefore, you will not be able to enter in advance but be prepared for when the clock strikes 8 PM.

Book: Fasching

Lina Nyberg (1996) black & white — Lina Nyberg (1996) Photo: Paul Deker

For more than 40 years, this jazz club has offered nearly 10,000 concerts. World stars such as Chet Baker, Chick Corea, and Wayne Shorter, as well as all the great names of Swedish Jazz have set foot in its concert hall. Fasching is one of the few venues in the world that pays tribute to this genre, thus maintaining its position as one of the major organizers of events in this musical style that has been operating uninterruptedly for decades.

Besides Jazz, here you can listen to related genres such as Blues, Funk, Hip-Hop, and Soul.

But running this club has been a fight for survival on multiple occasions. In the eponymous book, you can go back in time and learn about the success and difficult stages in the history of Fasching including the greatest challenge for Swedish cultural life: the prevailing corona pandemic. All this information is contained in 256 pages with more than 200 illustrations and images in black & white.

The book entitled Fasching is written by journalist and author, Carlsson Bokförlag.

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Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery and its role towards salsa

Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery and Latin music

The Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery is one of those places where every salsa lover in New York should visit since there is plenty to see here. This museum has all kinds of items donated by many renowned artists or relatives of some who had passed away. This collection of valuable possessions has resulted in a set of priceless objects that will bow anyone visiting the facilities of such a special institution out of water.

The Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery, also known as Spaha Salsa Gallery, can be defined as an institution of a cultural nature whose main purpose is to serve as a reminder of how great our culture is, especially our music. Both residents and visitors of East Harlem, New York, can learn about the salsa genre and its roots as long as they desire. All thanks to a lot of tools, information and many initiatives with which those interested will know all kinds of interesting facts about salsa first hand.

Another of the great objectives pursued by this place is the quest for knowledge about Latin music and the artists involved to offer it to anyone who decides to visit its facilities. That is why both its president Johnny Cruz and the team that helps him have been responsible for creating an inclusive and diverse gallery in which you can appreciate how far Hispanic talent has come by the hand of its top stars.

Johnny Cruz with Viti Ruíz — Johnny Cruz while receiving Franklin Ruiz’s jacket from Viti Ruíz, his brother

Role of the Spaha Salsa Gallery in the dissemination of Latin culture

The role played by the Spaha Salsa Gallery in the dissemination of Latin culture is very important, since these institutions are the ones that manage to arouse the interest of the inhabitants of Harlem and other nearby sectors towards one of the most representative musical genres of Latinity. This has made many other cultural institutions to use this gallery in order to awaken a higher interest in its own activities, which shows extensive cooperation between those who seek to promote anything Latin-related at all costs.

Fortunately, our work is not that complicated to carry out because too many tourists visit New York every day and many of them know that this city was the birthplace of the biggest salsa movement in history, so they are always looking for cultural sports in which you can find information about this set of rhythms and how it emerges in the public arena.

Instruments donated by La Sonora Ponceña — Some instruments donated by La Sonora Ponceña

Who Johnny Cruz is

Johnny Cruz is the founder of the Spaha Salsa Gallery, but there are many other facets by which this talented Puerto Rican is known in the entertainment industry. Cruz is a famous musician and record producer who has worked and make friends with a wide number of artists from all genres, by providing him with the platform to create a true sanctuary for Latin music lovers.

One interesting fact about the museum is that it is located on the plot where a hardware business owned by Johnny’s father used to function, which was made into something completely different thanks to the genius of his son long after. Today, that place contains several of the most invaluable objects in the history of salsa and whose relationship with some of the greatest figures of the genre is legendary.

Link to the official website of the Spaha Salsa gallery: spahasalsagallery.com

By: Johnny Cruz correspondent of International Salsa Magazine in New York City, New York

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Mike Arroyo the guitarist Using Jazz to praise God

Mike Arroyo 40/20 The Concert (The past July 19, 2021, San Juan, Puerto Rico)

Using Jazz to praise God, guitarist Mike Arroyo performed yesterday, Sunday, July 18, 2021 at the René Marqués Hall of the Centro de Bellas Artes in Santurce. As Mike himself said in front of a packed hall, yesterday’s concert became a dream come true.

At 4:50 p.m. the first call was heard over the loudspeaker. Seven minutes later, the second call was heard at full volume, which interrupted the public’s excitement as they began to settle into their seats. Five minutes after the scheduled time, the third and last call was heard; which immediately gave way to the greeting of the moderator already on stage, but not before opening the show with the usual invocation. It became clear that although the concert honored Mike Arroyo’s career, during that time the guitarist has dedicated himself body and soul to praise God.

The title 40/20 originates from the 40 years since Mike Arroyo acquired his first electric guitar, an Ovation Thunderhead® that had belonged to the tres player Nelson Gonzalez.

At 4:50 p.m. the first call was heard over the loudspeaker. Seven minutes later, the second call, which interrupted the public's excitement as they began to settle into their seats, was heard at full volume. — Mike Arroyo 40/20 The Concert

The acquisition of the guitar is still an enigma difficult to explain in earthly terms. Thus life, this shocking story, which in 1981 transformed the lives of Mike Arroyo and Nelson Gonzalez paved a path that 20 years later would see Mike’s first Jazz album, Straigth To Heaven (2001) see the light of day. It would be good to bring up the guitar transaction for discussion, but not before exposing the provenance of the guitar.

Shortly before the transaction described here, Nelson Gonzalez lost his house with all the belongings in it due to a fire. To Nelson’s surprise, the guitar, which later passed into Mike’s hands, was not only the only item to survive the fire, but remained intact. That fact alone is incredible, but in the face of a structure that was totally destroyed it looks even more dramatic. Nelson took the surviving item – his guitar – into storage. However, the custodian of the guitar decided to dispose of it as payment in exchange for a service. That third person who received the guitar as payment for that service, must have understood that the guitar had not been acquired in a lawful manner, so he sold it for $140.00 to a young Mike; who had to commit himself to pay small amounts until the agreed amount was paid off.

Shortly thereafter, already in the process of normalizing his life after that same fire that had spared the guitar, Nelson returned to reclaim the guitar from whoever had deposited it. Since the custodian of the guitar no longer had it with him, Nelson set about the task of locating it. Nelson received information about the whereabouts of the guitar itself, which at that moment became – unsuspectingly – the link between the two musicians. Nelson went to Mike Arroyo’s home where he saw with his own eyes the effort the young man had made to get his hands on that guitar.

The respectable Arroyo family explained, the young musician pleaded and Nelson Gonzalez decided to part with the guitar, the only material object that had survived the destruction of the Gonzalez home, to give it to Mike. At that moment, Nelson became Mike’s musical godfather and the guitar became the divine plan that made Mike a pioneer in Sacred Jazz, a Latin rhythm of light and spiritual tonalities. The surprise of the night was the presentation of Nelson Gonzalez with Mike Arroyo, eternally united by the musical instrument that was also the instrument of that divine plan that remains intact.

At that time, Nelson became Mike's musical godfather and the guitar became the divine plan that made Mike a pioneer in Sacred Jazz. — Nelson González y Mike Arroyo

Mike is recognized in the music scene as a pioneer and precursor of “Christian Jazz” with 6 record productions and two video DVD productions. In 2017 he innovated the stages by performing a concert in the traditional format of “Jazz Organ Trio” being Brian Charette and Vince Ector the international guest musicians of that event that took place at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico.

Aware of the need to strengthen us as a people, through his “Jazz with a spiritual touch”; just as 40 years ago Nelson gave Mike that magical instrument, yesterday Mike gave the public a masterful concert, presented by BCC (Breñas Community Church). It should be noted that BCC is the church where Mike has been pastor for 15 years.

The select group of accompanying musicians included the Puerto Rican piano: Luis Marín, Gabriel Rodríguez, Jimmy Rivera, Héctor Matos on drums, José Nelson Ramírez, Tommy Lee on tumbadoras and Giovanny Rodríguez. — Piano of Puerto Rico: Luis Marín, Gabriel Rodríguez, Jimmy Rivera, Héctor Matos on drums, José Nelson Ramírez, Tommy Lee on tumbadoras and Giovanny Rodríguez.

The select group of accompanying musicians included the piano of Puerto Rico: Luis Marín, Gabriel Rodríguez, Jimmy Rivera, Héctor Matos on drums, José Nelson Ramírez, Tommy Lee on tumbadoras and Giovanny Rodríguez in his first performance with his former teacher -Luis Marín-. I imagine that no one will be surprised if it is stated that Luis Marín’s chords were gravitating towards salsa, while Tommy Lee prophesied in correspondence on the leather of the tumbadoras. Also singing were: Yanira Torres, Gilda González, Janet Hernández, Alma Galarza and Vanessa Rosado.

During these 40 years Mike has stood out musically with Christian groups and singers such as Renovación Cristiana, Abba Padre, Manuel Román among others and several recordings. He has participated with the Symphony Orchestra of PR, a Symphony Orchestra in the Dominican Republic, The Quique Talavera Orchestra in the Chucho Avellanet Show accompanying other singers such as Ismael Miranda, Braulio, Tito Rojas among others, The Pijuán Orchestra, where besides the Sextet, he also accompanied Danny Rivera and Wilkins. Mike also had the joy of dedicating a piece with his guitar to his favorite artist Jose Feliciano when he came to celebrate his 50th artistic anniversary in Puerto Rico. With his guitar he has participated in International Jazz Concerts and Festivals (PR, NY, Chicago, Curacao, among others) and has also performed in Germany.

Mike is also a musician/pastor of the Breñas Community Church (BCC) IDDPM.I. in Vega Alta for 15 years and Chaplain of the Police of PR. He is also a Music Teacher in his academy “Mike Arroyo Music” in his hometown of Vega Baja and is a Biomedical Engineer in Clinical Laboratories and Hospitals.