Sensual Salsa in the Conservative Himalayan Heights

KATHMANDU – NEPAL Salsa spreads its passion even to the most remote and unexpected corners of the globe. The students of the Salsa Dance Academy of Kathmandu (Nepal) demonstrate this by shaking their hips once a month in between the highest mountains of the world. Once a month, always on Fridays, nearly 50 youngsters gather at a restaurant in touristic district of Thamel to dance Salsa together, shielded away from the prying eyes of the highly conservative community living in the city.

 

The Salsa Dance Academy was set up in 2004 by the Salsa Dance Instructors Vinayek Das Shrestha (Nepal) and the Canadian Katia Verreault. Their Salsa Dance School has passed over 5000 students so far, although not all of them were very diligent. Shrestha declared during an interview with Terra/EFE held on April 18, 2010: “The business is doing well.” He continued: “In addition to Salsa we also offer classes in other dance forms such as Bachata, Cha-cha, Tango, and Merengue.”

 

In 1997, a German began with teaching Latin Dance Classes. Shrestha signed up for his first dance classes in 1999, and in 2004, he launched his own Dance Academy offering everything from one-week Dance Workshops to Dance Courses of two and a half years. The young students are more into disciplined dancing than the elder. “I signed up for the dance classes because I was intrigued by the chemistry that takes place between two dancers,” said Anushree Rana, one of the young students. “It also illuminates the mind and is also a form of exercise more exciting than going to the gym.” 

 

Shrestha has divided his students into four classes; two for Beginners and two for advanced dancers, although the biggest problem seems to be continuity. There are 30 budding Salsa students in comparison to the twelve attending the highest dance levels. Only 20 students have completed the course at this time. According to the main instructor Verreult, people lose interest because of the few opportunities to put the dance into practice in Nepal. She also said:“For example, in Europe one can go Salsa Dancing seven days a week. Verreault travels twice a year to Amsterdam (the Netherlands) to learn and master the latest developments in Salsa dancing. “However,” said Verreault “the Salsa scene in Nepal is much better than other Asian countries such as Pakistan and Cambodia.” Her latest ambition is to build a network of Salsa Dancing together with the Salsa Festivals in Thailand, Bangkok, or the Salsa Festival of Bangalore, India. 

 

The Salsa Dance Instructor said: “Our students are very young. Soon they will travel abroad to study more, and after marriage people do not usually go out to dance.”According to Verrault the people from the conservative Nepalese society are not discouraged by the physical proximity of Salsa dancing since they start the dance classes in a separate position and the contact is introduced “in subtle ways”. For Shrestha, who has spent ten years teaching in Nepal, there are other cultural factors weighing heavily in the teaching of the dance in the middle of the Himalayas. “The Nepalese society is stuck in its moral (…). We have students who cannot tell their parents they come our classes, they have to go home at 9.30, and they cannot wear comfortable clothing required for Latin dance,” he said. “For many people here, dancing is only convenient if one gets drunk first,” Verreault added. The students of the Nepalese Salsa Dance Academy quickly stop the negative connotations of the Nepalese society frowning upon their proliferation of bars performing movements of sexual suggestion. 

                              

Rana, a student who studies in India and has been practicing Salsa dancing for years, said: “Salsa is like a world language. When you go to a club and dance Salsa, you can immediately relate to people and make friends. Then she proceeds to run to the dance floor, a place consisting of two dimmed lit rooms and basked in flowing Latin music, which seems completely out of place in this unexpected location of the Himalayas. “My father said he would pick me up at 10 o’clock sharp, SHARP!” Rana excused herself while leaving as an early Cinderella.