As of 10:40pm, I have not yet read the Gomez-Pena topography piece.  While I plan to have it done by class tomorrow, I will only focus on the Roman-Velazquez and Beltran readings in this post.

I found the Roman-Velazquez reading on salsa to be particularly interesting in part because I am in UBC’s Latin Dance club and have been taking beginner salsa classes this term.  From this experience, I think that there is a lot to be said for music and dance as a point of entry into a culture.  As Roman-Velazquez comments on page 121, the initial biases associated with ethnicity often vanish quickly in salsa; evaluations of talent and level of integration are instead based on capability.  Thus, while salsa follows “Latin” rhythm and instrumental patterns, neither performance of the music nor dance is restricted to those of Latin American backgrounds (except in the area of vocals, where language and native level of fluency in Spanish still presents a barrier to entry for singers).  In my salsa class, neither of my teachers are Latin American.  Sebastian, the lead, is a caucasian man no taller than 5’3″.  Yuki, the follower, is a heavy set woman with an accent I would guess is from Southeast Asia.  I would not peg either one of them as a salsa dancer if I saw them walking down the street, yet their sense of rhythm, style, and familiarity is immediately apparent the instant you dance with them.  Also, amongst the other students in the class, it is very clear that a Latin background in no way implies an inherent salsa talent; the male lead who can out-salsa most of the other guys in the class is from Eastern Europe, while one guy who grew up in Mexico as a kid often struggles to stay on top of his feet.

The lack of obstacles involved in creating music and dancing make them two elements of culture that are fairly universally accessible and thus make them transportable, as seen in Roman-Velazquez’s example of salsa culture in London.  However, different locations have distinct styles, exemplified in the story of Colombian Roberto Pla, who had to alter his percussion style so those in Britain could “digest it” (p.122).  On page 120, Roman-Velazquez writes that “places are important sites for the meeting and exchange of different cultural practices and possible cultural transformations.”  This made me curious about a hypothetical situation: what if mestizaje mixture of White, Latin, and African cultures took place in a location other than South America.  If Portugal and Spain had decided to bring natives from South America to labor on settlements in Africa, would the resulting culture be radically different from what was created in Latin America??

I didn’t intend to write for that long on salsa.  The one thing I will say on Jennifer Lopez is that it would be interesting to compare the construction of her “cross-over” stardom to the construction of male Latin-American cross-over stars, mainly in terms of the emphasis placed on physicality vs. personality and talent.