29th November 2008 Rob Yoxon's Salsa Party

On the surface it might seem strange that I would choose to blog about, of all things, a house party.

But for me, salsa is not just about the glamour of the shows, the all-nighters in the paid dance halls, the workshops, the routines of Strictly Come Dancing, nor the jet-set 'superstars' appearing at international congresses. That might be very much what it is today, but it was the humble house party that kept Salsa's heart beating during its youth, and through the doldrum years when the record labels tried unsuccessfully to tell us that salsa flojo was the way of the future.

Nuyoricans used it then to raise rent money, helping part-time musicians cobble together a living at the same time. Rumbas, parrandas, bachatas still erupt in houses and backyards in the cities of present-day Latin America. And some have chosen to migrate here to the steely-grey winter of Sheffield.

Rob's been a stalwart of our salsa scene for many years and has been putting on a salsa house party every month or two since establishing himself in his current place. In the many years that I've known him, I hardly recognised in him the urge to instruct or to demonstrate; he never seemed to be distracted from what he loves most - and that is dancing with other people.

Now salsa as a social activity has the potential to become politicised, people jockeying for position on the hierarchy, instructors vying for students. Rob's parties are like a watering hole in the Serengeti where everything's put to one side and everyone simply has a drink and a dance. Nearly a year ago (at another of Rob's salsafests), I said to one of Sheffield's leading salsa teachers that I thought what Rob managed to do was "quite remarkable". The response I got was, "I wouldn't go that far."

I don't think the instructor quite got it.

I asked Rob the other day, how he went around inviting people. He has a large house, and he knows a lot of people - I was thinking that there would necessarily be some sort of selection process to make this work, otherwise he'd be swamped. Rob simply replied that he just invites all his friends, and about half of them turn up... no worries so far. That just sums him up to a tee.

A person who loves salsa so much that he puts on a semi-regular event through his own time, effort and expense; where people are willing to suspend their differences to gather, drink and dance; where the music is generally agreed to be more varied (like kizomba, merengue, bachata) and better than most salsa clubs running; a party that is unintentionally true to salsa's early past.

Rob Yoxon gets it more than most.

Loo Yeo