An eight-time salsa world champion, Oliver Pineda, was recently in the city to help Latino dance enthusiasts pick up the master moves of the world’s most celebrated social dance form. Hosted by Peddro’s Salsateca, Oliver was on a four-city tour called Rhythms Season 1, presented by John Anthony, the organiser of India International Dance Congress, Bangalore, and Goa International Latin Festival. t2 caught up with the champion salsero before he hit the bootcamp floor. A chat...

This is your second trip to India and first to Calcutta. What’s your impression?
I had come in 2012 to attend India International Dance Congress in Bangalore. It’s a different experience this time as I am touring across four cities (Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore and Calcutta). It’s been a very impressive experience. I have been very pleasantly surprised by the standard of dance here and I am constantly reminded how multicultural salsa is. It doesn’t really matter whether you are a Latin American or not. I am enjoying and sweating a lot... that means I am dancing a lot and having a good time.
 

Who is Oliver Pineda? An eight-time salsa world champion based in Sydney, Australia. 

His latest win: Champion in the solo category at the World Salsa Summit 2015, Miami.

How did dance happen to him? Oliver started dancing when he was 11 and it “wasn’t a conscious decision”. He used to frequent the dance class conducted by his parents (Alice and Julio Pineda) and on one occasion he had to replace his father in a partner dance with his mother. That’s the beginning! “It wasn’t one pivotal moment. Later on in life, I took it more seriously and eventually dance turned into a profession,” said Oliver.

Fitness tips from the pro: It’s difficult to maintain fitness as you get older, because your metabolism slows down. A proper diet is more than 50 per cent of your overall fitness routine, combined with cardio and weight training. It’s important to have a combination of strength and flexibility. For men, flexibility is needed more in the upper body and for women it’s in the lower body. These tips are all for performers. When you look at social dancing, you can simply dance without worrying about acrobatics and aerials. In general, a combination of fitness, stamina and strength training is good enough. A little competition with peers is fine as it motivates you and you don’t become too complacent. The goal is to feel good, feel light and feel fit.

Contemporary salseros he looks up to: When I was younger, I looked up to Eddie Torres for his way of teaching as he brings the best out in people and Frankie Martinez for his body movement. These days I am following Maykel Fonts for his rumba and body movement.
 

Your advice to beginners in India? 
I think repetition is the key. With any new skill that you are learning, it takes a bit of time and it varies from person to person. Some people are more natural than other people. With practice, you can master any art form. You have to have a bit of patience. The good thing about salsa is that it is so much fun that you enjoy even when you are practising.

India has a rich tradition of classical dance. Plus, there’s Bollywood. Is it okay to incorporate elements of local dance forms in salsa?
It is not uncommon to see slightly different salsa styles from country to country, and even from person to person. You learn the basics and then kind of put your own flair to it. I am not knowledgable about Bollywood movements but I have noticed that dancers here have a nice flair of their own, which is nice to see. 


Organiser speak: “It’s a proud moment for us to host an eight-time world salsa champion. Calcutta’s dance community benefitted from the two-day bootcamp conducted by Oliver,” said Peddro S. Kundu of Peddro’s Salsateca, a dance institute near Golpark.
 

Many youngsters are taking up social dancing because they want to take part in dance-themed reality shows. Is that a good sign?
We have a lot of such shows in Sydney... like Dancing with the Stars, where professional dancers partner with celebrities. Then there’s So You Think You Can Dance where professional dancers compete against each other. These shows have been there for many years now and I think they are great for the industry. They are making dance more accepted, especially among men. You see, even back in Australia men are primarily supposed to be more into sports than dancing. The common response earlier had been that men do not dance, they play cricket. That’s changing, thanks to these television shows.

Dance and grace go hand in hand, and so do grace and femininity. So when a man dances, it’s tricky. What’s your tip for the male dancer?
Dancing has a wide variety of movements, ways of moving and expressing your body, and interpreting the music. Whether a man should only do masculine movements, well... I think that’s not how it is in reality. There maybe some men who do more of feminine movements and that somehow doesn’t look right. But that’s nothing to do with the movement, it has to do with the person executing the movement. When you are a good dancer, you are able to do both masculine and feminine movements and yet look right.
 

A day in Pineda’s life...

9am-5pm: I wake up, have my coffee and get straight on to the computer, trying to fit in a bit of breakfast while answering emails, looking after my websites and running my school alongside my wife. I have a two-year-old daughter who starts pulling at my leg while I am trying to work. 

5pm-9.30pm: I teach at my school. 

9.30pm till midnight: I train my team and myself. Well, that’s a long day!


Black versus white (hip hop), male versus female (salsa), purity versus experimental (ballet)... do you think these debates around dance are fizzling out with dance forms going beyond borders?
Definitely. Especially with television shows and salsa congress getting popular, showcase of some incredible talent is what people look forward to. It doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is or what your gender is, as long as you are passionate about the arts. 

Salsa is a social dance form. What if I am socially shy? Do I still stand a chance?
If one can develop enough courage to attend a salsa class, it will work wonders for them who are on the shy side. One of the things that dance does is that it actually enhances the person’s self-esteem and confidence. I see it all the time in my class. Many shy people come to my class and then the kind of transformation you see in them is phenomenal. 

Sibendu Das