By Christine Spetz and Yi Han
Some people take their winter vacation in a Caribbean paradise. But Dan Joly’s getaway is a hot, steamy dance floor on the edge of Centretown.
“This is a good release for me,” says Joly, a 46-year-old painter and ballroom dance student at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio on Gladstone Avenue. “This is my space, this is for me.”
Kate and Ken Lemoire know exactly what Joly’s talking about.
Kate works in a neonatal intensive care unit.
Ken works for the Department of National Defence.
Since they started ballroom dancing one and a half years ago the dance floor has become an invaluable getaway from their stressful lives, Kate says.
This Friday evening, they have come to Arthur Murray’s Mamma Mia-themed dance party.
They join in the dance as the fast-paced rhythm of Abba’s Dancing Queen keeps time in the background.
Spinning and swinging under the candlelight, the Lemoires flirt with their reflections in the big mirror.
A few blocks away, at a Latin nightclub in Little Italy, a woman spins in a circle, the bottom of her long, red skirt fluttering in waves around her knees.
Her partner, grinning from ear to ear, sweeps her across the floor and quickly dips her backward.
Every Friday, Richard Germain and Louise Dion come to El Paraíso, a Latin club in Little Italy, to salsa the night away.
Germain has been teaching the merengue, the hustle and the old rock ’n roll for more than 10 years, but did not learn how to salsa until he went to the Dominican Republic a few years ago.
“When I saw salsa I said to myself, ‘Boy, I got to learn that!’” Germain beams, wiping his face with a hand towel.
El Paraíso, which literally means ‘paradise’ in Spanish, is owned and managed by Jeannette Delacruz, a 27-year-old woman who immigrated to Canada from the Dominican Republic 10 years ago.
“Usually a club will offer one night, one type of music and that’s it,” Delacruz says.
“But we’re open three nights a week, and it’s totally different every night. Thursday is reggae night, Friday is 100 per cent salsa and Saturday is a mix of Latin music, like merengue, bachata, and cumbia.”
Delacruz adds that El Paraíso offers dance lessons five nights a week to beginners and intermediates.
On Fridays the beginner salsa class is free.
It is taught by Carlo Bernard, RCMP officer by day and dance instructor by night. Bernard says dancing salsa is all about the ladies.
“The guy’s job is to make the lady look good and feel good,” he says. “You make sure she feels important.”
At the back, a woman with tight, curly black hair laughs, claps her hands and spins away from her partner.
They are facing each other, but not quite touching; their hips gyrate to the same beat.
“I love Latin dancing!” exclaims Diana Lynch, an event planner, as she sits down to catch her breath. “When you dance Latin, it’s all soul.
“It’s not about the dance. It’s about what you feel.”
Lynch, 39, has been dancing for 12 years and says she feels as young as she did then.
Back at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, the Mamma Mia dance party is well underway. Joly is dressed for the occasion in a black Afro, jacket and make-up. A tacky gold chain sparkles around his neck.
“I had a great time,” he exclaims at the end of the evening, his eyes nearly disappearing into the dark make-up on his normally pasty white face.
“Where else can I go and do that kind of thing?”