Salsa disciples celebrate their rhythm methods.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

Jennifer Mora remembers when the word "salsa" generally meant something other than spicy Latin American dance music.

"When I first started dancing, salsa was very unique, extreme, exotic," Mora says. "My parents called it the macarena."

`(One day), I was putting up fliers for salsa lessons and someone said, `Oh, I'd love to have a great recipe for salsa.' '

Mora and her husband, Mario, taught some of the first salsa dance classes in Eugene, at the Paradise Dance Studio in the mid-'90s. Mario Mora has been instrumental, both as an instructor and a DJ, in helping to create a small but vibrant local salsa scene.

What once was considered exotic now happens several times a week in local studios, bars, nightclubs and ballrooms. Salseros and salseras regularly dance to the Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican rhythms.

A Web site, located at www.eugenesalsa.com, keeps track of the salsa events happening in town, which include not only DJ-spun dance nights but also dance lessons, live performances by local Latin bands such as Caliente and Son Mela'o, and touring acts.

"We managed to teach for eight years," says Mario Mora, who won one of the first Fiesta Latina dance contests with his wife in the mid 1990s. `People who didn't know anything, now we see them out there doing their stuff.

`We're like, `Wow, it's amazing.' It kind of makes us proud.'

Salsa numbers

Locally, the definition of salsa has grown beyond something you dip your tortilla chip into, but the salsa dance scene has yet to become a full-fledged movement.

Mora is encouraged by the growth that he's seen and by the fact that he's not the only one spinning Latin tunes and teaching classes. Still, he would like to see more salsa dancers.

"It would be nice to let the people know who like Latin music but don't know exactly where to go," he says. "I hear from lawyers, doctors, teachers who always ask: `Where can we go to dance?' Those people would be nice to target."

Salsa events happen often, but attendance is less consistent. There are more dancers, more DJs and more instructors than there used to be, but there's also more competition.

The scene still is small enough that organizers try to avoid scheduling against each other. But sometimes it happens, as it did on a recent Friday night, when salsa dances took place at both the Vet's Club ballroom and at Groucho's.

The Vet's Club event, which was co-produced by Mora, still managed to draw about three dozen dancers of all different ages and abilities. Some, like Alison Altstatt and Bijayak Shrestha, had years of experience. Others, like Ben Garcia and Gladys Bonilla, had never danced salsa before.

`My friend recommended that we learn how to salsa dance," Garcia says. "We're going to do this for the rest of the year. We're going to be out every weekend, and we want to get really good at dancing."

"It's really joyful music," says Altstatt, who's been at it for 15 years. "The dancing is beautiful. I think there's a wonderful tradition of dance in Latin American countries.

`I think that partner dancing has sort of died out in the states. Partner dancing is sort of a lost art."

Josh Remis, who runs EugeneSalsa.com, started dancing after traveling to Latin America. As with many salseros, he was driven to learn by the desire to do what he saw others doing.

"Oh, man, if you're a guy who can salsa dance you've got it made," Remis jokes. "There are so many more women who dance than men. ... There's always a shortage of guys who can lead.

`Guys here don't grow up knowing how to partner dance; we don't get taught. So unless you can make an effort, and as a guy that can be tough - it's tough to get through that embarrassment when you go and you realize you don't know a damn thing and you're taking salsa classes - but (for) the people who persist, it pays off."

Remis met his wife while salsa dancing, a phenomenon that's apparently not uncommon. Jennifer Mora, too, met her husband while dancing, and says she can name at least two other couples who came together and stayed together at local salsa dances.

"You start out just dancing, and you're able to get to know each other in a safe environment where you don't feel like you're being picked up," Jennifer Mora says. `I think it's just because that door is open where you can interact and don't have to think, `Do I have to give him my phone number?' '

The dance habit

Those who salsa dance regularly say it's good exercise, lots of fun, very social - and highly addictive.

Although many dancers do find a mate, it's not a pickup scene. Couples change dance partners frequently, and asking someone to dance means just that.

"You don't even learn the guy's name," says Wendy Cole, who came to the Vet's Club with her husband, Bryan. "They're not out to pick you up; they just want to dance."

The music at Friday's event primarily was salsa tunes, but faster merengue and driving cumbia songs also found their way into the mix. While some of the more seasoned dancers sewed moves together flawlessly, others plodded through the basic steps and turns they had learned during a free lesson earlier in the evening with DJ Herman Reyes.

Reyes, Mario Mora (the co-DJ) and salsa dancer Stephen Eiring organized the event in an attempt to energize the local salsa scene. Weeks earlier, Tarasco's (now known as Groucho's) had temporarily canceled its regular salsa dance night, which featured Mora as its DJ.

In order to keep the music playing, he joined with Reyes and Eiring and began producing dance nights at the Vet's Club ballroom.

"Right now, the people are hungry for salsa," Reyes says. "We're trying to establish a place where salsa dancers can keep going to every week or every month and know that it's going to be there."

One of the main frustrations for salsa supporters has been the absence of a home base. Salsa dances have happened at Se<226>or Frogs/Rio (now Peabody's), Los Baez (now extinct), Diablo's, Studio B, In Shape, Oakway Fitness Center, Paradise Dance Studio, the Wild Duck and the Vet's Club. None of those venues has become a salsa spot.

One of the most active, but unstable, venues for salsa dancing has been the space at 100 E. Broadway, now known as Groucho's. The club has changed names - it's been Johnny's, Tarasco's and the Rumba Room - and formats so many times that it's become a running joke among salsa dancers.

After several weeks without salsa, the club recently began hosting Friday and Saturday night salsa. A notice on the EugeneSalsa.com Web site made light of the situation.

"Looks like Groucho's is open, again!" the message reads. "I'm taking bets on how many times Groucho's can die and then rise up out of the ashes. Right now I'm counting six times in the last four years. Did I miss any?"

According to Remis, the EugeneSalsa.com Web master, one reason club owners haven't been more eager to devote their schedules to salsa, is because the events generally don't bring in much money.

"The dancing crowd in particular is not known for buying lots of drinks," Remis says. "They drink water. The cheaper ones bring their own water.

`It's great not to have a whole bunch of drunk people on the dance floor - it's more fun when they're not drunk - but it's also hard to support the place."

For now, Remis' Web site may the closest thing to a home for the local salsa community, a virtual gathering spot. The free site includes the basic happenings, and it also offers discounted salsa CDs and instructional videos, as well as links to Web sites on everything from Miami-style to Los Angeles-style salsa.

Additionally, there are articles on various subjects: "How do you measure how `good' you are?" "Dancers and Musicians: Why can't we communicate with each other?" And, "The art of getting rejected."

Someplace to go

Remis, too, feels the frustration of not having a central meeting point for the salsa community, which was the reason he launched his Web site. Even so, he says, he's encouraged by the evolution of the scene.

"Five years ago, if you could do a turn you were hot, and now it's advanced (beyond that)," Remis says "You've got people who dance on both the one (beat) and the two (beat). They're good."

As the night wears down at the Vet's Club ballroom, it's looking as if Mario Mora, Reyes and Eiring aren't going to cover their rental costs. Even so, the trio plans to be back the following week (today) to give it another go.

Meanwhile, Reyes looks forward to a day when having two salsa events in one night isn't seen as competitive, but rather as the sign of a healthy movement.

"It's not so much competing," Reyes says. "I think it's good to bring out everybody. When I was first going to salsa dances and there was only one (dance), I just wanted there to be another one."

SALSA EVENTS

The latest on salsa in Eugene is available at www.eugenesalsa.com

Today: Hot & Spicy Salsa Dance, 10 p.m., Veterans' Memorial Building ballroom, 1626 Willamette St., $5; free lesson at 9 p.m. (461-6681)

Dec. 5: Live Latin music with Son Mela'o, 9:30 p.m., Luna, 30 E. Broadway. $8.

Ongoing: Salsa Dance with DJ Jos<216> Cruz, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays, Groucho's, 100 E. Broadway. Free.

Ongoing: Salsa, merengue, Latin pop with DJ Jos<216> Cruz, 9 p.m. Thursdays, Diablo's, 959 Pearl St. $5; women admitted free.

Ongoing: Open salsa practice, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesdays, In Shape Fitness, 2681 Willamette St. Free.

- The Register-Guard

CAPTION(S):

Salsa dancers mix it up and pour it out in the upstairs ballroom at the Veteran's Memorial Building on a recent Friday night.