Don’t
tell the Quebecois language police, but you might be able to hear a little
Spanish in Montreal salsa clubs. It turns out there is quite a burgeoning salsa
scene in the French Canadian city. Victor Contreras and Katia Morales are two
of Montreal’s most talented salsa dancers, who have a serious enough chance at
the World Salsa Championship to attract a documentarian’s attention. Edwin
Gailits follows the partners (on and off the dance floor) as they train and
compete in Cold Nights Hot Salsa (trailer here), which screens
during this year’s Harlem International Film Festival.
It
is easy to see why Gailits thought Morales and Contreras were such an appealing
couple. They represent both the new and old conceptions of salsa. Once
considered a smoldering couple’s dance perfect for encouraging close contact,
it has become style that showcases physical virtuosity. They became a couple through
dance and they are good enough to compete on an international level.
It
seems like salsa has more competing titles than the sport of boxing, so
Contreras and Morales will have several chances to stake a championship claim.
As they start to place higher, they try to pick up a few steps from salsa’s
royalty: elite champions-turned judges Billy Fajardo & Katie Marlow and the
Mambo King godfather of salsa, Eddie Torres.
There
is some spectacularly cinematic dancing and a good deal of correspondingly hot
music (including a Bobby Sanabria selection) in Cold Nights, but none of it is played live. However, Gailits was
arguably a year or two too early. In subsequent tournaments, Morales and
Contreras would go on a championship run, but they were still underdogs while
Gailits crew was around. They would also miss a lot of off-stage financial
drama involving championship impresario Albert Torres’ former organization.
