Towne Crier hosts monthly dance night
Rhoda Averbach hires a roadie to lug three bulky speakers so she can present Latin Dance Nite at the Towne Crier Cafe every month.
But her sparse DJ rig consists of a laptop. “Other DJs use all that stuff to look impressive; that gear really isn’t necessary,” she says segueing seamlessly between salsa, rumba, merengue, bachata, cha cha, reggaeton “y mas,” according to one of her flyers.
Beyond the laptop, Latin night unfolds in analog. Dancers peruse notebooks filled with lists of song titles, write down their selections on a slip of paper and hand them to Olive Jones, who sits next to Averbach onstage.
The two, who both live in Beacon, also host Funky Dance Night at the Elks Club on the first Saturday of each month, with numbers from the disco era.
One slogan is, “If the music is good … dance.” Averbach has a fine ear for music and knows how to get the dance floor bumping. A trained composer who melded jazz and classical, she worked with David Liebman and Michael Gerber to record several CDs and tour the country.
She became enamored with Latin music after realizing that it “gives people pleasure, and I like to see them happy.”
Reading the room is an essential skill. “For me, it’s about the music. If a song doesn’t take off, I’ll fade it out within 30 seconds and move on to something else,” she says. “You can’t go wrong with Marc Anthony.”
Fast songs featuring hypnotic bass lines populate the floor. Latin dancing is akin to ballroom styles but offers more fluidity and room to improvise. As the repetitive music pulses through the room, bodies spin like tops, feet keep shuffling and hands are clasped over heads and behind backs.
When the first notes of the 2004 reggaeton hit “Gasolina,” by Daddy Yankee, spilled from the speakers, people popped from their seats. One couple picked a spot in front of the kitchen door and almost caused a collision, but the waitstaff acclimated.
The music — and the scene — draws people from all over the Hudson Valley. There are similar events in New Rochelle and Middletown, and many of the dancers knew each other from Nyack.
Sitting with a group of friends she met across the river, Joanne Williams, who lives in Poughkeepsie, slipped in and out of her padded high-heel dance shoes, which help keep a dancer’s center of gravity leaning forward. “I’ve met a lot of people through Latin dancing,” she says. “It’s a nice community.”
For self-proclaimed salsa addict Lisa Rodriguez, who lives in Bloomingburg, “the music is contagious and there aren’t many places to dance in the area.”
Mastering the steps is all about counting, she says: Salsa is 1-2-3 / 5-6-7 (out of eight) and bachata is straight 1-2-3-4.
“I like playing sports, so it’s good exercise that gets your dopamine going,” Rodriguez says. “I enjoy the challenge of following the cues as the man leads. To do it well, you can’t think too much — you have to go with the flow.”
The Towne Crier is located at 379 Main St. in Beacon. The May 29 dance was canceled. The next event is scheduled for June 26; see dub.sh/latin-dance-june. Tickets are $11.
