Dancing with Neeraj Maskara!

For those of you who don't know, last weekend the Crystal Salsa Party was held in Wieliczka, Poland (near Krakow). And for those who could not make it, you really missed something extraordinary!!

To begin with, the venue was something unprecedented. We've danced salsa in hotels, at beaches, in small and big conference centers, historical buildings, museums, night clubs, ships, and many other exotic places.. but since last weekend salsa is officially on its way to the core of the earth. The next time someone says.. "salsa down under" we may not necessarily be talking about Australia cause we may literally mean down under.. under the surface of the earth.. The Saturday night party and workshops took place inside a salt mine.. 125m deep in a spectacular ball room called the Crystal Ballroom.

Going down in those small lifts and walking through long and narrow tunnels and passages felt like being in between Prison Break and Indiana Jones. The walls all around were basically salt which you can literally scrape off and use for seasoning your dinner. And then we finally come to the steps of the glorious Crystal Ballroom. A perfect hall with good acoustics, excellent dance floor and a wonderful stage! What more could a salsero ask for at an event!

Even the other venue, Kameloen Club, on Friday and Sunday night was a perfect location. It's a huge club with enough space to accommodate any large event.

I cant help mention two other elements of my special weekend which may be relevant only to the instructors.

1. Hotel Turowka was a beautiful hotel with excellent rooms, food, service and an oh! so relaxing spa. I know different cities and events have different constraints and so the choice of hotels and food arranged for us varies from one weekend to another. I respect the fact that organizers arrange things for us to the best of their capacity, but I'm sure my artist friends would agree that if only all weekends had accommodation, food and transport arranged this way, it would take away 70% of the stress and fatigue we feel every Monday :):)

And 2. as if this was not enough, the icing on the cake was the limousine service with champagne to take us from Wieliczka to Krakow for the parties on Friday and Sunday night. I keep reminding myself I'm a simple guy from India who's been lucky that people appreciate what I do artistically, but you (the organizers) spoilt us too much this last weekend. You simply made us fly and I was just a step away from walking into the party with my sunglasses on ;);)

If you've read my reviews for any of the Polish events before, you already know that the level of dancing and workshops in all Polish events are quite high so this weekend was nothing short of great workshops, awesome music and non stop dancing.

As impressive as the venue and organization was, the most remarkable thing about this event was the intention and motivation which led Ula and Ania to organize this event.. Once again, an unprecedented purpose.. to organize an event which is FREE for ALL and for charity. Its almost impossible to estimate the time, effort and cost which goes into organizing a salsa festival or congress. Its commendable to see someone organize an event so perfectly for the first time and yet be so selfless about it. Hats off to Ula, Ania and your team once again. I cant wait for next year :)