Review and all photos by Bill Tilford, all rights reserved

See also our CISC Special Edition and CISC Dailies 1-2 pages.  The big picture about the event will be in our multipart article which is in being posted in installments in the Sin Clave No Hay Na' Blog.   

DAY 3 (SATURDAY)

Once again, personal circumstances beyond our control kept us away from the workshops, but we did catch some exhibition and competition dancing (we'll be posting larger galleries for those in a couple of weeks, so stick around). As you'll see when we post those photos, there was some real talent on stage during those performances. For the live band segments, which we did see, Choco Orta and Luisito Rosario, both Boricua artists,  performed.  Now, Luisito did a fine show, dynamic singer, great charts, very good backing band (which also backed Choco), but for this writer, it was Choco's night.  This lady has some real fire in her, both as a singer and as a percussionist, and she's equally strong with both ballads and uptempo numbers.   Hopefully she'll be to Chicago more often in the future. 
Luisito did an excellent set as well; he bonded with the crowd, and his arrangements were a little more ambitious for the backing band (for the most part, the same musicians supported both singers.)                     

DAY 4 (SUNDAY) 

Workshops at last! We visited Beginners' Rueda de Casino class (photo left) by Danny Balderas and were pleased to see that they were using some Manolito for the music; we also visited Andy Cruz' Advanced Footwork class, the West African Dance class by Edgar Molina (who mentioned in our conversation that he had studied in Cuba) and the Guaguancó class, where Moris Alvarenga from Montreal threw down a serious Yambu lesson using Muñequitos de Matanzas and other Cuban rumba groups.  The band for the night was Grupo Niche from Colombia, and the set began with a film tribute to their late leader and founder  Jairo Varela Martinez  who passed away  in August 2012.  Their set was a hard-hitting Salsa Dura show in the style for which they have become famous. Again, there were dance demonstrations and competitions; which will be posted in a future gallery. This evening, "Keeper of the Flame" awards were presented to Cesar Rolon and Mike Oquendo.

(Upper left:  DJ Marroquin, Upper right:  Andy Cruz' class)

                                                                                                                                                                  (Upper left: West African workshop; Upper right: Guaguancó workshop)

(Top; DJ Helio; Bottom:  the Conga Prize, a raffle with congas signed by the bands, is awarded by raffle with Mateo Mulcahy and Nicole Suarez; all lower photos Grupo Niche in concert)

COME BACK IN TWO WEEKS (APPROX MARCH 4) FOR PHOTO GALLERIES OF THE DANCERS AND MORE COVERAGE OF THE BANDS, WORKSHOPS AND THE CONGRESS