This
story about Seattle salsa icon Johnny Drago has to begin in the middle of
a Monday night, at the end of an interview, because that's when he said it
all.
"Do
you have any more questions?" he asked, settling back in his chair. I
sat across a table from Drago in the bar at Salty's restaurant in West Seattle.
His conga drums stood behind him next to the band. Two of Drago's friends
sat with us, and several more had greeted him in the last hour. The waiter
called him by his first name. He was the picture of popularity.
"Yeah,
Johnny, what's the meaning of life?" I asked.
He paused only long enough to grin. Maybe he'd already worked that one out.
"Dancing on the two," he said. "Dancing on the clave."
We laughed, but we both knew he was serious.
Drago has lived with dancing, salsa included, for years upon years, and he
has a reverent consideration for it. It's high art, deep drama and a metaphor
for life. So don't trifle with it, at least not when he's around.
He
won't tell how old he is. Believe me. I tried about six ways to get it out
of him. Drago only went so far as to disclose he was born in New London, Connecticut
and that he'd been around in the '40s and, maybe, a little bit of the '30s.
He started dancing as a child and began his teaching career in the '50s at
the Veloz and Yolanda dance studio in Inglewood, California. He recently celebrated
his umpteenth birthday and was honored in front of the crowd at the Century
Ballroom on Capitol Hill as one of the longest standing pillars of the Seattle
salsa community.
He
evangelically teaches what he calls "authentic" salsa, which breaks
on the two beat, at the University Heights Community Center in the University
District and the Beso Del Sol restaurant in Wallingford, and he dances around
town six nights a week. He's been the technical adviser to Seattle's Somos
el Son dance company, and he maintains credentials as a dance contest judge.
On the seventh night, he plays congas with the band at Salty's.
The
floor almost always fills for Drago's beginner's class Friday and Saturday
nights at Beso Del Sol. He lines his students along one side of the floor
and sets them straight: salsa is a dance with rules. One of the rules is you
break on two. Another is, you must have good posture and frame. Leads lead
while holding their partners "like an egg in a vice." Follows "follow
the body." That's the way it is. "Sloppiness is not style,"
he told his class one night. Exhibition dancing doesn't belong on the social
dance floor either. He's quick with a joke, but he doesn't mince words about
proper technique, and he doesn't mind if folks think he's hard nosed. "That's
great," he told me at Salty's. "I want people to know I'm serious
about my dancing. I'm going to make sure you learn it right." He unwaveringly
espouses what he explains as the Cuban way of dancing on the clave, "Everyone
knows Salsa and mambo started in Cuba. That's the way you do it." Yet,
he added Seattle dancers are slowly turning to the two, and not a minute too
soon. "I'm afraid if we don't do that, we're going to slip behind,"
he said.
Drago
won't budge, and he doesn't buy the argument that following the rules limits
style. You've got to learn solid technique first. Then you can create style,
he said. Technique holds everything together. "It allows us to dance
the same dance together and look good doing it," he said.
That's where he splices salsa and the universe. As it is in life, so it is
in salsa, so sayeth Johnny Drago. "There is an order to all things,"
he said. "Without order, there's chaos. Doing whatever you want is not
freedom. That's chaos. Freedom has order. A lot of people confuse 'my chaos'
with 'my style.' Freedom for me is to be able to put my partner where I want,
when I want, how I want." Like he said, he takes his dancing seriously.
Drago
has earned his opinions over a long and diverse life, much of it around music,
dancing and entertainment. He spent two years as a New Orleans burlesque show
comedian working next door to the notorious stripper Blaze Starr. He met and
danced with Debbie Reynolds, co-star of the 1952 musical "Singin' in
the Rain," at a private party in the Hollywood Palladium. He's managed
singers and bands and played congas in bands himself. He's had his share of
day jobs, too. He's cooked in Reno, Nevada; sold vacuum cleaners in Pendleton,
Oregon; and sold cars here in Seattle. Now public relations pays the bills.
If you've been salsa dancing in Seattle more than once, chances are you've
seen Drago. He's probably seen you, too. He pays attention. He knows a lot
of people, and he's got a lot friends. Corrie Kuhn and Dione Thompson were
the two who shared his table the night I sat down with him. Both met Drago
on the dance floor and genuinely praised him as a person and a dance partner.
"I
always trust Johnny dancing with him. I feel like I can't make a mistake,"
Thompson said. "He's also relaxed and fun. That makes me more relaxed
and as a result, I dance better," she added later. "I also know
that when I dance with him, that it's our dance that matters, and that makes
it even more enjoyable. He dances with me. Not at me."
"You
never have any doubt where you're supposed to go with Johnny," Kuhn said.
"He's always in control. And he makes you feel wonderful. He's always
laughing, always smiling."
Drago said paying undivided attention your partner is one of those rules that
goes right to the heart of the matter. "Dancing is still a romantic moment,"
he said, fancy turns aside.
After
he told me what life was about, he got up and walked to his congas. There
was a jam session going on. Drago carried the rhythm in his hands as players
took turns in front of the crowd. He loves keeping the beat, and he hopes
to keep doing it. He considers surviving the salsa scene for so many years
a major accomplishment and counts every day he dances a success. He'll continue
to push for standardized, unified technique among Seattle's salsa teachers
and dancers, and yeah, he's going to keep making a case for dancing on the
two.
He
wore a printed, short-sleeved button down shirt, untucked. His glasses case
bulged in his shirt pocket, like it always does. He bent down close to the
drum heads with his eyes closed and listened, concentrating deeply. The look
on his face showed everything that mattered in the world was there in the
rhythm, the two, and all the other beats around it. I watched him closely.
He was dancing on the clave.