Behind The Choreography:
Arrecotin

-by Manny Siverio 

Welcome to “Behind the Choreography”, the first in a series of articles covering the story behind the dance choreographies of Addie Diaz & her Addie-tude Dance Company. We begin our series with the STORY BEHIND: ARRECOTIN.

Many of Addie’s family and friends knew that she loved to dance and perform, so it came as no big surprise when she developed into the respected professional Latin Dancer she is today. What did surprised many was her drive and creative streak as a dance choreographer. In the beginning, people just thought of Addie as a talented mambo dancer. No one thought that she would have had the ambition to be a dance choreographer. So when she choreographed her “first” official routine, people naturally expected it to be a mambo number. They never expected it to be a Cha-Cha routine.

I guess the time has come to share a little secret ……. Addie loves to dance & listen to Cha-Cha with a capital L-O-V-E-S. Especially many of the old school tunes. So it was only natural that the first thing she ever attempted to choreograph would be Cha-Cha. The song chosen as her first number was Arrecotin-Arrecotan, sung by the Late Great “Riena De La Salsa” herself, Celia Cruz.

It is affectionately called “Arrecotin” by company dance members (or jokingly as A-Wreck-O-Tin). This playful and upbeat old school number was first choreographed by Addie sometime in 1994. It debuted later that same year at a New Jersey college. At the time, Addie was working as a freelance dancer who was performing with the Mario Diaz, RMM Dancers, Fuerza Latina, Stacy Lopez and for herself.

Nelson Flores (current director of Descarga Latina, Co-Producer of Latin Madness) was the first to perform Arrecotin as Addie’s partner. She later performed it with Mario Diaz up in the Bronx at a club called Tapestry as well at several different locations before putting the number to rest. It wasn’t until a year or two later that Addie decided to dust the cobwebs off of the number.

It was at a time when she was making a name for herself and was entertaining the idea of starting her own dance company. I had started dating her at the time and remember her needing performance material for a trip she was making out to L.A. (she was scheduled to teach and do a couple of performances). She already had a mambo routine (“Fuego”) and needed a second number to complete her performance. It resulted with her teaching me Arrecotin. It was the first Cha-Cha number that I had ever learned. As a matter of fact, I think that many members of Addie-tude were originally Cha-Cha virgins when they first joined the company and Arrecotin was the number that de-virgin-ized them.

Though Arrecotin can be considered a simple routine by today’s standards, its important to remember it as the start of what could be called Addie’s Trademark style of choreography. Addie likes to do her homework when putting a number together. She likes to play a song over and over again while carefully listening to both the music and the lyrics. At first, Addie used known On2 Cha Cha steps when putting her choreography together, but her need to fit moves that blended with the music forced her to create steps of her own. With the exception of a couple of changes, the L.A. version of Arrecotin remained pretty much the same with the original choreography. It wasn’t until Addie’s 1^st Swiss Addie-Tour that the number evolved into its current state.

Arrecotin officially became one of “Addie-tude’s” two founding dance numbers. And at the time of this writing is one of three Cha-Cha choreographies  that the company has in its repertory (the other two being Shinning Knight & I Like It Like That).

Addie-Tude Choreography Statistics At A Glance

• Choreography name: Arrecotin

• Song Title: Arrecotin Arrecotan

• Performed by: Celia Cruz

• Length of Number: 

• First Choreographed: Sometime 1994

• Type of Choreograph: Traditional Cha-Cha Performance Number

• Places where the Number has been performed: New Jersey, Hawaii, Atlanta, Baltimore, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Zurich, Hiroshima, London & Paris to name a few.

• Others that have performed the number: Besides members of the Addie-tude Dance Company the number has been performed by Mario Diaz, Nelson Flores, Steve Seda, Jorday Rivera.

For more information, please visit Diaz’s website: www.addie-tude.com