Heightened Exposure: In The Heights

When In The Heights opened Off-Broadway in the summer of 2007, no one could have guessed that it would move to Broadway and become one of the most popular hits of the season. After making the transfer, it’s clear that it exceeded everyone’s expectations and then some. Movmnt gets cozy with the hearts and souls of the show and finds out what gives this Tony Award winning Best Musical its pulsing beat.

The adage, “the show must go on” must have never encountered technical sound issues. But as In The Heights composer and breakthrough star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, walks on stage to address the antsy crowd, it is clear something is wrong. The set, which portrays a slice of the uptown neighborhood, Washington Heights, looks strangely inauthentic sans the vibrant fiesta of children, street vendors, and the boom-box soundtrack that greets cabs en route beyond 180th street. After an explanation and apology for an uncommon technical delay, he begins to fill the stage with the needed energy and satiates the audience’s growing hunger for Broadway spectacle with an impromptu rap incorporating selected theatergoers into his amusing banter. Miranda is a true showman, and in this moment of improv, we encounter a slight glimpse into the wonder behind his frenetic, witty mind and raw voice– a voice that lends itself to a new inspection and celebration of the Latino community.

Not since West Side Story debuted in 1957 has Latino vibrato echoed center stage with the kind of jubilance that transcends cultures and possess mass appeal. Heights is innovative and modern, but unlike American youth culture, the show reveres its ancestry. No matter how far astray the syncopations and bass thumps edge the music, or the grit and grime of rapping make it sound like it jumped out of the radio, the songs are rooted in a classic Broadway vocabulary. Because when all is said and rapped, Heights is still a bona fide Broadway musical. And although Lin-Manuel Miranda credits his musical predecessor as “one of the greatest [shows] ever written” he quickly notes how its social commentary has provided a sort of stigma for Latinos, a blessing and a curse. Perhaps the core of this “curse” is also Miranda’s blessing. Unlike West Side Story, Heights sings a Latino voice, cultivated from a genuine Latino mind.

Performer and Heights assistant choreographer Luis Salgado was all too familiar with this curse. When he read in the blogs that the show he was working on prior to Heights would probably not see a Broadway opening due mainly to the fact that its cast was predominantly Latino, he couldn’t help but feel a slight pang of uncertainty. He had fought adversity and doubt on every front, including his parents, who were not quick to celebrate his love for the arts.

Mambo Kings (which was slated to open on Broadway in 2005) never reached New York, although the ripples of those blog postings resonated in the psyche of Salgado, who couldn’t help but wonder if they were right. Salgado, after all, was born in Puerto Rico, and unlike Miranda, who found artistic nurture in the bastion of Wesleyan University, Salgado’s ambitions left him fending for his own. His parents preferred he pursue a career in medicine or law, and it wasn’t until he started his own dance school at the age of 17 that they began to take him seriously. So he took his passion and wandered over to New York, where he found, as he best puts it, “[his] Disney World.”

“It was paradise, I could take a dance class any time, in any style. In Puerto Rico you had to wait ’til Wednesday at 8pm to take a jazz class.” Salgado adds, “Here you could take a class at eight at night or eight in the morning! “With new direction and instruction, Salgado implemented a new philosophy. “When I first came to NY, I tried very hard to stay away from my Latin influences because they came too easy for me. It”s who I am. I wanted to push myself so far away from what was my comfort zone.”

With the kaleidoscopic hues of performers in New York, Broadway, like most American media outlets, is still recovering from a deficiency in providing performers like Salgado their respective spotlights. Luckily, Salgado’s assimilation into musical theater found salvation in his heritage. “It wasn’t until Mambo Kings that I realized…I need to celebrate who I am and my culture. I don’t need to limit myself. I will have the opportunity to do everything else that I also love, but it’s only by celebrating the one thing that I am, that all of the other things will happen.” For Salgado, and every performer like him bearing the sometimes marvelous, sometimes stifling burden of being Latino on Broadway, vindication got its opening night.

Like Washington Heights (the neighborhood where the show takes place), the cast of In The Heights is eclectic and gutsy. The show is a visual melting pot of urban flair rooted with distinctive traditions of other worlds. Rhythmic beats adorned with rap soliloquies compel an unforeseen admiration for a genre not yet heard on a Broadway stage; a genre best encapsulated in that moment of technical blunder, when Miranda’s freestyle rap vacillated to show tune camp as an audience member requested the cast sing a few numbers, to which he replied, “We don’t have voices like Ethel Merman, we need to fix the mics.”

If the nuisance of technical issues yielded Miranda’s improvisational antics, then all was forgiven when the lights gleamed as the show opened. In a sort of graffiti symphony, the story goes through three days of life in Washington Heights, exploring the different aspects of struggle contained in the tight-knit neighborhood. Miranda, who leads the cast as Usnavi (the proprietor of the local bodega), blazes the stage with the opening number rightfully titled In The Heights. The number infuses the vibrancy of the neighborhood with a counterpoint: all the frustrations of unpaid bills and heat waves.

We are introduced to the cast of eccentric characters, like the owners of a car service and their daughter, Nina (Mandy Gonzalez) who has just returned home from Stanford University. Abuela Claudia (Olga Merediz), whom Usnavi considers his grandmother, tickles the stars and purchases a lottery ticket — unknowingly altering the fate of her loved ones. Before destinies can be etched, Heights explores relevant social issues like Nina’s struggle to pursue higher learning in lieu of her parent’s financial welfare. Gentrification and assimilation incite characters to move on, or ‘to the West Village.’ Luck, love, and lottery culminate in an award-winning musical that poses the same question to today’s immigrants as it did to the passengers of the Mayflower, or as Miranda puts it “essentially, a question of home– and what, or where, home ultimately is.”

In a city that is the cultural Mecca of the world, Heights has ushered a new crop of theater aficionados. Luis Salgado broke his subtle machismo with a misty observation of a crowning moment in his career. His mother had always enjoyed his performances, but never seemed immersed in anything beyond his solos. After watching In The Heights, Luis was met by his mother’s excitement and meticulous mental notations on the production and story. She wanted to share her thoughts about characters and songs. It was a rare and special moment for Salgado.

Cast member Nina LaFarga, who is a first generation American to immigrant parents from Cuba and Trinidad, also reveled in her family’s emotional reactions, although her father, sadly passed away before the show’s Broadway run. Prior to Heights, LaFarga (whose killer looks are made for music videos) danced with the likes of Mya, Jennifer Lopez and Alicia Keys, as well as in Broadway shows like Aida, and Sweet Charity. But this show allowed her to embrace her ancestry in a way those other jobs didn’t. “The story of the show is about immigrants moving from other countries in general, but specifically Cuba and other Spanish countries. I was seeing my life in this art piece, in this show. And what was difficult for me was finally I’m in this show that’s about me, something that my father could really understand.” Nina, with a bittersweet smile adds, “I wanted him [to] see me doing something that represented our culture and he was never able to do that.”

Heights has a universal story about human struggle that is aided by its abundance of musical styles. Shaun Taylor-Corbett, whose small stature defies his enthusiasm, avidly attests to this. The product of parents both prolific by their own measure in the entertainment industry (his mother choreographed the movie Fame), Shaun is adamant about the power that the diversity in the show produces.  ”It’s a revolutionary show that hits home with musical theater lovers and people who have never seen musical theater.” Although he is only an”honorary Latino,” as he jokingly alludes to the character Benny in the show, his love for Heights is genuine corazon.

With a cast equipped with experience ranging from Priscilla Lopez’s legendary Diana Morales in the original Broadway production of A Chorus Line, to Seth Stewart’s stint dancing on tour for Janet Jackson and Madonna, one can see the dynamic mélange of performers and backgrounds that incite the show’s unique synergy. Choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler didn’t cast dancers with traditional dance backgrounds. Blankenbuehler’s talent of conveying a dance landscape true to the streets required dancers whose abilities interpreted these gyrations authentically.

It’s that authenticity from every level of the creative team that makes Heights such a captivating evening. When posed with the question of choosing one singular moment in the show that captures its true essence, Miranda’s choice was definitive. “There’s a character in the show, the piragua guy,” he notes of the flavored ice street vendors synonymous to Washington Heights, “he sings,” keep scraping by, keep scraping by “I think he’s a perfect metaphor for anyone in this community. The odds are stacked economically against you and you just gotta keep scraping and hawking what you’ve got.” After scraping and hawking from Puerto Rico to the George Washington Bridge to the Great White Way, In The Heights and its spectacular cast serves us something worth savoring.

Text and interviews by Jayzel Samonte - Photography by River Cark (riverclark.com) - Styling by Paloma

Latinos brillan en el TeatroStageFest de NYC

Josefina Scaglione, Luis Salgado y Jackie Guerrido asistieron al estreno del festival de teatro

Broadway's R.Evolución Latina
CORTESÍA: TEATROSTAGEFEST

Luis Salgado: ¿un futuro ‘Gene Kelly Boricua’?

Por Miguel López Ortiz
Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular

El puertorriqueño Luis Salgado se mantiene activo tanto en los escenarios de Broadway como en producciones fílmicas. (Foto suministrada)

Luis Salgado es un artista a quien sus compatriotas puertorriqueños deben seguirle la pista, porque se encamina aceleradamente a alcanzar un sitial estelar, tanto en Broadway como en Hollywood. Es indiscutible que este actor y bailarín boricua figura entre los hispanos de mayor promesa en el ambiente del espectáculo anglosajón en Estados Unidos. Dicho en palabras claras, se trata de una estrella en potencia.

Para refrescarle la memoria a aquellos que todavía permanecen ajenos a sus triunfos, baste señalar que, además de caracterizar el personaje de “José”, fue el asistente del coreógrafo Andy Blakenbuehler en la aclamada producción “In the Heights” – creada por otro compatriota nuestro, Lin-Manuel Miranda –, presentada en el Richard Rodgers Theatre y merecedora de cuatro premios Tony, uno de ellos en la categoría de Baile.

Consecuencia de su creciente éxito es el hecho de que el sábado 16 de mayo desfiló como “Grand Marshall” en la New York Dance Parade y el 7 de junio actuará como presentador invitado de la producción especial que, sobre la gala de los premios Tony, realizará el portal cibernético de noticias en español sobre el acontecer de la Meca Mundial del Teatro, todoBroadway.com, que podrá ser disfrutado por el público hispano de Estados Unidos, España y Latinoamérica.

“Mi función será la entrevistar a artistas nominados cuando llegan a la gala y a los que resultan premiados y comentar lo que acontece durante la ceremonia. Es una experiencia nueva para mí que me tiene ansioso y emocionado”, nos dice el artista, cuyo nombre completo es Luis Alberto Salgado Pérez y vio la primera luz en Vega Alta, el 30 de agosto de 1980.

Ahora es el coreógrafo de la producción “Shafrika, the White Girl”, que se presenta en el Jaradoa Theatre, en Broadway –

El bailarín boricua Luis Salgado ha estado en el elenco del musical galardonado In the Heights desde el estreno de la obra en su versión off-Broadway.. (Foto Joan Marcus)

Claro que su ansiedad y emoción no se limita a esta función que tanta exposición le brindará a nivel internacional. Porque casi de inmediato, junio 12, tendrá que incorporarse a la producción musical “Shafrika, the White Girl”, en el Jaradoa Theater. La dirección general de la misma recae en Katrina Stevens, mientras que Karl Mansfield y Brian Usifer comparten la dirección musical.

“Monté las coreografías de esta obra que es una especie de autobiografía de Anika Larsen, una joven que creció en Cambridge, Massachussets, con nueve hermanos, entre los que unos tienen sangre negra, otros asiática, otros latina y otros de nativoamericanos o indígena. Este proyecto me entusiasma porque aborda un tema que resulta novedoso en el teatro”, declara.

Vale la pena indicar que en “Shafrika, the White Girl” intervienen otros actores puertorriqueños o de origen latinoamericano. Entre ellos Ricardo Hinoa, Joamer González, Stephanie Martínez y Eileen Rivera.

Antes de llegar a Broadway y Hollywood, fue bailarín de Jailene Cintrón, Olga Tañón, Gilberto Santa Rosa y otros artistas –

Luis Salgado nos cuenta que hizo sus pinitos artísticos como actor y bailarín en funciones escolatres cuando contaba nueve años. Profesionalmente emprendió su trayectoria integrando el grupo coreográfico de la entonces exitosa merenguera Jailene Cintrón durante el período 1997-1999. Luego se desempeñó como bailarín en espectáculos de Olga Tañón – con quien viajó a Venezuela –, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Shalim y otros artistas. En el interín, cursó estudios de Actuación Dramática en la Universidad de Puerto Rico (1998-2001).

“En el 2002 fundé mi propia Academia Ensueños en mi pueblo de Vega Alta, pero mi sueño siempre fue triunfar en grande. Así que, con mucho dolor, al poco tiempo la cerré y me vine a Nueva York, donde ingresé a la Acting School para especializarme en la técnica Meisner. Para ese tiempo trabajé como bailarín de la cantante mexicana Paulina Rubio y, después, con Thalía, también mexicana”, nos cuenta.

─ ¿Cuándo consideraras que tu carrera comenzó a cobrar fuerza?

Escena de la película “Step Up 2” en la que aparecen Robert Hoffman, Briana Evigan y el puertorriqueño Luis Salgado (vestido de negro). (Foto suministrada)

“Gracias a Dios, aunque tuve que ir a numerosas audiciones, como todo el que aspira a dedicarse a esto, rápido fui seleccionado a trabajar en teatro y en cine. Estuve primero en producciones de Off-Broadway como ‘The Mambo Kings’, con Albita Rodríguez y Jaime Camil. Después en otros musicales de Broadway como ‘Fame on 42 Street, ‘Evita’ y ‘Aida’. Pero la experiencia de ‘In the Heights’ ha sido extraordinaria. En Puerto Rico hice el papel de ‘Bobby’ en el clásico ‘AChorus Line’ en el 2006. Al año siguiente, 2007, me concedieron el Drama Desk Award, lo cual para mí fue un privilegio”.

Ya ha aparecido en cuatro películas norteamericanas –

─ ¿Cuál ha sido tu experiencia en cine?

“Mi primer trabajo en este medio, o mi debut, fue hacer de doble de Diego Luna en ‘Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights’, que se rodó en Puerto Rico en 2004. Después, aparecí, básicamente como bailarín, en ‘Across the Universe’ en 2005 y, en 2007, en ‘Step Up 2 the Streets’, que se estrenó en febrero de 2008. También aparezco en otra película, que está inspirada en la vida del trompetista de jazz Louis Armstrong cuando era joven: “The Great Observer”, dirigida por Dan Pritzker y protagonizada por Anthony Coleman. Aquí hago el papel de ‘Alejandro’. Pero, este filme no se ha estrenado todavía. Creo que llegará a las salas de cine el año que viene, 2010”.

La actriz boricua Rosie Pérez compartió con Luis Salgado en su visita a la obra “In the Heights”. (Foto suministrada)

Nuestro entrevistado revela que, además de disfrutar intensamente de su desempeño en los escenarios, siente una particular pasión por la enseñanza. Esto lo impulsó a producir, en sociedad con el también reconocido coreógrafo Seth Stewart, dos valiosos DVDs didácticos en 2007: “Latin Fusion / Fusión Latina” (Vol. 1 y 2), que le ha permitido viajar a Toronto (Canadá), México, Perú, Japón y a diversas ciudades norteamericanas para ofrecer talleres a aspirantes a bailarines profesionales.

Su más reciente y ambicioso proyecto como educador es encaminar la academia R.Evolución Latina, que ha fundado en colaboración con los muy experimentados Michael Balderrama ( de “In the Heights”) y Gabriela García (de “Chicago The Musical”).

“Aquí preparamos o pulimos a bailarines que aspiran llegar a Broadway y a otros escenarios de alto nivel en el teatro musical. Es algo que mis compañeros y yo disfrutamos al máximo y les aseguro que nos está yendo muy bien”, concluye evidentemente feliz.

06/jun/09

Feedback   Author Bio   Printer-Friendly   E-Mail Article Enter Your E-Mail Address:

This is the first story about Luis Salgado written in English. In Spanish, it’s another story. Check out these headlines: “Luis Salgado saborea el éxito teatral” (“Luis Salgado savors theatrical success”), Primera Hora newspaper. “Línea ascendente” (“Rising star”), El Nuevo Día. And when it looked like he’d have his first Broadway role, in 2005’s The Mambo Kings, the newspaper Hoy Nueva York proclaimed, “El debut de un grande” (“A great one’s debut”).

He’s known in places where they speak other languages too. The German telecommunications giant Arcor twice hired him for an industrial, first as a dancer and the following year as choreographer. He’s gone to Japan three times to be the guest artist with a dance company.

Here in New York, where he’s lived for the last five years or so, Salgado currently has his most prominent role to date. In off-Broadway’s In the Heights, this season’s most ingratiating new musical, he’s one of the denizens of that barrio up near the top of the subway map—i.e., Washington Heights. If you don’t notice him for his mop of curly hair, you do because of his eye-popping dance moves, especially in the club scene, when he comes between would-be sweethearts Usnavi and Vanessa.

Salgado, 26, first heard about Heights from its original choreographer, Sergio Trujillo, with whom he’d worked on Mambo Kings. About a year and a half ago, Trujillo told the previously close-cropped Salgado to start growing out his hair for a role in the new show. Though he ended up passing on the In the Heights workshop to be dance captain for a regional production of Aida, Salgado let his hair grow all last year, even while he was filming two movies and playing other parts on stage—including prissy Bobby in A Chorus Line. “It gave it a comedy thing—like a little psychotic Bobby,” he laughs.

Salgado was billed as a “special guest star” in Chorus Line, which was presented for six performances last fall at Centro de Bellas Artes de Caguas, outside San Juan. He was, after all, returning to his native Puerto Rico with some Hollywood credentials—dance double for star Diego Luna in 2004’s Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights and parts in scenes with Russell Crowe and Patrick Dempsey in, respectively, American Gangster and Enchanted (both scheduled for release this November).

In 2004, Salgado had made another heralded return—for his hometown’s annual Carnaval Vegalteño, which was dedicated to him in recognition of his accomplishments and the example he set. Salgado grew up in Vega Alta, a city of 38,000 on Puerto Rico’s north coast, about 25 miles from San Juan. Coincidentally, it’s also where the family of In the Heights’ creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda hails from. Miranda, whom Salgado hadn’t met before working on the show, wrote a lyric—sung by Daniela (Andréa Burns)—about “the hills of Vega Alta” for Heights.

When Salgado was still a teenager, he started a dance academy in a local gym. He notes that, ironically, the government which would honor him with Carnaval after he’d left the island wasn’t that forthcoming with financial or logistical support during the five years his school operated. But it had 300 pupils—children and adults—and put on a show every six months. In the spring of 2001, Salgado and his students were invited to perform at New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade (Vega Alta was one of that year’s parade honorees).

That trip led to Salgado’s decision to move to New York, and by the following year he was living in la Gran Manzana and working pretty regularly. But he’d arrived in the city without the childhood indoctrination most of his colleagues have had. “I was pretty much unaware of the power of musical theater until I came to New York. I didn’t grow up seeing Mary Poppins, I didn’t grow up seeing The Wizard of Oz,” Salgado says, though he does recall being profoundly affected by a nonmusical stage production of Pinocchio as an adolescent. “When I moved to New York, my first voice teacher told me ‘See more!’ and I’m like, ‘Who’s Seymour?’ And he was, ‘No. See more shows. You’ve got to go and study, you’ve got to learn.’ So I was in Blockbuster every week, renting movie musicals.”

Before he left Puerto Rico, he produced one last show with his school—“Por Amor al Arte” (“For Love of the Art”), the story of a Puerto Rican boy who goes to New York to pursue his showbiz dreams. “In a way it was an apology, because I was leaving,” says Salgado. Then and now, however, people around Salgado must know how important following one’s dreams is to him. He had named his school Ensueños—In Dreams—and his bio in the In the Heights program concludes “Dare to dream.” Last May, he co-choreographed and danced in Starting Today Dare to Dream…, a show performed in Jackson Heights, Queens, with students of the Lexington School for the Deaf.

“I am a dreamer, and I will always be a dreamer,” Salgado says, er, dreamily. “We can all dream; it’s free. If nobody wants to support it, you can go to your room and still dream.”

For the Starting Today job, he’d been referred by Maria Torres, who was his dance partner in The Mambo Kings and choreographed off-Broadway’s Four Guys Named José. She also was associate choreographer for Enchanted, Disney’s live-action/animation mash-up due out later this year, and Salgado assisted her on its Central Park scene. The film’s cast includes Hollywood stars Patrick Dempsey, Susan Sarandon and Amy (Junebug) Adams as well as such Broadway faves as Idina Menzel, Brian D’Arcy James, Judy Kuhn and Gregory Jbara.

Salgado also performs in a ballroom scene in Enchanted, one of three fall films in which he appears (barring any prerelease edits). In Julie Taymor’s Vietnam-era Across the Universe, which also features some animation as well as a score by the Beatles, he plays a hippie in the “Come Together” number and a sergeant in a dream sequence (the movie should be out in September). In American Gangster, a 1970s-set Ridley Scott opus about heroin smuggling, starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, he dances in a club scene.

One of Salgado’s first jobs in New York was a role in “Broadway Workshop,” a 2002 miniseries starring Wayne Cilento, Amy Spanger and Alan Thicke that was created for PBS’ Egg: The Arts Show. “Broadway Workshop” chronicled the fictional development of a Broadway musical about lobstering, Traps!, but only one episode was televised before Egg went off the air.

A few years later, Salgado would be involved in another aborted project—the attempt to bring The Mambo Kings, a musical adaptation of the Antonio Banderas/Armand Assante movie (which had been based on an Oscar Hijuelos novel), to Broadway. He did the workshop in New York and the spring 2005 production in San Francisco. Then the company came back to New York, put up a marquee on the Broadway Theatre, announced an Aug. 18 opening, and gave the cast a week off. A few days into their paid vacation, they got the call that the Broadway run had been canceled.

“It was devastating, the hardest experience of our lives,” Salgado says. “The cast was so united, so committed, and we were all so proud because it was something that spoke our language, that was representing our people. That period—the ’50s—was beautifully represented. And suddenly it was gone, done, just out of the blue.”

Salgado had found his first mentor at a crucial time. When he was 9, he went to Hawaii to live with his father, who’d divorced his mother when he was a baby. “I had a pretty difficult time because I didn’t speak English and I was pretty much living alone because my father was in the Army, my stepmother was very young—she wasn’t really taking care of me—school wasn’t in my native language. I had D’s and F’s in school. It was a tough change, because my mother always took so much care of me, I had A grades [in Puerto Rico]. I went from everything to nothing.”

Rivera taught the kids dance, acting, poetry, and had them put on a performance every week. When Luis and his classmates were moving on to high school—and therefore would no longer be in the school with Pepito’s program—Rivera created a company to keep them as students. Around that time, Salgado began his formal dance training at a studio. Rivera introduced him to professional artists, and the connections led to jobs. At age 17, Salgado became a backup dancer for merengue singer Jailene Cintrón. He performed on her TV show, A Reír y a Gozar, and on other Puerto Rican television programs, including Voces en Función, Vale Mas, Eso Vale and De Noche con Iris y Sunshine.

While Salgado was performing and running his own school, he was also enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico in Rió Piedras as an acting student. All the while, his mother was wary of this dream of his. “It was pretty much taboo,” he says. “In Puerto Rico, in the United States, no matter where you are, they don’t teach us to do what we love. They teach us to do something that can give you money.”

He moved to New York before he could graduate from college but has continued taking acting classes. He has plans for putting all the dramatic training to use. “Eventually I want to move more into acting,” he says. “Just plays.” His role models are Raul Julia and José Ferrer, two Puerto Ricans who were respected dramatic actors in U.S. But this dream is being deferred at present. “I feel I still have a long way to go, with my accent, with many other things,” Salgado explains. “When that time comes when I’m going to focus on that [acting], I will have had developed a name and a résumé that will support me and I will have the abilities.” Besides, he adds, “I am way too happy dancing at this moment!”

His happiness is due to not just what he’s doing but where. “I am so in love with In the Heights,” says Salgado, who’s the only cast member (besides veterans Olga Merediz and John Herrera) who was born outside the States. “Nothing in New York City has brought what it has. It’s not creating a stereotype; it’s creating the story of people, and that’s where the honesty’s at. This show just grabs the music and just grabs a story of people who are struggling.”

He’s not as effusive about the most famous Manhattan-set musical about Hispanics, primarily because of the image it has fixed in people’s minds. “When I step into an audition, I’m not always allowed to step in as Luis, but I have to be Bernardo. I have to represent what someone put out there that the Latino community was. It’s been accepted because it was so powerful and beautiful and has so much greatness to it. Yet West Side Story f---ed us up, I’m sorry to say. We have to now become a character that people understand.” The authentically puertorriqueño Salgado says he’s been told in auditions that he doesn’t have the “right accent” by people accustomed to the fake accents of actors who’ve played Bernardo. Despite his gripes, that was Salgado at last year’s Tony Awards, “playing” Bernardo when characters from shows produced by Hal Prince appeared on stage during a tribute to Prince.

Salgado, whose yen to perform began with childhood magic tricks using cards and “pañuelos” (handkerchiefs), keeps honing some offstage talents as well. He’s an avid photographer, still loyal to 35mm, and has painted art for his apartment—which is in Harlem, not the Heights. And “I love writing,” he says. “I write thoughts, I write quotes, I write plays. Hopefully I’ll be able to give more effort to do that and I’ll have some good material there to publish someday.”

Adrienne Onofri, one of BroadwayWorld's original columnists, was a longtime contributor to OOBR (The Off-Off-Broadway Review) and theater editor of The Greenwich Village Press. She is a member of the Drama Desk and contributes to Entertainment Weekly. She is also a travel writer; her first book, Walking Brooklyn, will be published this spring by Wilderness Press.

Saludos, Gracias a todos los que me han escrito y enviado los documentos publicados recientemente, en especial a El Chavo... Eres el mejor! Gracias! Miel Gracias a ti tambien, Te quiero mucho!

El articulo me encanta creo que Osvaldo Martir realmente se enfoco en contar mi sentir... GRACIAS MIL!!!! 

Segimos luchando por lo que se ama!

Luis

PRIMERA HORA > ASI

Aixa Sepúlveda Morales  PRIMERA HORA
ENVIADO ESPECIAL

Luis Salgado

El bailarín y coreógrafo puertorriqueño prefiere el ambiente teatral de Nueva York.

(Para PRIMERA HORA / Miguel Rajmil)

NUEVA YORK – El actor puertorriqueño Luis Salgado no quiere ser famoso, sólo desea hacer lo que le gusta.

Por eso prefiere permanecer por más tiempo en el anonimato que le otorga el teatro de Broadway, en Nueva York, ciudad en la que reside desde 2002.

Este actor y bailarín vegalteño de 25 años detesta la superficialidad de Hollywood, ambiente que exploró cuando en 2004 lo contrataron como el doble del mexicano Diego Luna en la cinta "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights".

"Esta experiencia me hizo probar de la mentalidad de Hollywood, que es otro mundo, y esta cosa del rey, la reina y el príncipe, y en donde tú eres un peón. El teatro en Nueva York es tan humano. Éste es otro mundo, todo el mundo se ayuda, todo el mundo sale a cenar después de la función", cuenta a PRIMERA HORA, y añade que este tipo de actitud también le recuerda al gremio artístico en Puerto Rico.

"Además, yo no quiero ser famoso, quiero hacer lo que me gusta", añade seguro.

Luis Salgado sabe que "en algún momento" deberá dejar a un lado "esta mentalidad" para poder explorar y nutrirse de otras áreas.

"Tendré que someterme a eso en algún momento aunque sea frío y superficial. La cosa de la fama y los nombres no me gustan pero sé que debo dar la oportunidad. Hay muchas cosas que puedo aprender del cine", asegura.

Su trayectoria

Luis Salgado halló su pasión por las artes escénicas con sólo nueve años, en la escuela elemental. Allí comenzó a tomar clases de actuación y baile en un programa llamado Enlace, que se ofrecía a los estudiantes después de las 3:00 de la tarde.

Fue entonces cuando conoció a su mentor José Rivera, su primer maestro de baile y teatro.

"Él me dio el espíritu de querer hacerlo. Nos convirtió en niños artistas activos", narra.

Sus clases las continuó y cuando cumplió 15 años, José Rivera inauguró la academia y compañía de baile Zafra, en donde empezó a hacer sus primeros trabajos profesionales en teatro, entre ellos, la obra "Vejigantes".

También comenzó a tomar clases con Leonor Costanzo "y es cuando se empiezan a abrir puertas".

Entre las oportunidades que surgieron, logró convertirse en bailarín de Jailene Cintrón, con sólo 17 años.

Para este tiempo, además daba clases de baile en el gimnasio Natural Fitness de Vega Alta, y comenzó a realizar pequeñas producciones con sus estudiantes.

Casi de inmediato, se halló a sí mismo abriendo su propia academia, la que llamó Ensueños. Llegó a congregar casi 200 estudiantes.

Pero sus deseos de seguir escalando lo trajeron a la ciudad de Nueva York, en donde comenzó a hallar diversas oportunidades de trabajo.

"Eso fue lo más que me dolió, cuando cerré la academia, porque la realidad es que no hay muchas más opciones para los jóvenes que tenían talento y en cierto punto me sentí culpable", confiesa.

El deseo de superación pudo más, y en 2002 se mudó a esta ciudad para comenzar a asistir a audiciones.

"En Puerto Rico estamos bien limitados, no hay fondos para hacer teatro. En nuestro país se hace un teatro muy bueno y hay muchos profesionales, pero piensas lo que es tener el recurso y lo que podríamos hacer y es triste. Se hacen mil maravillas y cuando vienes aquí ves que en escena bajan una piscina que se usa sólo por 20 minutos. Es frustrante", opina.

Con su esfuerzo en los pasados cuatro años, hoy conserva en su currículo experiencias como bailarín de Thalía y Paulina Rubio, más se mantiene activo como asistente y coreógrafo en producciones de Off-Broadway.

 __________________________________________________

Nota de Luis Salgado:

Los que me conocen bien saben que estoy abierto a aprender de todo. 

Me encantan los retos, pero saben también que por encima de todo veo la vida, el vivir en armonía, hacer las cosas por amor y no por un fin superficial y poco realista como ser famoso. Así como en el camino del Alquimista, el encontrarse, perderse y cometer algunos errores, el camino VIVIDO AL MAXIMO es lo que le da su sueño y no el fin como si mismo... A eso me refiero en este reportaje.

Pero estoy trabajando ahora en mi tercera película y me encanta, Se esta grabando aquí en NY. La gente es SUPER BUENA y anoche al terminar de grabar a las 4:00 de la mañana, estábamos bailando y cantando juntos como si fuera un gran party. Es decir, Me gusta el humanismo que esta gente, compañeros del mundo teatral  VS el fanatismo de la Fama que hay en el mundo del cine en especial en L.A (Hollywood).  También para aclarar, le doy mil gracias a Dios por la oportunidad de Havana Nights. Fue una gran experiencia y mi primer contacto con esta formula del Poderoso cine. Lo que quiero decir es que dentro de esa experiencia entre en contacto con este tipo de personas que dan valor a la gente solo por su posición de (fama) y no por el humanismo que hay en las personas al rededor y especialmente esa Película tenia mucha gente hermosa Humana, BORICUA pues se grabo en la isla del encanto.

En otras palabras persigo este pensamiento en cada oportunidad:
"No te ames a ti mismo en el arte, Ama el arte que hay en ti."