Holming and I came across advertisement for a Cuban Carousel Dance Show a couple of months back. Being lovers of Latin Jazz and Latin Dance (and also desperate for some culture), we decided to buy a couple of tickets. We thought we would make a date night out of it...go to our favourite restaurant, watch a show and possible play a few hands of blackjack, since the show was at Sky Tower (the casino).
We went to Hammerheads, which is our favourite place to eat when we want to spend a lot of money. But this time we had a voucher for a free main dish, that’s $40 off the bill already. He had seafood chowder and seared tuna, I had a rocket salad with the snapper fillet. Note to self.... appetizer not required. The food is worth every penny (we don’t have those here in NZ but, you know what I mean), whether we have a voucher or not.
Went to the casino to kill some time. As we wandered down an aisle Holming decided to play a 2c machine. We sat down and put $5 in. He picked maximum bet which, we realised after we hit the “spin” button, was $4. Some pictures came up and the counter started going up. We thought it might stop at $20, but it kept going to $40, then $60 and finally stopped at $80. Not bad for a single bet! Mama didn’t raise no fool. We took the money and bought a drink.
So finally it’s show time. The show started 30 minutes late and was not worth the wait. Where should I start? Let’s see...was it the cheesy low-grain video playing in the background, or the really bad Cuban accent, or the horrible sound that sounded like a car stereo with the bass blown out?? There was also the dancer who was supposed to be some African God doing something resembling a Maori dance...he should have just done the Maori dance instead....or maybe it was all the white female dancers that looked like cheerleaders doing a routine when they were trying to dance earthy Afro-Cuban style. We stayed for 30 minutes...only because we were hoping to see something authentic. We got home and looked up this show on the internet, to find that they are a New Zealand dance company with mostly New Zealand and Australian dancers. We should have done our homework before getting excited over experiencing some real Latin culture.
