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12th Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival

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By Walter Atkins
October 4, 2019
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Redwood City Salsa Festival
Old Court House Square
Redwood City, CA
September 21, 2019

Redwood City celebrated another fantastic family oriented Salsa Festival on the heavily sun drenched San Francisco Peninsula. There was a plethora of dance music, food, drink, vendors, fun and of course, the yearly Salsa Tasting Competition.

The 12th annual addition of the Redwood City Salsa Festival presented another solid line up of Salsa, Reggae and Afro Cuban jazz on three separate stages. Abundant local and international talent gathered for this hot crowd pleasing Saturday. The artists performing on the main Salsa stage included: veteran San Francisco Bay Area based band Edgardo y Candela,? Carlo Xavier y Su Orchestra, Jesus Diaz y Su QBA, and Orquesta Taino. This year, the large Salsa Stage was reduced in size and located to the right side of the Old Court House stairs. Fortunately, this change did not diminish the event enthusiasm or the day's Salsa dancing in the square.

This year's Reggae Stage featured: Thrive from Mendocino California, and festival favorites Native Elements from San Francisco. The RCSF's intimate Latin Jazz Stage showcased: The

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" data-original-title="" title="">Kat Parra Latin World Ensemble, Orquesta Dharma, John Calloway?with the Latin Seven. On this extra hot day, long serving festival stage curator Matt Beasley happily shared a cold bottle of water with this photojournalist while talking about his enjoyable participation with the the musicians and the RCSF. "I love the Redwood City Salsa Festival. It always seems that everyone is having so much fun. The community really embraces and celebrates this event year after year."

The serious Salsa Competition, always a highlight and literally caliente hot point of the day, consistently brings out the best in all the competitors and the judges. In the late afternoon, the Salsa tasting Winners were announced. With this year's Redwood City Salsa Festival completed, we can eagerly look forward to next year's entertaining event.

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