Category: Orble Post

The Dancing Bug, the Virus and You 

On By taniacreationsIn Orble Post, The Dancing BugLeave a comment

You might be thinking as all addicts think:

‘Nawww, not me.’

Denying to the end.

Here is the proof you are a Latin Dance Addict, see if you identify yourself with this:

  1. You are singing the songs, even the ones in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, not having a clue what you are saying.
  2. You actually start to like salsa, bachata, merengue, zouk songs just to be listened to, even when you are driving. If you understand what they are saying, as I mostly do, it is even worse! You like the songs even knowing they are the tackiest of the tacky queens!
  3. If you cannot count anymore: you are counting 6 spoons of sugar for a recipe and you probably go: one, two, three, five, six, seven (and you get the impression there is something wrong about adding six spoons and ending with the number seven in your mind, but never mind, you just keep dancing while you cook). 
  4. The kitchen floor shows the results of your steps, the scratches are all over it.
  5. You know by heart all the music that you have in your mp3 player, CDs, Computer, etc.
  6. Worse if you know all the music that are NOT there, and you neeeed to have it, ASAP!
  7. There is no music of any kind that you don’t see yourself dancing …
  8. You may forget to put your clothes on but you will never forget your music player, you would feel naked without music.
  9. You are hooked on YouTube and Facebook, you click “yes, I’m coming” to 123 events on a weekend.
  10. In Facebook you can feel your heartbeat accelerates when a great new event appear online.
  11. On YouTube your “favourites” only have dance videos.
  12. You think that sweating is normal, more than that, it’s sexy.
  13. You collect bruises and show them around, obviously the histories of how they were acquired have to follow. 
  14. You never leave the house without a full change of clothes in your bag, and several pairs of dance shoes, obviously.
  15. When you hear the word “dancing” you think it’s with you, no matter if the talker is actually referring to dancing monkeys or trained fleas.
  16. By the middle of the word “Choreog…” both your hands are up and maybe one (or two) legs! Your smile is ridiculous by the way.
  17. When you are in a choreo, if the song is in English, parts of the lyrics of the song sneak into your vocabulary.
  18. You have THE GROUP, those friends that you met to dance with, from whom you might not know too much but you still know all that you need: they dance like you! And THE GROUP becomes a unit, that goes everywhere together.
  19. If you have been to a congress together, where one of you was found at least 50% of the total group was always found too.
  20. People are considering putting you away, because you listen to music every single spare minute that you have and you act funny as you do (there is no way not to mark the rhythm or move your head on that special beat, or sing, or dance…).
  21. You have visions of dancing in the rain, in the dry, in the park, on the beach, under the moonlight, under the sunlight, maybe under a tree also, or under the earth (the metro halls are specially inspiring), in the hall, at the Townhall, on the stairs (can’t you see a beautiful sequence with people dancing every two steps?) around a swimming pool, near a lake, on a hill, on top of those rocks, the list is limitless… 
  22. If you have thought: “Yep, that’s me” more than twice you are already doomed. You are addicted to dancing. Some say only doing one of these things, or thinking one of these thoughts, would be enough to be considered freakish. Don’t let any shrink put his or her eyes on you; they will commit you for sure! 

You ARE The SHOW, and it MUST go ON!

21 Orble Votes

The Dancing Bug and the Virus

On By taniacreationsIn Orble Post, The Dancing BugLeave a comment

Photo: Jaime Jesus (LDA) & Tania C in Brisbane Brazilian Dance Congress 2008

When I say the word “Addiction” with a capital A, I’m pretty sure you think cocaine, pot, alcohol, smoking.

Well if you are reading this blog, maybe not.

Worse than all those vices there is one that is more than addiction, it is both an attitude and one unescapable fate… it’s a virus. Exactly: Latin dancing.
There is always a carrier. The calamity is huge, because in each school you can find at least one (carrier I mean) locally you can see lots of them on stage at the Sydney Salsa Congress.

It all starts innocently, you don’t know how much of your life is about to be turned upside down, and what is worst: by yourself! You choose the course that is closer to your end of work time, anywhere from 6 to 7:30pm, considering the transit time. Once a week, for no more than 10 weeks. You feel safe and secure that is all about having a bit of fun. It’s during the week; it is not going to disturb your precious weekends.

You start thinking the music is a bit strange but it feels nice, this Latin dancing thing. In 8 weeks, if you are not immune, you are doomed. By then, you would have gone to at least one dance party, you do a workshop and the party starts, you see… all those people, having so much fun, the spins, the movements, you don’t know but that is when the virus gets active in you blood stream.

You cannot precise what is happening to you, your pupils grow bigger, your breathing gets accelerated, you try to not look but simply can’t. The lights are bathing you, the rhythm is making your chest feel like a drum, it’s like you are spinning yourself and you are praying: please ask me to dance (if you are a girl) or, please ask her to dance (if you are a guy and you are talking to yourself).

And if you do… poor you…

Then you are back to the classes and they get started on this tracing thing, such a simple and subtle movement. Not everyone realizes the power behind it, but a proper tracing! The hands that don’t leave the other’s body when you break apart: even the simple ones, through the arms for a turn, can send shivers down anyone’s spine, it doesn’t need to be sexual, it’s simply sexy.

Did you realize how much power dance can give to someone? Most of the guys Latin dancers are not too tall, and yet they appear giants on stage and dance floor. And the girls, all ladies are absolutely wonderful when they dance feeling it from within. People that you wouldn’t notice on the street can make you find them incredible with one single spin ending with a body roll. Can you see it?

If I close my eyes I can see that and much more.


When you move to the second level you want to do two hours of dancing and retake the first level as a revision.

All that craving for some nice tracings and you discover the shines!

So you shine… the power grows in you (as does the virus) and you find out those precious moments where you can do whatever you want. If you find at least one partner that looks you in the eye as you do it, it feels like he or she is really dancing with you, and the world can end with the music, you will be forever hooked to this dancing.

When you go to the third level you forget all about getting home early, you start thinking that weekends are to be enjoyed in full and you browse the internet for the parties and regular venues. If you have kids the babysitter will be grinning for nothing with the hours she is getting.
You start spreading the virus yourself, bringing friends and working colleagues to the classes, and there you go doing the beginners one more time just to do it with this or that friend.
As it wasn’t enough, you discover the new styles, generally people start with Salsa (these dances all have at least one capital letter) and then the floor is opened under their feet when they find out about the others, the happy ones such as Merengue and Cha­Cha, and the sexy, closer ones, as Bachata and Lambada/Zouk.

The “Doomer” is usually a performance course. It is when things turn inescapable, incurable.

The virus is a happy thing in your body, eating away your food and giving you an unexpected burst of energy.

I’ve seen lots of people loosing 10, 12 kilos in some months, myself for example.

By the time the performance gets near, thinking patterns are completely screwed, starting to rehearse at 9:30pm (till 11:30 or more) feels normal by the second week, you see a bright sunny Sunday and instead of imagining a nice day on the beach you simply think: better go early to the beach, carry all my stuff, so I can be early at the rehearsals.

You start meeting partners for training at the most strange hours, lunch breaks are perfect, why would you need to eat? Your days get to be measured by how long you will have to endure before your next dancing.

Everyone at the dance school knows you by name and when you do your bookings they are done by the bunch: level 5, 6 & 7 of salsa, level 2 & 3 bachata, level 1 & 2 for zouk, performance course, that special workshop, its like a shopping list!


Ah (sight) the workshops… all the extra money you earn goes to a special account called: dance. And dance shoes!

When you look in your wardrobe you don’t find any passage to another enchanted witch-world, but you do find seven (SEVEN!!!) pairs of dance shoes! Then you have costumes hanging around the house, masks, ribbons, spears and all sort of funny things. Unexpectedly you have your chance of becoming famous.

We did this choreo where the choreographer decided to paint in gold some half naked guys (they were wearing proper trousers but had nothing on the torso), after that the girls would refer to some in particular as “the golden men”; they found their moment of glory! (So did the girls by the way!)

When you have been to the stage you don’t even blink anymore if your teacher says: let’s rehearse on the holiday Saturday at 7:30pm. You only think: Yey! We can go dancing after that!

You forget all about travelling, spending more than two days off dancing that would have been hell. All you can say is: don’t fight it, you cannot win! During the end of year holidays (fifteen excruciating and long days) all you can think about was: thanks heaven for the choreo training! I will survive!

If you have seen yourself while reading these words I will tell you one thing: good luck!

Or better: “Break a Leg! Merde! Merda!”

21 Orble Votes

Bugs on Stage

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Photo: Tania performing The White Swan Suite, from The Swan Lake, in Campinas, SP, Brazil, for Viva Vida Academy of Dance, under the Tutelage of Marina Simões in 1994

Dancing bugs are not exclusive of Latin dancing. Even when dancing by yourself all these things can happen.

What things? Bugs.

I’ve been a ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern dancer for 20 years before starting on the Latin styles here in Australia.

I remember some nice stories, especially from performances; they are where the funniest situations are born. Once we had this group of beginners little girls on their first performance ever dressed as ladybugs (talking about bugs) they were the cutest things, not one over six years old, in red carcasses and funny little antlers fixed by a tiara on their heads. At the beginning of the choreo they had this thing of holding hands two by two and moving their heads.

The bug happened when the antlers of two of the lady bugs got stuck. They did what they were trained to do: dance no matter what, and they did the rest of the choreo stuck to one another, trying to keep the formations: tendu, tendu, passé, pas de bourree.

The public loved it! And they got the chance to do it again.

The teacher unstuck them and they could repeat the presentation without being dragged around one by the other.

Another time it was the shoes, I had this turn ending with a jette, that traditional ballet jump with a split on the air.

I spun with all my might and when the leg came up for the jette, the shoe didn’t like the centrifugal and centripetal forces and went flying all the way to the curtains. I did what I had to do: prayed “I hope I don’t slip when my shoe­-less and stocking-­more foot hits the floor and I don’t end up in a real undesired split!”

I can’t forget about my magic transformation from yellow to beige too.

We had these several choreos one after the other, the public can’t imagine how much you get changed behind the scenery at the backstage.

I always say that if I was a man I would certainly love to dance, you get away with seeing so many interesting things behind the curtains!

We had to get changed in less than 40 seconds. I was already on stage, on my third movement when I had to look down and saw the collant was inside out! Lucky my costume was yellow and the inside was beige, so the contrast wasn’t too bad. But bad enough! 

The champion of the bugs I can remember was about this choreo, it was an intense atmospheric one.

It had a heavy theme that comprised a Jesus on a cross that was to be rescued by two of my friends. This Jesus was wearing the traditional sheet wrapped up on top of the boxers. All was well, we were there dressed as Jesuit monks, with torches under our chins giving that macabre look, the music involving us all with its doomed notes… and the sheet decides for a rebellion and simply falls transforming Jesus in a skinny guy wearing boxers and what looked like pampers halfway to his knees.

All the mood was ruined in one instant and the public started laughing so hard that it got really difficult to continue crawling on the floor! ­You can’t have a good dense mood of a choreo without some people’s parts crawling from under the smoke that the smoke machine is producing – not when you can hear them laughing maniacaly and from under the smoke and no parts coming up.

But as the people say: the show must go on!

Around dancers that had stopped dancing because they had fallen to the floor laughing got under control and continued the dancing, eventually. Around the sounds of HA HA HA from the public, the Jesus sneaked out of stage, around the painful face of the choreographer watching from inside the curtains and the sound of the assistant choreographer banging their head on the wall.

Those can be said to be the longest minutes of your dancing life. You get to the end of the choreo and the applause is the biggest one you ever got. You keep thinking “oh! I’m good!” and you only know the truth when everyone is talking about it later.

The Lesson, from each and all these stories is the same: keep dancing, the show must go on.

23 Orble Votes

The Good Bugs of Dancing 

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Photo: Nikko & Tania - Bachata performance at Latin Dance Australia's Monthly Social Party, 2008

Photo: Nikko & Tania – Bachata performance at Latin Dance Australia‘s Monthly Social Party, 2008

Some people think that once they’ve learnt how to dance to an advanced level of any style they will be safe, there won’t be any more bad dances.
You have but to start, to realize how mistaken you are. Bad dances are around the corner, no matter how good you or your partner are, so are the exceptionally good ones. They can appear in an advanced level or the good ones can surprise ones from the complete beginners level. Dancing is a mystical thing; it’s influenced by simply everything, the moon, the stars, the cockroach under the table next to a phobic girl.

Obviously it’s influenced by the music, how you are dressed and the smells. Ah the smells! (Sigh.) There was once a party I was at that I could swear I smelled like pheromones.

The moon? If someone is walking to a party and there is a full moon he or she can get especially inspired. Chemistry, always, the search for a perfect dance is about the right partner… at that moment. 

It happened to me more than once, that you have this amazing dance with that one guy yet and all the times you dance with him later on, it never feels the same. You keep thinking he must have howled to the full moon on that one night. What? You never howled using all the air in your lungs as a werewolf to the full moon? I want to do it every full moon. 

The same way the stars can dictate the bliss we search, at every first accords of a dancing song, they can dictate the complete disaster, or maybe even a half-calamity, the best idea is to laugh about it.
I’m pretty confident with some dance styles — my favourites are bachata and zouk/lambada — but my salsa, is still … getting there: punched in the nose. 

I was dancing with this guy, really good, all about show moves — even got carried around a few times while my mouth emitted these high pitched noises one can’t control when someone does something unexpected. The first thing I learned in my recent career as a social dancer is “don’t get intimidated” the worst that can happen is that he won’t dance with you again. That is what I used to think; now I have changed my “worst”. The worst that can happen is you getting punched in the nose… by his head. 

No big deal, the said nose didn’t break, while he asked: are you all right? I put on my bravest face and found my missing voice: I’m… alll… rite (try to say “right” with your nose blocked and tell me if you have any success!) While two lonely tears ran rebelliously from my eyes. 

Another thing is that I thought I might start considering, was wearing a helmet with wig, now an essential item for zouk courses, especially beginners, for the girls. I know it is always the guys fault, but when I banged my head into another lady’s it wasn’t their heads that went spinning. So I thought: “if they knew all about dancing and how to control the lady they would not need to be in a class, therefore the ideal is for us to wear helmets” and the teacher added: “but we will need a wig on top of it because zouk has to have hair flicking all over the place!”. After all a man that dances zouk without eating hair is not dancing zouk. 

What I consider bad dances are simply about the hands, as I’m still half way to the moon with my salsa, my following abilities can be comprised as missing hands. Don’t you hate when you are half way to a turn and you see his hand just hanging there, and your spinning and dizzy neurones realize: oh! That was for me! I’m turning the wrong way! But its too late, by the end of the turn he is wearing his “you’ve turned the wrong way” face which is a half-smile, usually with half the mouth and eyebrows a bit upper than they should be; and the hand is gone.

Exactly at the moment you’ve decided to offer him your hand. And it then feels like a kid’s game where one hand goes forth when the other’s is being retracted and vice versa. 

But when you are thinking “I’m crap” you have this dance with this special partner, he can be an intermediate level, but so are you, and you just have so much fun dancing together, and he is such a good leader, that there are no missed hands, no wrong turns, the movements are simple but creative, and you see him smiling at you, and even if something is not perfect, it’s still all right, sometimes you even get away from each other because of the layer of sweat, the hands couldn’t hold. When you are finished you keep thinking: What a dance! 

As the Master always says: the Good will always surpass the Bad. So one good dance will keep you going through thousands of average ones and quite a few bad as well. The message is clear: keep dancing!

35 Orble Votes

Dancing for Life 

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. . . Writing is my call, dancing is my bliss… 

This is me, dance addict, currently wallowing in Latin dancing, exploring Sydney’s Bachata, Zouk and Salsa dance floors. Previously Ballet, Jazz and Contemporary Dancer.
I was born in Brazil and have been in Aussie land for five years now. This is my promised land and never before I had so much fun. 

I hope you like my writing, my dancing, and my loving of life.

As a dream said to me the other day: “follow the fun”!

35 Orble Votes

An Angel at Last

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I had so much fun performing with Tony Lara’s team at the Sydney International Bachata Festival 2009! The theme of the choreo and music is “Angels” and we looked very angelic indeed in our white costumes.

I was especially smiley because it was my “coming back” performance. After fracturing a bone (fell off a horse in January) I couldn’t do it at the Sydney Salsa Congress and I felt more than happy to have a chance to show months of training on stage.

Performing for me is a metaphysical experience, it’s a connection with major illuminating forces, with the Universe, with the mainstream Energy of life; Dressed as an Angel of all things, even more!

Although I have to tell you: those bachata angels are a bit naughty. My mom called and asked only one thing after seeing the video on Facebook:

‘Are Angels supposed to be sexy?’

To my fellow Angel Dancers: she thought we were very sexy, woohoo! After all, it is bachata!

So I was there smiling my teeth out to the public.

However, being there doesn’t give you the truth about of the whole group, you can only feel yourself and people right beside you.

I know my partner and I were ok, no mistakes, smiling to each other, he even remembered to look at me at the bachatango step, so all we were fine.

Then I saw the video, the whole group dancing, all six couples, and I went: WOW!

It is not a hard routine, it doesn’t have acrobatics and many hard‐funky steps. It was soft, and beautiful, and sexy, and lovely and we looked clean and oh so nice! It was such a surprise, because it was the first video I saw of the whole group and it impressed me, I was proud and happy to be part of it.

Congratulations my Angels!

We rocked! I mean we Bachated!

107 Orble Votes

The White Shorts’ Dancing Bug

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My whole team had used (and probably abused) our Angel’s costume at the Sydney Salsa Congress in January.

I hadn’t performed with them the first few times because of an injury. Therefore, I was the only one using the Angel thing for the first time.

It is a very, very, very (very, very) short, short, short dress. We bought it ready‐made and I am pretty sure it was one of those costume things suppose do be sold in adult shops. 

Don’t get me wrong, it is a nice, pretty, costume. White and sexy, with a holly halo and sleeves that remind you of wings, the only “but” is that it feels shorter at the back.

If you join that fact to a Brazilian Bum (mine) you get to the only possible conclusion:

‘Huston, we have a problem!’ 

This situation reminded me of the time when I was a skinny ballet dancer, back in Brazil.

I was dieting to get even skinnier, and was going to be dancing in a white TUTU, those plate skirts ballerinas use. The dressmaker brought it to the dance school be tried on. She was an international dressmaker, used to make tutus to people from different countries and she used her normal mould to make ours.

She only overlooked one detail: Brazilian Bums, Bottoms, Behinds.

I think we were about ten young girls and we all got the dress tipped up, on the back.

We started dancing and most of the dresses got funny on our behinds. It’s like a hat that doesn’t sit right, a hat that shows your bum! We laughed and laughed because we could be as thin as a stick and it didn’t make any difference, the bum was always the last to diminish in size.

The woman was not happy to have to add a few inches at the back part of all our dresses to compensate for our uncooperative behinds. When we were trialling the tutus, dancing, at every jump, the tutus turned upside… up, ha ha, like the Australian umbrellas do in Sydney’s wind.

Back to the Angel’s dress, I already knew about my “rear” problem so I sewed the dress to my shorts.

I only realised it hadn’t been enough when someone I was talking to at the festival said:
‘Hi, I’ve seen you; you are the one who danced that choreo with the white shorts!’

Argh, it was supposed to be a white dress, not the shorts but ah well, I’m happy I had the shorts to keep me decent!

115 Orble Votes