Kadu & Vali / Junaid and Katherine / Alisson dancing Zouk at SSC09
It is so amazing how life sparkles from a thought.
Everything and everyone eventually came from a thought.
It is remarkable to witness the ascension of a new dance style.
When I joined LDA, four years ago, we had one course, one class per week, of four-weeks courses for Lambada. It wasn’t even called Zouk at that time. We had all the levels in one, the crazy and more advanced aficionados mixed with the total beginners. Mr. Amit–DJ Zoubasa-was there from the beginning.
He tells me that he used to carry a lambada/zouk CD with him everywhere he went and beg, literally beg, on his knees, for the salsa DJs in the city to play one song. Just one song! When they did he would dance with the first (and probably only) person he could find that knew any amount of zouk in the room, Wendy Ng.
I keep trying to imagine what it was not to have where to go and who to dance Zouk with, and only by thinking it got harder to breathe.
Zouk is so addictive I saw a lot of salsa fanatics in the Brazilian room at the congress, most of the pictures I posted were taken in the “Zouk room” as it was safer for my fractured arm to be there than in the packed Salsa party room.
Every year we have more and more choreographies of Zouk in the Latin congresses, there were quite a few in the SSC this year. As a zouk-addict I was happy to see. A lot of friends commented how good it was to find so many good Zouk dancers in one place.
In Sydney what boosted the rise of the style were a few things:
101°C Party – a monthly get together that plays mostly Zouk and Bachata, I was there from the first one, only missing two in more than an year. One when I was in Brazil and one when I got sick. I performed in one too.
Jaime and Liz fell in love with Zouk, and nothing like a professional passion to boost a style.
The two Brisbane Brazilian Bance Congresses of 2008 getting Zouk lovers from all over the country together.
It is a special thrill to be part of the beginning.
I have no idea where Zouk is going, but I know it is growing worldwide and I’m seeing it is going “WOW”!
Sydney Salsa Congress Workshops 2009 Jordan & Tatiana
If you are a great dancer, it will help you bringing students to your workshops, but that won’t be the main attraction.
Being a great teacher, that is what will really bring the crowds.
Here are some important tips and skills to consider:
Introduce yourself and any partners on stage with you.
Say and show what you are doing at the beginning of the class; this way everyone knows they are in the right class and what to expect from it.
It is essential to have the ability to break steps down into smaller parts, to know where to step in which count.
Present the leader and the follower steps if you are teaching a couple dance by yourself, or have a partner for the other’s part.
You must know about music and be very good in following rhythm and beats.
Count, follow the count, it doesn’t matter how you count the music as long as you do it in a way the students can follow it with you.
Have a great move ready, well rehearsed and prepared it very well, in advance, with your partner if you have one.
Choose the “size” of the movement according to the amount of time given for the workshop or class, not too long so it has to be cut, not too short so it’s done by the half of the class.
Share, if you have a partner, share the teaching with him or her, share according to the partner’s teaching experience but don’t let him or her be a mute the whole class, it’s disturbing.
Energy. No matter how good is your step, if you are not energetic, students will find it boooooring! You have to speak loudly, give out energy, show you are keen to be there. If you show there is nothing else you rather be doing at that moment, well that will get the people like nothing else. Share your passion for dancing. Johnny Vasquez is a great example, he makes you scream, turn, give yourself wholly to the move and the moment.
Good humour: jokes and good humour are big in making people have a good time anywhere. Dance workshops are part of the “entertainment” business, it means people are expecting to be entertained. A great example of this was Tony Lara’s Bachata Fun Moves Workshop at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009. It was a funny thing where the guys trapped the girls hands, made them turn unexpectedly, played pretend-slaps, lots of things that made everyone crack up. But then he decided he needed a “fresh girl”, someone that wasn’t at the workshops to see if the leads worked. And there comes Johnny Vasquez walking calmly. So yes, he was the “fresh girl” following Tony’s traps and tricks and it certainly worked! Great Workshop!
Organization and rotation: very, Very, VERY important: I have been to great workshops where I got more frustrated the better they got. How is that? If you cannot see the front and teacher, or if you don’t have a partner to dance with, all is lost for you. So, an instructor has to organise the class very well. I would say Jaime is a master in that. No mater how full a class is, he was able to get it done. Tony Lara and Dani were very acknowledged at the SSC 09 for their classes. This is how you do it:
First is the division in rows.
Second the constant rotation of those rows. Front to back, back to front, so everyone has a view of the instructors.
Also, when there are too many students make the people in the front kneel or sit so the ones in the back can see.
For couple dances, partner rotation is essential. Ask right at the start if there are partners not rotating, make sure they don’t disturb your system. Separate non-rotating partners. This way you will discourage people to be fixing partners as the workshops go by. People that don’t come with fixed partners will get very upset if they dance with less and less partners, specially the good ones, as the class goes on.
Organise the class in a circle or rows and explain how the rotation will work. Do not let them do it for themselves. It never works well, it creates embarrassing moments, it’s annoying. If you know how it works all stress is taken from it and only fun is left.
Tell if the ladies or the guys are moving, say who is going where.
Very, very, important again: Remember to rotate partners often, particularly when the numbers are not even.
Safety – dips, tricks and full house – instil responsibility: You can be a bit alarmist here, better safe than sorrow. Although we usually say it’s always the guys fault when doing more difficult tricks both are equally responsible. Anyway the instructor has to alert to all things that could be dangerous, even if there are no difficult moves but it’s a small place or there are too many dancers.
It’s a leader’s responsibility to be safe, but it’s a followers responsibility, equally, to stop a movement if they feel they are going to get hurt.
Level, level, level – make sure to tell participants which level is the workshop catered for, for higher levels it is worth requesting that only the people with the right level stay. Also it is always possible you will have to adapt according to the level you perceive from the people present.
Leave time for enjoyment at the end – save a few minutes just to let them dance!
Sell your products at the very end. When the class is great, people want to know more about you and what you have to offer. Always. So quickly go over what you have to sell: music, DVDs, congresses, classes, workshops, performances, websites… Be brief but make the offer and tell them where to get it. It is not a bad thing, people crave more information. The ones who don’t want to listen will leave, don’t take it personally. You are offering, the ones who want to buy will listen. Nothing to loose. Five to eight minutes at most.
To resist temptation is one of the hardest things in life.
Dancing is for me Huuuge temptation. Broken arm or not; Fractured bone or not.
There was so much I could take but by Saturday I had to give in a little bit. In a safe way but still… resisting dancing was not one of them.
As soon as I got to the first party of the Congress, still on Thursday night, I saw this guy, I looked at him and felt total empathy. I just said:
‘My friend! Let me take a picture for my blog!’
I don’t think I had seen him before… the immediate rapport was due to his clutches and a visible damaged leg.
Talking to him he told me he was still going for surgery… my thoughts go to you friend, hoping all goes well.
The instant friends Ms. Broken Arm & Mr. Broken Leg at SSC09
‘Rugby accident.’ He said.
‘Fell off a horse.’ I answered.
And we kept meeting around the parties (literally walking on the border of the dance floors) the rest of the congress…
If you could only go to the Congress to watch, I bet you wouldn’t resist as well.
I have a thing for finding empty places to dance at. Have done my fair share of performances for invisible public and imaginary admirers.
I was perusing the Brazilian Room party on Saturday night at the congress when I found out that the room was actually a huge space limited by a curtain. Behind it I found a half-dark place with a huuuuuuge wooden, perfect floor, and not a sole person around. As it was just separated from the main floor by cloth the music leaked through it in the same intensity and even a bit of the party lights. The song was one of Mafie Zouker’s and it was going through me directly into my soul.
I took off my shoes and barefooted I began dancing without even realising I was doing it… moving around the floor, spinning, letting the rhythm guide me, letting the beats beat my heart, letting the tears roll… of the sheer emotion I was experiencing. One of those magical, inspired occurrences of a lifetime, that sensation will stay with me forever. I can still close my eyes and feel the dance floor under me and the sensation hugging my body.
I stopped only when I saw someone watching me. I chatted with him for a bit, near the door, until a security guard was a bit rude and scurried us away from there. Anyway, I was already happy. But got even happier when my friend J.C. saved my congress by dancing one music with me. We went to the front of the room where I wouldn’t risk bumping my hurt arm into anyone and did a “one hand” dance. Fortunately my good arm is the right one and that’s the one most of the zouk leads come from.
It was a strange dance, I lead myself a bit, turned to the wrong sides, had to stop now and then, when someone came anywhere near my elbow. But despite all that, it was an amazing thing. I needed that one dance so badly I just closed my eyes and enjoyed it to its full extent. Those two songs were my personal highlights in the congress.
Jaime Jesus and Tania with Capoeira Brasil at SSC09
Oh! And the picture with the pretty boys for Capoeira Brasil!
The stage is a piece of tear in the fabric of the world. It’s a different place than the others. People on stage gain magical powers that they wouldn’t have when walking in the mall. Dance is the instrument of this power. It is so amazing how the people’s perception change and get altered by this special power.
A great example is my mum. She is a small person and she is a physicist and a teacher. I remember one day to be talking to someone that had been her student and he said to me that he only realised she wasn’t tall months after she stopped teaching him, she was so imposing when teaching, so powerful, he thought she was much taller than reality. One day he passed her by at the Uni and realised she wasn’t big at all!
That is what happens to these big dancers we have around. Jaime Jesus, Nestor Manuelian, Johnny Vasquez, Tony Lara, Oliver Piñeda, are not very tall men but man! how huge do they look on stage!
I keep looking at them dance, with mouth open and cannot tear my eyes off of them, yet they are normal people in a normal surrounding, as am I.
Amazing Little Liz is another bright star on the dance stage and floor.
Other, not short, talents also come to my mind, some dancers that steal all the attention when on stage, Angelo Salgado and his smile, he burns brightly, this year he got the permanent Australian visa for Special Talent and such a right thing it was. He is a very special talent indeed. I looked to the people around me watching his show and we were all grinning like idiots.
And Fernando, the Suave man. I can’t precise what’s about him, a charm or something. He turns and step and smile and move, and you sigh…
Fernando Providel & Tania / Nestor Manuelian, Tania & Lidia MacMahon / Super Mario & Tania
These dancers are all so especial, they have personalities that leak out of them, that enfold the viewers making them believe the impossible.
Lastly I’ll talk about someone a bit larger, Super Mario, the one everyone in the salsa scene is in love with.
You don’t have another choice but to like him.
Last year I saw him dancing with four or five little girls from New Zealand’s team, it was in the party after the shows and he was leading them all so well, it was delightful to watch.
This year, with my broken arm I had a chance to talks with him these days before the congress, he was harbouring a hurt hand also so we exchanged a few tears, from the pain and I told him he should keep his hand in the protective gear he told me I should keep my arm imobile, funny dialogue.
Capoeira Performance at the Sydney Salsa Congress - Brazilian Room 2009
I still remember the first time I’ve seen the party at the Sydney Salsa Congress and every time I get goose bumps.
That was what made me decide: yes, I will learn this salsa thing.
One live band playing for thousands of salseros going crazy at an enormous wooden floor. Filling up the State Sport’s Centre is a feat. And all those people spinning and partying to the sounds of a live salsa band was enough to amaze any watcher.
This year the Sydney Salsa Congress had a special something for the dancers.
On Saturday and Sunday the rooms were divided.
There was the regular Salsa room that continued to play Salsa, Bachata, Chacha and Merengue.
Then there was a new Brazilian Room. A dream comes true for Marcia Percival, and a lot of other dancers like me.
It was the acknowledgement that the other styles are getting more and more from the latin dancers’ time.
In this room we had Zouk, Forro and Samba for everyone to dance, also Marcia led an Axe, Kadu and Larissa performed a Gafieira Show, the Capoeira boys stole the stage for their amazing acrobatics and everyone went crazy on the Samba Parade with all this girls going crazy behind the drums.
Jeanne is such a beauty dancing I couldn’t stop looking at her moves. She is a Brazilian Dancer in Australia, a contestant at “So You Think You Can Dance” the Reality TV Show this year. The DJs were great, Amit DJ Zoubasa, Kadu, Mafie Zouker made everyone dance until they dropped.
This dancing until you drop at this congress is not an exaggeration. If you seen a previous picture I posted of the guys resting on the floor you will get my meaning. These people start dancing on Thursday night, go until late, then wake up, attend workshops all day, then party all night, repeated for two more days. My sister was driving me and every time she got out or into the car she was saying:
’Ai, ai, ai, ai.’
Translation to English:
‘Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.’ That is how bad everyone gets.
Tais dancing the congress away in the first 2 photos / Tatiana & Gaspar – Zouk at the Brazilian Room SSC 2009
By Friday afternoon you have your doubts you will be able to keep going, but the party is oh sooo goood! So you dance until you can’t walk anymore. Then yes, another song you like plays exactly when you think you’ve had enough, you have to dance it. You go to the car or hotel room thinking you are stepping on shards of glass. Your feet cannot take it anymore.
When you wake up you keep thinking if someone got the plate of the truck that hit you. Then you close your eyes and see the workshop schedule you have memorised. You know you cannot miss that class! Only god knows how you get up and get changed.
By Saturday you think you will not survive but you keep going, it’s all just too good not to. By Sunday half of you are enjoying all moments the most as the congress is almost finished and the other half cannot see the end of it.
Monday is an official sick day. You cannot get out of bed still you have a smile stuck onto your face.
The parties this year also had a nice appeal to it.
The organizers had this idea of “selling dances” where all the money went to World Vision, the charity. So a few people got some dances with the international and national artists, without having to make up the nerve to ask them for a dance.
Instead they paid for a dance, and contributed for a charity.
That is what I call winwin.
Dancers are all the same, ever.
Talking about international artists I was watching Tatiana dance a zouk, her first zouk ever, with Gaspar. She was beautiful and soft. Of course she missed a few leads and looked a bit panicked but still she followed and did really well. It is funny how even being a dancer like her, so good, she would still feel insecure and ask after the dance: ‘did I look too bad?’
‘No Tatiana, you didn’t look any bad, not at all.’ And I got beautiful pictures to prove it.
Dancers are like that, able to improvise, move no matter to what music, follow or lead partners, dance with one hand, and create in all matters.
See this picture of a dancer who created a different way to hold a bottle of water:
Different way to hold your bottle of drink at SSC09
Kim and Alex, Dave and Zoe joined forces and performed a show together. It was striking! A show with moves, tricks, dips and magic that kept the public in love with the routine from beginning to end.
On the other hand, technique and pure dance beauty, will enthral everyone in the same way,
I’m still sighting when I think of Jordan and Tatiana.
Some people don’t need theme, costumes, don’t need props, some don’t even need music, only their dance enthralls the viewer.
Especially for couple dancing two things will show clearly on stage:
How much training they had;
How many times they performed the choreo.
Remember that the longer partners have been dancing together, usually, the better the connection is. It’s better to avoid partnering people up last minute, or making changes in partners just before a big performance.
The best show moves are the ones you don’t see either coming or going. The transitions have to be smooth as… It is great to perform something new for the first time at a big event but the following performances on stage are usually much better than the first one. It’s sometimes worth performing at a small event before going to a large event. It’s about the confidence you get.
The amount of training taken before the big day will show in how clean the choreo is. The smaller the group on stage, the cleaner the choreo and movements have to be.
Cleanliness is more important that speed of movements. Some dancers think that if it fast, it is good, and everyone will only think about how fast the routine is. Wrong, the faster it is the cleaner it has to be, every movement has to be perfect, every arm has to stretch it fully, if they are to be stretched. Half movements ruin a routine.
The clean, fast, routine usually appears slower than it is, because good dancers make it look fast but easy.
I was once in a doctor near my ballet school straight after training and I was all flushed, sweaty, tired.
An old lady looked at me and asked what I was doing.
‘I just finished my Ballet class’ I answered.
‘How come? It looks so easy and light and soft?’ She asked me back.
That is the trick. Make it look easy, and light, even if it is fast.
One detail that has to be taken in consideration in a routine is a scenic technique: where do you want the public to focus,
Do you want the attention of the viewer to be divided or not?
For example, in Jaime & Liz’s choreo all I could see was Jaime’s spotted boxer. If they were not sooo good I would be able to focus on something else. I still laugh every time I think of those boxers.
If you want complete attention to a particular part of of the performance, remember to make everything else completely still. If you want people to be overwhelmed in their senses move all elements in different directions.
Novelty is the last thing I can think of as important in a choreo, but it’s one of the first the public will notice.
IUAC from Melbourne gave me the shivers with a start in slow motion they used. Not that it is something never used before but it was different from all else and gave such a great effect to the choreo.
That is how much they have trained: until they dropped!
Last year we performed a “zoukaton” routine at the congress, a fast zouk to reggaeton music.
It was different, sexy and oh! so much fun, we then took it to Brisbane’s Brazilian Congress. Jaime’s creation may have influenced others a bit as we have seen a few other zouk routines to reggaeton this year.
I had a few people coming to me to say a lot of nice things about the choreo and how different it was.
This congress he came up with a routine that was exceptional again. This time it was for LDA Pro Team. Half zouk, half salsa shines. I simply loved it. The costume was beautiful, and things were happening everywhere, all the time, making the most of the divided attention thing. The zouk was heartfelt, using the music fully, with tricks and dips and changing partners, the shines was so clean and good I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I’m bias but who cares, I loved it!
That was in my opinion a great example of a work of art!
Summarizing, the elements to consider on a choreography are:
Show moves
Technique
Training
How many times the show was performed on stage
Transitions between moves
Cleanliness of movements
Cleanliness is more important that speed of movements
Claudio & Monica social dancing Zouk at The SSC 2009
The search for what makes a choreo great goes on.
During the congress I wasn’t dancing I went to all the parties, shows and a few workshops, so I got a bit tired. This thing of having a fractured bone with a constant pain also added to my feeling exhausted. So although I had planed to write on Saturday and Sunday mornings I ended up sleeping instead. The dancers among my readers will understand me well, the people that go clubbing too.
Therefore, I now have three nights of shows in my head, I will have to use them as I go, forget about the linearity of the tale and just enjoy the links in the thinking.
I realised that, as I said before, the music is essential but there are catches to it. For example, if you get a great music but doesn’t use it well it is as bad as if you didn’t get a great song at all. Look for music with ups and downs, breaks and strong beats, something dramatic always adds flair to the performance. And a good choreographer uses it.
One of the guys in the dance world in Sydney that is a master of this and one of my favourite partners in the dance floor is Claudio Gomes from Step Up. When I was just getting there with my Zouk dancing I went to a 101°C Party and danced with him. It was one of “the good ones”, a perfect dance with no lost leads and the perfect following of his movements.
When we finished one of my fellow dancers, J. Gray, came to me to say:
‘I never got Zouk until tonight. I saw you dancing with the Brazilian Teacher and finally got it. It was amazing.’
And he commented on the following of the beats of the music.
So that is what Claudio and Monica with their Formation Team performed on Sunday and brought a wonderful example of following the song. They chose a great music, added a charming costume and did a beautiful piece using every single beat of the song.
Once again I will proclaim not to be neutral. Zouk is my favourite dance and this year, the shows I liked the best were the ones of this style. I know it is the Sydney Salsa Congress, so Salsa is in the spotlight but, no one who saw Kadu and Larissa, and Mafie Zouker, will tell me they were not incredible!
Kadu & Larissa Gafieira’s performance at The SSC 2009
I couldn’t even describe how amazing those shows were, but of course you are talking some of the best in the world here.
I’m trying to muster words to describe. It was like an earthquake or a volcano explosion you “witness”.
By the end of each of the choreos, I felt like saying only one thing: “Please do it again! Please, please, please, let me see it once more? Can I get the video right now? Can I take it home?”
I felt like Scooby Doo when he got one of those dog’s cookies in the cartoon, I felt like I jut had a treat, felt like floating in the air, eyes closed, hugging myself.
Larissa must be a demigoddess with divine powers, like the ones from mythology made from the intervention of one of the pagan gods.
She is so smooth, so liquid on stage and yet so perfect in her movements that it is indescribable. With partners that do what they do, Kadu and Mafie Zouker, there was nothing more amazing.
Larissa & Tania / Mafie Zouker / Mafie Zouker & Marcia Pinheiro dancing at the SSC 2009
Kadu and Larissa performed on Saturday and I went home not with the image of them in my mind but with the blur of incredible sensations they caused in me.
Then on Sunday Mafie Zouker took her, in a choreography created and rehearsed in only one week together, I’m not even sure they had met ever before then, I don’t think so.
He may be a bit of a snob, but Mafie Zouker is still one of the best zoukers in the world. His body movement is so sexy girls feel like melting, guys feel like imitating him. Putting him to dance with Larissa was not fair to the rest of the world. Then you add Kadu from the middle of the routine onwards and you get the shivers. [Choreo here]
I cannot wait to see it again, and that will be only on video. That is why this congress we cannot miss, even with a faulty wing. Things that happen here will not be replicated ever in any other place. The chances of getting these three together again on stage are very small indeed and even if they did, this choreo is unique made for this place alone. Completely unique.
I love Jaime’s choreographies, for me he is one of these geniuses of Latin Dance.
Jaime Jesus is one of the owners of Latin Dance Australia and one of the three that put the Congress together.
I worked for him and Marcia Percival (the other owner of LDA and parter at the SSC) for four years and had the time of my life doing so.
Marcia Pinheiro Percival at The Sydney Salsa Congress 2009
So please forgive me if I like his creations, I will not proclaim I’m neutral, but you will see I am fair in my writing.
On Thursday LDA’s advanced Salsa Student team performed at the congress.
It was a choreo I had seen before and already loved but it was even cleaner and perfect this time. The only little thing that was half a beat off, was Jaime’s lift of his partner at the end. I have a very good eye for details because of my years as a ballet dancer and could not understand how Jaime, the choreographer himself, could be the only one making the move a bit behind. When I talked to him after the shows I discovered why: a Dancing Bug!
The lift was to get the girl on top of the guy’s shoulder then bring them down, I’m not exactly sure how, as even if you are doing lifts yourself it feels like a magic trick.
Well, when he had his partner over his shoulder, with her legs in the direction of his head, Jaime’s earring got caught in her fishnet stockings! He solved it so smoothly no-one even realised what happened.
These bugs are funny and there are so many of them that the public does not realise!
It’s been years and years that I have been in the search and still I cannot tell you exactly what makes a great choreography.
I have probably been on stage more than a hundred times.
The most difficult piece I’ve ever performed was also probably the shortest and my dream come true: the two minutes and thirty-six seconds of the Swan Lake’s, the White Swan, Odette Variation [example here].
It was the toughest training I have ever endured.
My teacher used to weight us every class, and show off to the other students our blisters, two in each toe. t
To prove they could still rehearse with the points with only one or two small blisters on their feet.
Anyway, since then, I’ve been looking for this “what” that makes a great choreography…
I have a few ideas, nothing conclusive, maybe, by the end of the congress, I will know a bit more.
Some examples of genius come to my mind…
I’ve seen this video with a salsa choreography that was a Masquerade at the UK Salsa Congress two or three years ago.
Oliver Piñeda performed a solo with it which was unforgettable.
This masquerade was the most beautiful salsa routine for a group that I had ever seen until then.
Obviously this is too personal, I loved the music and the style.
Here are some things that showed they really put effort into:
The costumes were so appropriate, they really looked like they were dancing at the grand ball dance floor of the Chenonceau, a castle in France that has this ballroom right on top of the Loire river.
The formations, the harmony, the expressions and the movements… the final result was sublime.
Oliver Piñeda and Tania at the SSC
Last night I saw great things and choreographies and in each I could tell, in my opinion, where they have done better. I will say a few things that were remarkable.
Latin Dance Melbourne brought a really nice Reggaeton, good energy, good moves a sexy group and what called my attention was how clean the choreo was.
On that note the group from Rio Rhythmics, the zouk with two ladies for one man was also clean and nice to watch. The public loved it and the guys looked like they were having the time of their lives.
Bachatango is something I brought close to my heart so I had to love Latin Energy’s routine. I wrote about it at the bachateros website (www.bachateros.com.au), they used such a sexy French song!
In my search I found out that music is number one to start a great choreo.
Costumers are as important to make it look good. I will have to confess here that I think the latin scene still has quite a bit to improve on this.
Not because the costumes are not good but because most of us forget about adequacy. By that I mean that although some things are beautiful on the plan, they do not look good on the people using it. As simple as that: if you have ladies with a bit of muffins (or love handles) you shouldn’t put them almost naked on stage, even if you have one girl that will look good on it. Actually this shouldn’t be chosen by how the majority will look, it’s something the minority should resolve. If one guy or one lady doesn’t look his or her best, the costume should be changed. The group has to look good. Latin dancers tend to love sexy, tight and cleavage, but all those have to be used with expertise when applied to each person its going to cover, or not!
My favourite costume from last night was the Pirates Team’s although others also come to my mind.
Becky’s girls, the Charleston costume from Salsa Connection in Adelaide, the ladies in Red from Sydney.
I’m not sure what was better, the body paining of that afrocuban team or the routine… hard choice.
Still from the Pirate’s routine another thing made it an awesome choreography: the rehearsed facial expressions. That was amazing, the guys were standing out, they all made these funny open mouthed expressions at the same time, each with his own flavour but I loved it. I usually prefer natural expressions. I don’t like the faces the ballroom dancers use on their routines with all his forced expressions that ruin the photos and distract your attention from the dancing itself, but in this case it was part of the characterization of the piece. It was beautiful, nice pirates!
Another school that was stuck in my mind was the one where the guys were dancing a very nice Michael Jackson and the girls did a nice thing at a break of the music.
Four of them looking to the back, with the shorts so short guys would fall instantly in love with their legs. So I bet everyone was looking to their bums, specially when the first girls started moving it side to side on the beat of the music, followed by the second girl half a bar later, then the third, and the fourth.
Simple, simple, simple choreographing but an effect that drove the public to shouting and whistling!!!
The three groups that always stand out for the beauty, their technical abilities and the amazing salsa are for me the ones from this city I love, my Sydney (sorry rest of Australia, I have to be a bit bias here):
They are the ones I’ve seen the most, I dance with them a lot, so it is impossible for me to separate what is real technical quality and what is pure love, so I will just say I loved their performances.
Last another completely biased opinion, my Angels were beautiful. I’m happy to say I didn’t cry.
I was supposed to be dancing an Angel choreography that I didn’t make due to my broken wing.
This performance was created for Lee Wright a fellow dancer who is gone to the other side of the dancing stage… we dance for him, hoping he is dancing in heaven.
I felt happy and proud to have been with them in the making of this homage to Lee Wright.
To have wore the angel’s wings, to have teased Tony Lara saying: how are we going to be angels dancing Bachata? Bachata is too naughty to be heavenly. Well I was wrong. They looked like heavenly to me, even my partner’s unholy smile!
31 Orble Votes
Latin Dance Melbourne – Reggaeton team in Jeans
Strictly Salsa – Ladies in red
My Dance Partner, Junaid Jaffar, and his smile backstage
Watching last night’s shows without dancing myself was a different experience,
I could see things I haven’t realised before. The one that stands out is that anyone can dance. More than just that, no mater your physical type, your age or any physical characteristics, everyone looks good, the differences are only genetic make up. Being the night for the student shows, the variety was bigger.
I have to confess that as a ballet dancer (by default always tending to the anorexic type) I do think professional dancers, have to take good care of what is their “bread and butter”: their own body, their spirit’s house, to the best of their hability.
I spent my entire teenage phase counting calories of everything I ate. I cannot deny that great bodies on stage do appeal to the plasticity of the art. Nonetheless, I also know that when not professional, dancers should think of only one thing: have fun! From training to performance.
I could see all types on stage, the outgoing and the shy, the gorgeous and the… not that pretty; some so thin I wanted to feed them at the end of the choreo, others could eat a bit more broccolis, maybe.
There were the bold and the introverts, like they had it shining in their foreheads: “my life is indoors” and the outgoing ones that seemed to transmit: “come to papa!”.
There was a huge variety but all united by one thing: dancing.
The stage adds to everyone’s power. There is always something nice to say: great smiles shine like super novas up there.
This girl with a white Charleston costume had a great body roll, that one from Groove Brazil, dancing with Angelo, could dip so gracefully!
That guy was having such a good time it was contagious, the one dressed as a pirate, made me feel like laughing out loud of sheer happiness as I was watching him dance.
The public knows about energy, how it feels when you are up there and the public likes it.
Every person helps, screaming, clapping, wowing at the right moments. There are cheering crowds for specific teams or cities.
One of the brilliant ideas of this congress is not to be a competition, Jaime Jesus, Marcia Pinheiro and Angela Lau are the heads behind it all.
From the start they decided it is to be about sharing and growing and helping and it is. You meet people, make friends, have chats, the atmosphere is great.
Backstage at the Sydney Salsa Congress 09
I felt so loved last night… A lot of people came to talk to me, ask me what happened to my arm (also referred to wing, paw, sling, etc) showed me sympathy. I could see it in their eyes… they understood in a way only another dancer will.
I also could feel they took it to their hearts when I said: enjoy it, every second, if anything happens like with me and you can’t dance, even for one day, you have to be able to think as I’m doing now: that’s ok, because I took it all from every dance I had until then: no regrets.
Other than Salsa, the other styles are getting more and more space in the Latin scene: Zouk, Bachata, Bachatango, Reggaeton, Afro-Cuban and Samba made their way to the stage with nice appearances. Dance makes dancers beautiful, more powerful, taller and shinier than they could ever be, just on the street…
I send my Love to all the performers last night. You were all great, it was my privilege to watch and shout. I’m sorry that I couldn’t clap with one hand, although my legs are showing the results of me clapping hard onto them.
taniacreations.com 