Ah, Performing! (sigh) I absolutely love performing.

Since I started it I cannot say exactly why. I’ve been trying to figure it out for a long time.

I love being on stage, feeling special, having all the eyes on me, who cares if I’m at the back and there are another 29 bodies performing?

It is as if it is all about me, that everyone is thinking: oh look how pointed is her left foot! 

Anyway, I feel powerful, elated!

The lights, the sounds, the music, the costumes, it all ads up to my heart beating like a rabbit’s; my hairs going up at the back of my neck.

I can’t get enough of the sensation!

I was thinking about the Sydney Salsa Congress, and I realized that performing is like doing the horizontal mambo. Specially Latin dancing. To reach a performance you start with the foreplays, you get to know your partner, how he moves, you show him (or her) your moves.

It doesn’t matter if there is no sexual tension between the two of you, even if it is all about the dancing and only about it; it is still like a date:

1. You choose the right clothes for the occasion, for dancing they are the ones that don’t slip, that won’t fall at the wrong times, with good sleeves for that choreo, preference for fabrics nice to touch and that don’t make you feel too sweaty. As in a date, you will also choose the right underwear. Girls will pay attention it doesn’t show and doesn’t disturb them to dance.
2. You will be well groomed, and pay attention about your bodily smells for sure. I love what this guy said to me the other day: dancers have no idea about personal space. So if you have someone invading yours, you will take care of your armpits and breath at their very best. I guarantee girls will shave, wax, use make up, perfume more than if they were going out with Brad Pitt. 
3. You will get all excited about the date, I mean, the training. Dancing is good. Always. Again it’s like bed acrobatics. Even when it’s bad, it’s still better than not having it, therefore, it’s good. 

Here I have to add a small alert: if you are training and not having fun, no mater if you are an amateur or professional, something is wrong. It’s time to re‐evaluate it all. Dancing is about loving it, every step of the way.

When you are starting your trainings, you will have to learn the sequence, like a good intercourse you will savour each step, each touch, each detail.

You will feel powerful for being able to do each movement, you will learn to move as one with your partner. If you love dancing, you will rejoice with every turn, you will fly in every trick, you will smile and yes, you will also complain. 

Any type of congress of bodies is subjected to a lot of pain, good muscle pain. It happens often on the following day, getting worse on the following of the following day.

A few mishaps, even a fall here and there is expected. The accidental arm that connects where it shouldn’t; accidents happen, both in the bedroom and in the training room.

The number of times you do it doesn’t affect the soreness. Having done it your whole life, doesn’t prepare you enough.

Depending on which part of the choreo you are concentrating on, you will use different muscles and feel them burning later.

It’s like using “That Book” ‐ you know which one, don’t you? The ancient one, full of interesting pictures? Well the use of the book will guarantee sore muscles on the following day.

Choreographies are bound to do the same. 

As you get closer to the performance you are doing it. It’s not foreplay anymore. You know what to do and you go for it. You use your full power, you strain every fibre of your body. You become athletic and go all the way. 

You let the feelings, emotions, love and devotions take you over.
You leave your body do what it knows to do and let your soul fly, enjoying the moment. 

If you get worried about doing something wrong, making mistakes, anxious about your partner’s performance or anything like that, you are concentrating in the wrong part of the business. Like making love, it is not about how it looks, it’s about how it feels. 

Then and only then you are in the performance. That, my friends, is the climax. Plain and full Ecstasy, with a capitol letter.

54 Orble Votes

Pre-party at my sister’s place / LDA Samba Carnaval Dancers with Amy Mills / Band at Carnaval party

Brazilian Carnaval parties are happening tonight [26 & 27 Feb 2009] in Manly and Thursday in the City.

Of course there is samba and music and the people that can dance are dancing.

Carnaval in Brazil is about loud, loud, loud music, drums, jumping, having fun, drinking, and making out.

No real dance skills are required, just a total lack of self-contiousness.

If you want to have the night of your life, you must try it out, only being there you will be able to understand how is it that a whole country, 196 million people, stop because of it for over a week.

For more information: check “One Night In Brazil”
Or take samba classes at Latin Dance Australia

See you there! 

43 Orble Votes

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.

22 Orble Votes

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):

• Latin Motion
• Modus Vivendi
• Latin Dance Australia

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

All at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009

Strictly Salsa Team 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.

20 Orble Votes