I just came back from a week of holidaying in New Zealand. It was great! Being there, I was trying to take time apart from the only two addictions that I have in life: Latin dancing and my mobile phone (this one, only recently developed).
The withdrawal effects were really soon noticeable, especially my dependence on dancing.
I was based in Christchurch, the third largest city in New Zealand, so I went out night hopping to find… people.
There weren’t many except on New Year’s Eve. What we did find though was a nice little night club that played 70’s to 90’s songs that are nice to Boogie to. Their decorations were fun, with a lighted floor and an old VW Kombi as the DJ box.
So there I was, using the bit of dancing energy that I accumulated over the past few days of absolutely no Bachata, no Zouk and no Salsa.
What was really nice to see though (and here comes the Bachata part of the story) was when I arrived the second time at the Boogie’s night club and find a couple dancing Bachata to the old songs.
They were actually doing the dance that fit better with the rhythm of the song then they danced Cha-Cha, Salsa and then some more Bachata.
It is funny how some people just do not realise they are not supposed to do something and simply do it anyway. It is how great inventions come about, how dreams become reality and how genius minds work. Amazing… Those two were having so much fun just dancing what felt good with the songs, and it worked!
I couldn’t feel envious. Had I found someone to do exactly the same with me I would have done it for sure!
It is like Bachatango. People sometimes feel that there is not much else to be invented and there comes someone that never felt that way and just do it. Mixing Bachata with tango was a brilliant idea.
I know, I know, I was told that knowing a bit about Bachatango doesn’t give me the right to go to the tango clubs and think I’m dancing tango. Apparently the deed was done by the Bachata geniuses… so the tango dancers seem to be a bit unhappy about the arrangement, as they say it isn’t proper tango.
All I care about is having fun, and that this is still a new style that is fun, beautiful, daring and pleasant. I’ve done a workshop and liked it a lot, almost feeling like an Argentinean Tango Dancer, I’ve put my nose up, got on my toes, drawn crosses with my legs and pretended I was the best. I have no idea what it looked like, all I know is that it was great.
I love new creations, new ideas, and people that think outside the box.
Another great example is the Bachata Moderna. Suddenly someone got out of the lines, the crosses, the squares, the side-to-side and back-to-front and simple went crazy! New things bring life to life and dance to dancing!
So the message is for this New Year is: try new things! Have fun! It doesn’t matter where or how… Do what your heart sings to you. Even if it is dancing cha-cha-cha to Mama-mia! Go Boogie!
I just found out I have a broken arm. So I went looking for things I had already written to publish.
As a one-hand-typist I’m an excellent dancer… I found this text I wrote a few years ago. Here it is:
“There are hundreds of things to do in Sydney, and I’ve done most of them.
Aquariums, going to the top of the list, to all the marvellous beaches, the Maritime Museum, the 3D Cinema… Yet, I decided to do something a few people would have thought to. Few people meaning “the blessed ones that dance”.
It all came to my mind during one of my lonely night walks. I was going back home from Woolloomooloo to Balgowlah, a long and magical way that includes a walk through the park, a ferry ride and a bus trip. Just as I entered Hyde Park , with my CD-player banging music in my ears I was stunned by the sight of the rounded water fountain that has a level grass circle and an amphitheatre around it.
What had let me in awe was the perfect background, the sight of the cathedral all illuminated, the warm weather, the loneliness of the park. It was then that the idea stuck in my mind and I knew it would not go away until I made it come true. I dreamt about it the whole night.
In the morning it was the first thing on my mind, and the idea guided me during my daily tasks: getting changed I chose a pair of soft black pants, stretchy black tops, old black socks. The shoes didn’t matter; I would take them off.
I made sure I didn’t forget my CD player, the same CD I was listening to the day before, something to attach the CD player onto my body.
Then I was ready; the difficult thing would be to wait until the night time. I worked as someone with the mind on the moon. Every chance I had during the day, I used to listen to the same music. Over and over again. And finally I could go home.
It was as if some god had blessed my idea.
I was gifted with a round, perfect, yellowish and big full moon, just above the cathedral.
As I got to the fountain I set my backpack on the steps, took my shoes off.
Then, I looked around me, to make sure that I was alone.
Next, I put my CD player and chose that music, I strapped my player onto my torso, with a tight belt bag. Then I danced. I left my body follow the rhythm, the drums, the voices, every and each sound. I drank of the liberty, I let my soul be filled with the beauty of the place, and delivered my movements to the universe.
I was one with Sydney, with its air, its lights, it’s night.
In this blessed place, the one city in the world I can say I love with all my heart.”
Tais, Tania, Juliana and Marcia having fun dancing the CanCan at Ana’s Birthday Party
Sometimes I feel like an idiot, because every time I dance I’m smiling the whole time. I’m sure it will be a bit of a problem because Latin Dancing as it is, is already all sexy and stuff, the guys that don’t know me will think its all about them! Well nothing I can do about it.
I’ve been like this my whole life, while my teenage friends were all worried about boys I was running from one ballet school to another and worried to remember the steps from the choreo practice from the day before.
I’m Brazilian but never danced any of the Latin styles while in Brazil, only one Samba on ballet points dressed in a sack written “Café do Brasil”, I’m sure this doesn’t count.
My long dancing career at that time was comprised of classical and contemporary styles. Even then, I was already like today: totally and completely addicted to dancing.
But as a teenager I didn’t know I wouldn’t live forever and especially, I thought dancing was mine for the keep.
Not a reality by the way, before I restarted dancing here I had to stop for 6 years, lots of things happened, work related and personal issues, during this time I came to Australia and worked really hard for a Permanent Visa. Several times I would wake up in the middle of the night crying, tears running down my cheeks because I dreamt I was dancing, I was on stage, I could do the splits or seven pirouettes without effort. Not dancing was my cross to bear all those years.
Now, I am much more aware of how precious is a dance, and having had a sense of the fragility of life, and how one day you may be able to do something next day it may be out of reach for whatever reason, I enjoy every single dance that happens upon me. And I grin like and idiot!
I just love dancing. I’m talking real Love here, capital L. So much that every turn is like a miracle, every time I get the lead right is like the achievement of my life, every second counts, a dip feels like a blessing and a nice word at the end of the music makes my night or my day. Dancing is my bliss, my heaven, my love… my own, my precious!
To everyone my advice is: enjoy! You are never too good, a move or a choreography is never boring, a class is never slow, a dance is never wasted, not if you really dance for the love of it. Take it all! No mater what, have fun!
Here is the proof you are a Latin Dance Addict, see if you identify yourself with this:
You are singing the songs, even the ones in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, not having a clue what you are saying.
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!
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).
The kitchen floor shows the results of your steps, the scratches are all over it.
You know by heart all the music that you have in your mp3 player, CDs, Computer, etc.
Worse if you know all the music that are NOT there, and you neeeed to have it, ASAP!
There is no music of any kind that you don’t see yourself dancing …
You may forget to put your clothes on but you will never forget your music player, you would feel naked without music.
You are hooked on YouTube and Facebook, you click “yes, I’m coming” to 123 events on a weekend.
In Facebook you can feel your heartbeat accelerates when a great new event appear online.
On YouTube your “favourites” only have dance videos.
You think that sweating is normal, more than that, it’s sexy.
You collect bruises and show them around, obviously the histories of how they were acquired have to follow.
You never leave the house without a full change of clothes in your bag, and several pairs of dance shoes, obviously.
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.
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.
When you are in a choreo, if the song is in English, parts of the lyrics of the song sneak into your vocabulary.
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.
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.
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…).
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…
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!
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!
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.
I have a theory that Bachata was conceived during the inquisition times as a means of torture when the Spanish in the Americas were trying to break people into confessing they were Witches and Warlocks.
They would say one of two things:
‘Hey! You two! Do you like each other?’
Male: ‘Yes.’
Female: ‘Yes.’
‘Ok, so this is what you are going to do: you are going to dance to this song, this way, one, two, three, hip… But you are going to do it close. Really close to each other.’
Male and Female: ‘Like this?’
‘Closer, now!’ The torturer instructs shouting. ‘If I see one sniff of air between the two of you, I’m going to cut your heads off!’
So the inquisitor would put this music on and make them dance.
Never mind about any turns or twists, patterns and any of the more elaborate stuff.
I’m talking about just the Bachata basics, that’s all.
After the dance that is when the torture would really begin. He would say:
‘Now, go to your cells. Separate cells, I said!’
I bet in ten minutes they would be begging for hellfire.
Now back to real life, I keep wondering why we do this to ourselves. This dancing thing, it is like the sweetest of all tortures.
You have these beautiful songs and your insides go all mushy, funny and all strange. Making you yearn for something you can’t describe or even understand what it is. I think it’s more addictive than any drug.
You keep going out on Tuesday, Wednesday & Sunday nights knowing that the next morning you have to wake up early and when you wake up you will be feeling like an animal hit by a truck and yet, there you are. Midnight long gone, you’ll dance just one more Bachata but walking to the car is close to impossible.
Every step makes you think you are going to your cell all alone with a pure bed of nails for you to rest on.
I used to think it was only the ladies that would get soft knees after one dance with a mythical creature like the Red Dragon or some other. But recently I heard from a reliable source that guys suffer just the same.
The other thing the inquisitor would say is – Do you like each other?
Male: ‘No.’
Female: ‘No.’
‘Ok, so this is what you are going to do: you are going to dance to this song, this way, one, two, three, hip… But you are going to do it close. Really close to each other.’
Male and Female: ‘Like this?’
‘Closer, now!’ The torturer instructs shouting. ‘If I see one sniff of air between the two of you, I’m going to cut your heads off!’
So the inquisitor would put this music on and make them dance.
That is, the basics steps. But it would be one of those endless songs. The fifteen minute one that is usually associated with Salsa.
The victims would truly confess everything, or maybe not. Because, even with someone you don’t much like, Bachata is still nice.
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.
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!
taniacreations.com 