We started the evening with a beginner and intermediate workshop. Kimberly and Nina taught the beginner class and along with the salsa basics covered Cuban inside turns and sexy styling. Evan and I did the intermediate class and really challenged the group. Just remember when you are doing a club class that the quality of the class will not be at the level of a group class. It is harder to hear, there are more students of all types of skill levels and the combination is longer. So just keep in mind that it is not necessary to get the whole combination. Whatever you can remember and feel comfortable executing is fine. And don’t leave the club without reviewing the combo at least ten if not twenty times so you commit it to memory.

After the lesson the lights went down and the social dancing began. The DJ played non stop salsa for 1.5hrs which was a great opportunity to really practice and get into the swing of things. I loved seeing beginners dancing with intermediate students and vice versa. It was also great seeing old students I haven’t seen in a while and I encourage everyone to get back into the salsa groove even if you have taken the summer off as this fall and winter will have plenty of dancing opportunities and a chance to meet great new friends.

Our next outing is this Saturday Sept 27th at 9pm at Peridot…see you all there!

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Evan and I were out very early on Sunday shopping for all the yummy desserts and decorations for the evening. By noon we were setting up at the studio, then I taught 3 hours of class and I don’t think we left the studio until 11pm which was a long day but everyone’s energy and enthusiasm kept us fully motivated!

At 4pm Evan, David and Annamarie began to set up the tables, chairs, balloons, etc. With the help of Emely, Joanne, Karina, Sara and many more the studio was transformed for the evening. We opened the doors to DJ Evan’s awesome salsa at 5:30pm and by 6:00pm the studio was hopping. Throughout the evening we had many TDS friends and students drop by to enjoy the tasty desserts and dance the evening away. It was great to see so many faces.

Monica, Selena and Annamarie took care of providing everyone with a Spanish version of their name and there were some very creative and sexy nametags in attendance. Thanks also to Joanne and Daniel for helping.

At 7pm Alfred and Nina started off the performances with a bang. Camela and Manuel performed their choreography from the finals of the competition and finally to end the evening off Bryant & Faye from Tango Soul Productions performed an Argentine Tango routine. We raffled off some salsa T-shirts and DVDs also – congrats to the winners!

I was worried that the studio wouldn’t be able to handle the amount of dancers we expected but we had about 250ppl in the studio from 5:30 – 930pm and at no time was it packed so I know that our Sunday Socials will always be spacious.

Big thanks to Evan – it was his debut as a DJ and I thought he did an awesome job! He will be DJing this Saturday July 19th at 9pm at Peridot Lounge for our next outing as well as at our first Salsa Sunday Social this Sunday July 20th from 5:30 – 8:30pm at Empress Walk Studio. Hope to see everyone there!!

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Over 450 people came out to Six Degrees last night to enjoy the evening and cheer on the competitors and performers for our second annual Toronto Dance Salsa Amateur Competition.

The evening started at 7pm with three lessons. Velina and Lovelize taught the absolute beginners, Sara and Rob taught the level 1s and Emely and Emmett taught the intermediate lesson on stage with a very sexy dip. Everyone did a great job considering the massive amount of students that came out.

Social dancing began at 8pm and it was nice to see salseros of any level dancing together. The competitors and judges also arrived by this time and we were able to draw the order of the competitors. Alfred & Nina, last year’s competition winners, also gave a short pep talk to the group of competitors and it was awesome to see all the competitors excited and pumped about going on stage.

At 9pm sharp George a.k.a. Georgeous, the man who took sexy back, and our Host with the Most started the competition. As usual George was funny, engaging and kept the spirit of the crowd high.

George asked all the competitors to do a 2 minute warm up on stage and then introduced the judges: Teddy and Rene from United Salseros, Vanesa and Oscar from Latin Energy, Ana Machado and Salsa Steph from Go Dance Mambo.

Here were the order of the competitors:

David & Milded
Tyrone & Jennifer
John & Marsha
James & Therese
Joseph & Natasha
Manuel & Camela
Jonathan & Andrea
Barry & Kelly

Everyone did an amazing job and we got to see lots of fun body waves, dips and tricks.
The crowd was great at keeping the energy high. After everyone finished I quickly gathered the numbers from the judges and, with Sara’s assistance (thanks Sara!) we added the numbers while iFreestyle and Latin Energy dazzled the crowd with some awesome performances.

Finally we were done and George proceeded, with the help of Salsa Steph, to give away 4 tickets to the Salsa Chocolate Party happening next Friday, 4 DVDs from Salsa Steph regarding Timing & Rhythm and 4 TDS DVDs.

The George called out the 5 finalist who will be performing a choreographed routine for the finals. In no particular order, here they are:

Tyrone & Jennifer
John & Marsha
James & Therese
Manuel & Camela
Barry & Kelly

Congrats to everyone who competed – whether or not you go to the finals doesn’t take away from the big accomplishment of last night. Some competitors had only been salsa dancing for 7month to 1 year so that is a huge accomplishment.

More details of the finals to come!

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With almost 200 students in attendance there were partners for everyone. Many of the instructors came out as well which is great to see – Sara, Velina, Emely, Alfred, Nina, Evan and myself were all enjoying the night along with the 40 helpers that came out and all the students and guests.

It was Evan’ birthday this past week and as per tradition we put him on the spot for a birthday dance (photo above is from that dance). He was awesome and managed to get through a great deal of partners in a short amount of time. Thanks to everyone for participating and to Evan for being a great sport regardless of the partner (nice body wave Alfred :).

Our next outing is actually the Toronto Dance Salsa Amateur Competition preliminaries on Sunday June 8th at 7pm at 6 Degrees. We can’t wait to see all the work the competitors have put into their freestyle round. There are also performances by Latin Energy and iFreestyle so come out and support the competitors, watch some great performances and have a blast! More details to follow!

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As usual the workshop were very busy but everyone ended up getting the fun and sexy combinations. At 10:30pm DJ Duck began spinning the tunes and made sure to include lots of bachata songs so that everyone could practice their new routines.

It was also the birthday of Karina and Kamil (two of Toronto Dance Salsa’s most seniour helpers)and we had a joint birthday dance for them at midnight. Thanks to both of them for being great sports and everyone who participated!

It was great to see lots of beginner students out. If you haven’t gotten to an outing yet here are some upcoming outings that will be amazing!

1) Peridot Sunday May 25th at 7pm
2) 6 Degrees Sunday June 8th at 7pm – Preliminaries of competition with performances
3) Tentative outing to Lula Lounge Friday June 20th at 10pm
4) 6 Degrees Friday July 4th at 9pm – Finals of competition with performances

Happy dancing!

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This is the second helper party at our place and I think it is going to become tradition to move all our furniture, blast the salsa music and dance the night away. The Dance-All-Night Award would probably go to John Radke and Emely Tapar – I don’t think I saw them stop dancing which is a good thing because the food and dessert tables were overflowing.

We also surprised Alfred for his 35th birthday. Nina dropped off a huge cake and decorations the day before and all the helpers hid upstairs and shocked poor Alfred. It was Alfred’ first surprise party and hopefully we didn’t scar him for life. Happy birthday Alfred!

Our next helper get-together is on March 15th. I am treating all the helpers to a snowtubing and dinner experience at Horseshoe Resort. Should be a blast – photos to come!

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A huge congratulations to Alfred and Nina who got engaged on New Year’s Eve in B.C. Alfred and Nina met at Acrobat Lounge salsa dancing a couple of years ago. Another salsa couple ties the knot – it is so great to hear!

Obviously the topic of salsa always comes up and I enjoyed listening to the ladies talking about their new years salsa goals for 2008. From body movement, to learning to lead to styling to performing, there were lots of goals for the ladies.

Hopefully you have thought about your salsa goals for 2008. Is it to lead or follow better, to go dancing more, to be more musical, rhythmical, to style more, to perform, to compete? Let us know your salsa goals.

My goals include another competition for 2008 for our students, to use salsa for good (a salsa fundraiser) and to find new dance venues for our students. If anyone knows of a great club or space for us to use for classes or for outings, we would LOVE to hear your suggestions so let us know!

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Emely and Michel taught the absolute beginners lesson. Rob and Velina taught the level 1 class and Evan and I taught the intermediate class. As usual everyone rose to the occasion regardless of the difficulty of the turn pattern.

The highlight of the evening was the Helper Performance Group’s choreographed routine. Caryl held a class in the fall for helpers only which focused on learning an intricate choreographed routine with the end goal of performing the routine. 5 couples debuted the performance in the iFreestyle Holiday Party on Dec 9th with great success. The other couples (6 in total) performed at Plaza at 11pm during the outing and it was a great performance. The choreography was excellent (gooooo Caryl!) and you can see the work put in by the performers. Here is a list of the couples that performed on both evenings:

iFreestyle Holiday Party
Nina and Tyrone
Velina and Alfred
Anna-Marie and John
Ildi and Manuel
Stella and Barry

Plaza Flamingo Holiday Party
Carolina and Mark
Kelly and Khemara
Stella and George
Pansy and Alex
Karina and Barry
David and Katie

We were very lucky to have plenty of photographers in the house. Shawn Jamali is a professional photographer and was interested in capturing dancers in motion. Avijit Bandyopadhyay who is a former TDS student, also wanted to capture the event. Caryl video-taped the performance and took plenty of photos. As soon as we get them all we will post them for you all to view.

Evan and I wanted to thank Caryl and everyone who participated in our Wedding Dance. Evan and I were married in St. Thomas 3 weeks ago and Caryl surprised us with a wedding dance after the performance…very similar to a birthday dance except both of us got a chance to dance with other partners. It was a lot of fun so thank you again for thinking of us and participating!

All the couples will be performing again at our first Montana’s outing at the end of Jan/beginning of Feb. We will announce the date soon!

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The evening began with our lessons. Kimberly and Emely took the beginner students into a separate room and taught them salsa basics, the Cuban inside turn and some Suzy Qs – very sexy! Evan and I taught the level 2s and up a difficult level 4 type combination. It was great to see everyone getting the combo and trying it out during the evening.

After some great social dancing we had our Amateur Salsa Competition Champions, Alfred and Nina, perform for us their winning routine. It was fun and energetic with some great tricks and dips – very entertaining!

It was Anthony Fajardo’s birthday (he has been a helper with us for quite a while) and we tired him out with a birthday dance.

When I left at 10:30pm the dance floor was still hopping – great to see everyone enjoying the evening so much!

Next outing: Plaza Flamingo either Oct 12th or 19th.

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