How does it all work?
The first round involves many dance couples, usually dancing 2 minutes to a song showing off their ability to dance without a routine. This is a great round to determine a teams’ timing, smoothness and moves while trying to make it work to a song they won’t know until they hit the stage. Don’t forget the great performances as well as tons of lessons and social dancing.

The final round involves the top 5 winning couples from round 1 doing a 2.5 min routine to a song that they’ve chosen. Featuring costumes, lifts and tricks, you’re bound to see some amazing performances by TDS dancers who’ve been training hard to win the coveted first place!

While it can be scary to compete, you never know as you may just get inspired by this years’ teams to get ready for next year!

Till then,
Stay Shining Salseros!

The post The 5th Annual TDS Salsa Competition! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Thank you for all the interest in our competition. We now have 11 confirmed couples, more than ever! I will be closing the entrance to the competition now so I can focus on collecting awesome prizes. In addition to all our usual sponsors, the Detroit Salsa Congress will be sponsoring us this year with lots of full congress passes and much much more.

If you know of a company that can donate prizes, big or small, let me know. It is always an overwhelming task to get prizes.

Please save April 25th as the Preliminary date to come out and support our competitors and watch some great performances from schools such as Go Dance Mambo, Latin Energy and, of course, the TDS Helper Team and the TDS Pro Team with their sexy new Cha Cha Routine.

Can’t wait for the big night 🙂

The post Closing the Competition to Competitors! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

The time has come to battle it out on the dance floor for the champion title at our Fourth Annual Toronto Dance Salsa Amateur Competition. Last year we had some amazing couples compete for some serious loot and the results were fantastic!

Both rounds are confirmed to take place at Six Degrees Nightclub at Yonge & Eglinton on the following dates:

Preliminary Round – Sunday April 25th at 7pm
Final Round – Sunday June 20th at 7pm

If you are a level 3 and up student, helper or assistant registered or assisting in the spring 2010 semester at TDS who has not been paid to teach your own salsa class or perform, then you qualify! Don’t get discouraged that you are still in the learning phase – everyone else will be in that phase also and remember that a competition will increase your confidence, showmanship and skills tenfold.

The preliminaries are freestyle which means you do not have to choreograph the performance as you won’t know the song you are performing to although you can practice together, decide on how you will enter and exit, and what dips and tricks you will add to the dance, etc.

To assist you Evan Carmichael has offered a free private lesson to each couple who enters the competition to assist them in preparation! Five couples will move on to the finals where the finalists will choreograph a 2.5 minute routine to their song choice.

More details can be found on our website. Please email us if you are interested in participating at info@torontodancesalsa.ca. We will accept up to 15 couples.

We are also looking for companies who would like to sponsor the event. Gift certificates, dance shoes, music, travel vouchers, congress passes, lessons, cash prizes, restaurant certificates and much more are needed – please let us know if you can sponsor a prize or collect prizes.

We will be sending an official Anyvite with evening details closer to April 25th so just save the dates.

Email us with any questions and good luck to all the competitors!!

The post The 4th Annual TDS Amateur Competition! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

We are excited to celebrate Valentine’s with you all TDS style!

On Saturday February 13th we will be having a special outing to Acrobat Lounge. As usual we will be holding a beginner and intermediate lesson from 9pm – 10pm. Social dancing will commence at 10pm with DJ Evan. By the way, Evan always accepts song requests so make sure you let him know what you want to hear!

We will also be having a special Valentine’s Day Dancing Game which will get people meeting new people and winning prizes. Come with your partner or on your own as it is a great night to get to know many awesome salseras and salseros.

At 11:30pm we will be having special performances by:
1) The TDS Pro Team
2) United Salseros
3) Latin Groove Productions
4) Brazil Dance World

Cover is only $10 at the door (no advance tickets are necessary). Hope to see you all there!

The post Be My Salsentine Party at Acrobat Lounge! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Ring in 2010 in salsa style at our first annual New Year’s Eve Black & White Ball at Acrobat Lounge on Thursday, December 31st, 2009.

Tickets:
Tickets can be purchased in advance for $45 each or at the door for $50. Helpers receive a special $35 rate. Tickets are available by calling Acrobat Lounge at 416-489-1105 or by visiting Acrobat Lounge on Friday evenings or during our outing on Sat Dec 19th. Feel free to bring as many people as you like. Must be 19+ years old. There are only 230 tickets being sold so get yours early!

Dress Code:
Dress to impress in semi-formal black and/or white. A good example of semi-formal would be suits for men and dress for women.

What is included?
The evening will begin with a beginner and intermediate lesson from 9-10pm. Social dancing will commence after the lesson. Hors D’oeuvres will be served as well as a champagne toast at midnight. There will be special performances throughout the evening and a fun checkerboard game to get you dancing and winning prizes.

Directions: Parking lots can be found north and south of the club and there is free metered parking on Yonge Street after 9pm. By subway, it is only a 5 minute walk north from the Eglinton subway station on the Yonge line.

We can’t wait to celebrate New Year’s Eve with you all!

The post New Year’s Eve Black & White Ball! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Friday, September 25th – OUTING TO PERIDOT LOUNGE – (81 Bloor Street East) – OPEN TO EVERYONE! Beginner and intermediate lesson available from 10:00 – 10:30pm. Cover is $10 and includes lessons. 250 people expected.

Saturday, October 17th – OUTING TO ACROBAT LOUNGE- (2464 Yonge St just North of Eglinton) – OPEN TO EVERYONE! Beginner and intermediate lesson available from 9:00 to 10:00pm. Cover is $10 and includes lessons. 250ppl expected.

Saturday, October 31st – SPECIAL HALLOWEEN DRESS UP PARTY AT ACROBAT LOUNGE– (2464 Yonge St just North of Eglinton) – OPEN TO EVERYONE! Beginner and intermediate lesson available from 9:00 to 10:00pm. Cover is $10 and includes lessons. 250ppl expected. Prizes for best costumes!!

Sunday, Sept 27th, Oct 4th, Oct 18th and Oct 25th anytime from 6:00 – 9:00pm SUNDAY SALSA SOCIAL AT EMPRESS WALK STUDIO! OPEN TO EVERYONE! These fun and comfortable practice sessions take place every Sunday. Come with or without a partner. Helpers around to dance with and answer questions. Cover is $7 with water. Over 100 people expected every week. NO SOCIAL Oct 11th!

The post Upcoming Outings appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

It was an awesome evening – our most organized by far! We opened the doors at 6:30pm and by 7pm when the lessons began we were already starting to fill up the huge venue. Sara and Farnoosh taught the intermediate lesson on stage and Tracie and Mark taught the beginner lesson upstairs.

At 8pm DJ Efren started spinning his very high energy salsa tunes and the lights went down. By this time we had about 400 people in attendance dancing up a storm. Upstairs in the dancer’s lounge the 18 competitors were getting their makeup done professionally by Alice from Mary Kay Cosmetics who volunteered her time to spice up the competitors. A huge thank you to her and her colleague – they were amazing and did a great job!

At 9pm sharp George(eous) our host began the competition. Funny as always (and making fun of me as usual 😉 George thanked our sponsors, the judges and introduced our 18 competitors who warmed up on stage for 2 minutes. Then each competitor was introduced with their bio and performed a freestyle performance for 2 minutes. Here are the names of the competitors in no particular order:

1. Winnie Fung and Manuel Alvarez
2. Mridu Das and Elton Martins
3. Michelle Sui and Bobby Cabral
4. Karen Di Monte and John Radtke
5. Julia Brodyansky and Vincent Cheng
6. Marta Slowik and Alex Florescu
7. Stephanie Cansino and Nick Sagias
8. Eva Wen and Derek Wisniewski
9. Maysa Tani and Dan Tahirkheli

The energy of the crowd was excellent and the judges had the very difficult job of rating each couple. Once all competitors performed Sara and I ran upstairs to tally up the scores and get the names of the 5 couples with the highest scores. At the same time, the adorable kids from Latin Groove Productions performed on stage. Thanks to Oscar for bringing his group to perform – the crowd loved the group!

Finally it was time for the results. Once again, in no particular order, here are the 5 finalist couples who will be competing for the TDS Champion Title:

1. Winnie Fung and Manuel Alvarez
2. Mridu Das and Elton Martins
3. Karen Di Monte and John Radtke
4. Marta Slowik and Alex Florescu
5. Maysa Tani and Dan Tahirkheli

Everyone received an awesome gift bag with prizes like a year’s VIP pass to Six Degrees, TDS t-shirt, El Rancho VIP 4 month pass, passes to Lula Lounge, Plaza Flamingo, Baila Society classes and more. Thank you to the sponsors for the great prizes!

Overall an amazing evening. I can’t wait to experience the final round on Sunday May 31st at 7pm at Six Degrees. Hope to see you all there!

The post The Preliminary Round of the Competition! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

Here are the rough details of the competition. We will only hold the competition if we have 10 couples interested so please let me know who is interested in competing so we can get the ball rolling.

Any current Toronto Dance Salsa student, helper or assistant who has finished level 2 is eligible to compete. If you have been paid to teach your own group salsa class or to perform salsa professionally you will not be eligible.

There will be a preliminary round where couples will not know the song being played so it is a freestyle round. The music will play for 2 minutes and couples will compete for 1 of 5 spots in the finals round.

For those who make the finals round, they will have to choreograph a 2 minute routine to their own choice of salsa music.

Prizes last year included congress passes, dance shoes and much more.

Holding the competition takes a lot of time and energy. So if you are interested in competing or assisting, please email me at info@torontodancesalsa.ca

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

The post 2nd Annual Toronto Dance Salsa Competition? appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

However informal the competitions were, there were lots of them. The big one was the Berlin competition but most salsa clubs had some sort of informal competition throughout the year. It really was a great way for amateurs, semi pros and pros to get together, show their stuff and battle it out for great salsa-related prizes. It gave salsa dancers a goal to strive for and beginners something to look forward to seeing and one day participating.

We held a great competition several months ago and I was very proud of the competitors and their improvement and progression. I hope to hold another one same time next year (Feb – May). Not sure if I will keep it the same structure in terms of having only Toronto Dance Salsa students or if I will open it up to all students (your feedback is always appreciated). I encourage other schools/clubs/organizations to renew this great competitive sport and put Toronto on the map for great salsa dancing!

The post What happened to all the Competitions? appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.