A huge thanks to Evan, Sara, Tracie and Mark who joined me at the studio for a fun morning of jokes, laughter, stories (it was a long car ride!) and salsa of course.

For those of you who have never seen the show, Real Life host Sharon Caddy and co-host Tanya Prokomenko keep us up-to-date on what’s going on in the world of entertainment, fashion and beauty tips, home decor, fitness, nutrition and family fun. Visit the Real Life website at: www.reallifeoncts.com

The 3 part segment will be aired on November 17th from 4:30 – 5:30pm so check it out!

The post TDS On Real Life! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

The evening began with a fun hour long lesson. Tracie and Mark taught the beginner lesson upstairs and Emely and Olivier taught the intermediate lesson on the main floor. After an hour of social dancing the competition began and the four finalists each took the stage to perform their choreographed routines. No limits on dips and allowances on lifts meant some very showy and entertaining tricks from all the competitors.

While we tabulated the judges’ scores, we were privy to three awesome performances by Latin Energy, the Semi Pro Team at iFreestyle and United Salseros. Thank you so much to each performer and the schools for a wonderful and inspiring display of salsa!

By the time the last school finished performing, the results were in and here they are below. Congratulations to all four couples – what a great effort!

1st Place – Mridu & Elton
2nd Place – Winnie & Manuel
3rd Place – Karen & John
Runners Up – Maysa & Dan

Special thank you to Evan, George, Sara, Tracie, Mark, Emely, Olivier, Adis, Nora and our great judges Teddy, Rene, Angus, Vanesa and Oscar.

The post TDS Amateur Salsa Competition Update! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

The doors open at 6:30pm and we have two lessons lined up from 7pm – 8pm downstairs (intermediate) and upstairs (beginner) with Emely and Tracie.

From 8 – 9pm there is social dancing with DJ Efren who always keeps the mood fun and exciting with upbeat, sexy salsa, merengue and bachata songs.

At 9m the competition will begin. We have 4 couples competing in the finals:

Mridu and Elton
Winnie and Manuel
Maysa and Dan
Karen & John

Each will perform a 2 minute to 2.5 minute routine that they have choreographed. The judges (Oscar, Vanesa, Teddy, Rene and Angus) will have the opportunity to rate each couple and, once the 4 couples finish their routines, I will have the opportunity to add up the scores with Sara while the audience enjoys 3 performances by our fellow dance schools: Latin Energy, iFreestyle and Mambo Mosaic. The announcement of the winner will be announced after the schools perform and then DJ Efren will continue on with the social dancing for the rest of the evening.

Hope to see you all out supporting our competitors. I will post the results next week!

The post The finals are this Sunday! 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.

The evening started off with a beginner lesson with Velina and Stella downstairs and an intermediate lesson upstairs with Evan and I which was really fun. The groups got the combos quickly and continued to practice the new moves throughout the evening. At 10:30pm the lights went down and the music was turned up and the dancing began. More and more people arrived, all with amazing, elaborate costumes. We saw everything from the scary costumes such as vampires and demons, to movie costumes such as the trio in the Wizard of Oz, to superhero costumes, to some very unique costumes (some I didn’t even understand).

We had a group birthday dance with Sara, Ozzy and Jennifer – happy birthday to you all!

I was the bubblicious Girl all in pink and handed out a lot of bubble gum. That was fun! Thanks to all my dances that evening – it was great to see some old students drop by as well as the United Salseros group.

Thanks to everyone who came out and made an effort with their costumes. It was a great night due to all of you!

Next outing: Friday Nov 14th at 9:30pm at Plaza Flamingo…

The post Halloween Outing appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

The evening began with a beginner lesson downstairs with Sara Sharifpoor and Velina Sotirova and an intermediate lesson with Evan and myself upstairs. We had a great turnout for the lessons and I was happy to see that the students picked up the combination with greater ease than last week at Plaza Flamingo.

DJ Evan then got the night started with lots of great salsa, merengue and bachata. I saw plenty of faces of new students and past students so it was great to see everyone enjoying themselves. I had some fun dances myself – thanks to Frank, John, Vince, Mark, Rob and anyone else I danced with for the fun times!

Our next outing is on Friday October 17th at 9:30pm at Plaza Flamingo. Also keep Saturday November 1st open as that is our traditional Halloween Dress Up Salsa Party, this year at Peridot!

The post Peridot last Saturday! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

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!!

The post Our Grand Opening Party! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

What a fantastic evening Friday turned out to be! With almost 700 people in attendance the 2008 Toronto Dance Salsa Amateur Competition Finals was a smashing success. The evening started off with a beginner lesson with Velina and Jennifer and an intermediate lesson with Rob and Sonya. Despite the large crowds both classes were fun and by the end of the hour the students were able to execute the combinations.

Social dancing began immediately after the lessons until 11pm and although we had so many people in attendance there was still lots of elbow room to really dance.

At 11pm sharp George(ous) began the competition. As usual he was funny, engaging and entertaining and the crowd really enjoyed the introductions and funny stories. The judges were introduced: Teddy and Rene from United Salseros, Angus from iFreestyle, Ana Machada and Salsa Steph from Go Dance Mambo.

Then it was time for the competitors to do their warm up. All the couples warmed up on stage for 2 minutes at which time George called each couple to perform. Each couple had been working for the past 4 weeks to create a choreography to a 2 to 2.5 minute routine and the effort was evident on stage. I was really proud of everyone – most of them had been in my level 1 a year or two ago and to see them on stage in costume performing in front of hundreds of people was amazing and inspiring.

Once the competitors finished I ran to add up the scores with Sara. At this time we had 5 performances by iFreestyle, Go Dance Mambo and Mambo Mosaic. Each one was unique and very entertaining. Thank you to all the performers who took the time and energy to perform that night.

Immediately after the performances George announced the winners – it was a very exciting moment for everyone! The winners were:

1st Place – Kelly and Barry
2nd Place – Camela and Manuel
3rd Place – Therese and James
Runner Up – Marsha and John
Runner Up – Jennifer and Tyrone

Barry and Kelly won the following:
A full Canada Salsa Congress Pass for each of them, a full Miami Salsa Congress Pass for each of them with 1 night hotel stay, a full World Salsa Competition Pass for each, 3 pairs each of dance shoes from both Century Wide shoes, Gabellini Shoes and Addicted to Dance Shoes, dinner & show from Plaza Flamingo, Peridot Rest Lounge Gift Certificates, 1 year membership to Lula Lounge’s salsa Fridays, t-shirts from Shokkwear, Meet Market Adventures Gift Certificate and Trophies

Congratulations to everyone for competing. It is such a courageous thing to do and many people don’t realize the amount of work that goes into performing so I am very proud of everyone.

Thank you to everyone who made the evening rock – Evan, George, the judges, the performers, the sponsors and the competitors. Looking forward to seeing you all next year at the 2009 competition!

The post Competition Last Friday! appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

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!

The post The Preliminaries appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.

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!

The post Peridot On Sunday appeared first on Toronto Dance Salsa.