Well what an evening! Last night definitely did not disappoint in terms of attendance, performances and salsa heat!
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!
