The straightening of the leg before weight is taken ( and turning out the foot ) which gives a very pronounced hip action.
The sublety of " street " seems more appropriate as to the more indigenous style I prefer .
What else can salsa borrow from the Dancesport world?
- Thread starter Pacion
- Start date
The straightening of the leg before weight is taken ( and turning out the foot ) which gives a very pronounced hip action.
The sublety of " street " seems more appropriate as to the more indigenous style I prefer .
max and yulia freaking rule. so to stay true to the title of the thread, 'what can salsa borrow,' in the context of this video, without an overt comparison (which is as tangotime says, largely worthless), what i would say is worth borrowing is the specific set of things this partnership was good at, as demonstrated in the performance in the video.
1. dance to your strengths
2. costume yourself to your strengths (her outfit is one of the most successful in the past few years of any top couple in any ballroom style, in my opinion)
3. pick your music to show off what you're good at
4. don't do stuff that makes you look dumb
5. work really really hard
1. dance to your strengths
2. costume yourself to your strengths (her outfit is one of the most successful in the past few years of any top couple in any ballroom style, in my opinion)
3. pick your music to show off what you're good at
4. don't do stuff that makes you look dumb
5. work really really hard
Boriken& Pacion for Dance Presidents(good english) US & Britians . nice job boriken on the salsa history, and pacino/ i mean pacion always with good insight and thought provoking question/answers.kudos to a few others,for now youngsta..someone had said that ballroom has no passion, well certainly there are many who dance in that mode,but i"ve seen people do the waltz/polka/ foxtrot/quickstep, with great passion and emotion,on the cuff one can go back to the beatifull dancing from a old flick( the sound of music) but im also speaking of right NOW i"ve seen wonderfull emotion and full of passion in ballroom, all these dance are non Latin dances.i"ve also been to Salsa dances where i was bored out of my mind- with many Latin and non latins who were dancing like robots, and some were so called high level.Anyway i like almost all of the dances/except the Chicken dance lol......also Pacion i dont know what can be borrowed but some one will thats for sure..
Pacion said:
That's a great video. Definitely agree on the cleanliness, musicality, and attitude shown here as something salsa people could learn from. Of course these are top ballroom dancers; the vast majority of ballroom dancers don't look much like these two, just like the vast majority of salser@s don't look like Frankie Martinez and Nancy Ortiz.
That said, I do notice that top ballroom dancers are noticeably cleaner and sharper than even the best salsa performers. I have wondered whether there is actually a tradeoff between cleanliness and 'flavor' or whether it's just the case that ballroom dancers tend to work more on the former and salser@s on the latter (each perhaps to the neglect of the complementary skill).
So I think this video makes a good case that the two are not mutually exclusive. The body movement in the breaks is superb and completely matches the music. I definitely feel like the dancers are 'feeling it.'
Interesting. I had a salsa teacher tell me to land on a straight leg recently. It seemed not at all in keeping with the rest of my style and I didn't choose to take that particular piece of advice as something to incorporate permanently. Was wondering where he came up with it but if that is a standard part of Latin motion in dancesport then perhaps he got it from the ballroom world.
Pacion
New Member
I would love to get a government grant to explore whether there has to be a tradeoff between cleanliness or 'flavour'! :lol:
(They give out grants for the most obscure stuff, what is one more?
)
Josh
Active Member
Cool, a video of ballroom dancing that you like--I'm happy! ;-) I think the cleanness is due to several things, but primarily due to the fact that to top ballroom dancers, dancing is quite literally their life, and they work on their dancing almost literally all the time. There may be a few top salsa dancers who dance 8-12 hour days, but not nearly close to the percentage of ballroom dancers who do. Even very dedicated top salsa dancers often make money doing other things, because the salsa market is quite small because it's one dance, and so they necessarily spend less time dancing. Also, the concept of "clean" dancing, and in particular clean footwork, is not really stressed in the salsa community as much, as you said above. After all, it's primarily a social dance, and being technically perfect is not a very high priority.
That's very surprising...! If he said straighten the leg after you put some weight on it, then he would be perfectly consistent with traditional Rhythm technique, though even in the competitive Rhythm world, it's quite outdated even there. I find it impossible to do a salsa basic while landing on a straight leg, and can't even really do it slowly... are you sure he didn't straighten the leg after the weight came onto it (at least partially)... ?
Then you would be really shocked to witness some of the" Latin"
that is being taught by some of the teachers here in salsa- turned out feet and hips, on back breaks !!-- and cucarachas that would do credit to a competitor ( with opening out movements !) .
Street latin here seems to mean something you dance on the street
Another thing - most salsa routines tend to be danced at the same speed for the entire routine (everything ultra fast). Truly entertaining routines in other styles will vary in speed. There will be parts where the dancers slow down their movements and do extensions/styling and such.
Yes, the ongoing musicality discussion applies here as well.
Right on steve
TJ's comment was about salsa performance routines, which don't tend to be cuban son. So he's right - most are ultra fast.