We had the pleasure of watching Raymond (12) and Jenalyn (9) Saraza Pacheco perform and receive a great standing ovation at the Los Angeles Salsa Congress this past May, and wanted to interview them to share their story. Raymond and Jenalyn currently dance with Latin Energy dance company and have been taught by instructor Vanessa Stay. Watch them dance and read their amazing story!
How did you learn to dance?
Jenalyn (9 years old): My mom says I was always dancing, even before I was born in her tummy. As soon as I could walk, I was dancing around on my tippy toes every chance I got. My parents put me in dance classes (ballet, jazz, hip hop, acro, tap) when I was 3 years old and I really loved it! With partner dancing, it all started when we saw our parents taking salsa lessons and watched my parents and grandparents dancing the cha cha and swing at family functions. We thought this kind of dancing was really cool and my brother started practicing salsa moves in our rooms when my parents weren’t watching. But one day, our parents heard us practicing and asked if we wanted to take lessons. They brought us to the Canada Salsa Congress when I was 5 years old and my brother was 7 years old, we met Vanesa Stay and Oscar Naranjo from Latin Energy and showed them our moves. Vanesa thought we were pretty good and asked us to come for salsa lessons. When we got good enough, she asked us to join the Latin Energy dance team and we began performing at weddings and festivals.
Raymond (12 years old): I started taking hip hop and breakdancing lessons when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I was always around dancing because my mom and dad loved to dance as well as my parents and uncles/aunts. My sister pretty much explained it all but I want to add that after we joined Latin Energy, our big break was when performed exactly a year later at the Canada Salsa Congress run by Jennifer Auction and the MC was Albert Torres. He was just a great guy to meet and I’ll always remember how we got our first standing ovation and Albert called us the future of Salsa. We were hooked on dancing and have continued to learn with Vanesa Stay and have taken other types of partner dancing including ballroom and other styles.
Cristina Santana, from our near by neighbors in the Los Angeles salsa dance scene, has made it all the way to being in the Top 5 ladies on the TV Show “So You Think You Can Dance” Season 7! We are very excited and proud of Cristina as she had tried out last year and had gone all the way to the Las Vegas try outs on So You Think You Can Dance Season 6, but did not make it. We will be happy to throw our support to Cristina as she is a California favorite to dance with. If you have not seen Cristina dance with Pepe, here are some great videos. If you want more information on So You Think You Can Dance, you can visit http://fox.com/dance or more information about Pepe & Cristina’s salsa dance teams, check out their website: http://dancemasterpuppet.com/
For those who have been fans of addicted2salsa for a long time, the names Micah Boon and Kathy Cabrera should be very familiar. They have been long-time favorites of ours, and we are pleased to announce that we will be giving away 3 copies of their brand new DVD!
A few weeks ago Micah and Kathy released their first DVD titled Crazy Turn Patterns Fodadaz, which includes 7 great hand turn patterns for intermediate to advanced dancers. If you have been unable to attend Micah and Kathy’s hand pattern workshops at congresses, this is an excellent alternative to get you started. And if you HAVE had the opportunity to attend their workshops, this is a wonderful supplement to help keep up your skills and retain what you learned.
For those who are new to addicted2salsa and have not seen Micah Boon social dance with his very unique set of hand patterns, here is a social dancing video of Micah and Kathy social dancing! It is one of addicted2salsa’s favorites.
In celebration of his DVD release, Micah Boon has given us 2 Crazy Turn Patterns DVDs to give away to addicted2salsa fans! Here is how you can enter to win:
If you were interested in finding out about the results and dance performances that took place in December in regards to the 2009 Salsa World Championships, look no further. The great folks at ilivesalsa have made a good compilation page of all the salsa performance videos of the event so that you can watch them at your leisure.
As a summary, here are the results from the Salsa Championship website:
Winner On1 Division: Liz Lira and Christian Oviedo from Los Angeles, CA
Winner On2 Division: Anya Katsevman and Luis Aguilar from New York, NY
Winner Cabaret Division: Jenny Rodriguez and Jonathan Landa from Cali, Colombia.
Winner Team Division: Ritmo y Sabor from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Congratulations to all the salsa dancers that participated. You are all amazing dancers!
Get ready for a rant before you continue. Last night on So You Think You Can Dance, we were treated to the new salsa dance choreographer on the show, Gustavo Vargas (a.k.a Alex Da Silva’s replacement). The performance was a train wreck (see video below). While I think Mollee and Nathan are amazing dancers, I was extremely disappointed with their performance last night. However, I do not think it is all their fault, and some of it lies in the choreography…
No matter which political group you may affiliate yourself with, you have to give major ‘props’ to our President for being able to get down with some Latin music, dancing and partying. He will probably be one of the most rhythmically skilled Presidents we’ve had in forever. Make sure you watch the second video: you can see Marc Anthony dance with Jennifer Lopez, the President dancing with his daugther and later, his daugther playing the timbales. Here’s to hoping they’ll visit our website someday! The videos are after the break.
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