And to be perfectly honest, though less obvious visually, it’s the similarities of underlying philosophies that in my opinion bring the two -ballroom and American Salsa- close together: preference toward simple repetitive music, surface musicality, the “Salsatization” of other genres of music, and an overall homogeneous appearance.

Not everything is Salsa. In this case people are knocking on the ballroom guys for dancing Salsa to house music. That’s really not fair. How many times have you seen American stylists dance right over a Rumba Guaguanco drum pattern and completely ignore it? Or just as you begin to really feel that little Plena coming, you notice that no one is even listening. Turn patterns play over and over again.

This could be out of ignorance or preference. But in either case, you are moving your body in a way that is really unrelated to the DNA of what you are listening to and lots are guilty of this -not just these ballroom guys. In fact, I just watched a video on this site of a dance company perform a beautiful choreography with delightful elements of modern dance. However, their movements during the Rumba portion had nothing to do with Rumba, but the performance was still far better than what I usually see.

Be careful with words like ‘fake’ etc. This is a very gray area and depends on who you ask. The old Cuban guy will say it’s all fake. The Yoruba dancer might say that Cuban Orisha dance is slightly off the mark from its west African counterpart.

Evolution and authenticity can co-exist. In fact, nowadays, I feel that any kind of movement that is danced from an emotional base is AUTHENTIC. I don’t care if you are doing Mambo or Casino. If you are an emotionless dancer, you are just that. The steps themselves are completely empty without a soul to power them. Granted, there tends to be certain philosophical traits that I feel are more common with American stylists, and this tends to really move them away from dancing “authentically” especially in comparison to say Modern, Tango or even Afro-Cuban where emotion and expression take center stage. But it doesn’t have to be like this, it really depends on you and where YOU want to dance from. Do you want to be authentic or not? If so, don’t change your style, change where you dance from.

So to make an overly long post short, we should try not to knock on the next guy for being fake before taking a long look at ourselves. I have made this mistake in the past and have now realized that authenticity simply means human.

If you make an effort to touch others with your dance at a human level, everything else will fall into place.

I am from Germany and also dance Salsa way over here, also I watch the original version of your Dancing with the stars, namely Strictly Come Dancing each year.
Firstly, not intending to sound rude, I prefer the British version a lot to the American, because the dances are kept classical and the people dance more without mucking about all the time, showing off.

But still, thanks for lending us Brian Fortuna, he is a real breath of fresh air.

Now commenting this perticular Salsa, the song to which it is danced is acutally Salsa, also a pretty fast one, maybe not the easiest ones to get the rhythm, but it is Salsa. Perhaps we dance it differently here across the pond? Our basic step (ladies) is:
right foot back, lifting up the left slightly and then replacing the right foot next to the left one, then left foot foward, lifting up the right slightly and then replacing the left foot next to the right one.
Counting 1-2-3 to the beat.

So, try that to the beat and it will work flawlessly. Also with dance routines you do not need a strict perfect rhythm fitting the dance, as you are aloud to walk around and play with the music.

The Salsa was rubbish nevertheless, but it was a Salsa, with salsa steps, just to much wobbeling around and playing and not dancing!!!

Looking forward to your comments

Gini

Also, “They dance just like everyone in every club in the midwest and on the west coast.” is a naive assumption since dance scenes such as San Diego, San Francisco and some places in Iowa already prove your statement incorrect.

We may all have different styles, but good technique and proper music should always stay the same – especially if you consider yourself a professional dancer/instructor.

Also you will realize the show, like any good LIVE tv show, is highly over-produced, meaning that every element of the entertainment value is being controlled and tweaked, right down to the fainting spells of Marie Osmond, to keep the audience watching. There is an underlying theme of agony and defeat and an emotional value assigned to every dancer every week. The judging is almost a foregone conclusion before they even learn a new routine.

In addition, salsa is not going to be immune to the translation of a popular dance form to the standard steps, foot positions and body styling of the known and established ballroom teaching curriculum. They can’t roll out a new dance worldwide across their teaching programs unless they make it easier for the teachers to learn and teach and easy for the students. If you can learn X number of dance steps and foot positions and apply those to multiple dances you are able to more quickly learn new dances.

It happened to Swing, Hustle, Cha Cha, Mambo, Tango, as others have mentioned, but it also happened to Waltz, Fox Trot, Quick Step before them.

Remember, the ballroom skill levels are broken down into e.g. Arthur Murray, Bronze, Silver, Gold levels with 10 steps and 3-4 varations on each step. 300+ steps per level. Different technique and styling for each level. That is how they manage their students and make their money.

Plus there are competition rules as has been mentioned by others here already. So each new dance as it is translated to the curriculum and the rules — i.e. more or less standardized across the dance systems of Arthur Murray, Fred Astaire, the competitions worldwide, etc. must change and be adapted to the ballroom way of doing things.

That takes nothing away from the original dances and in many cases improves or corrects certain foot patterns and timing issues that acutally make it easier to learn, more enjoyable to dance with more partners, and makes the dancers look good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqArTXWEUFs

After watching this I’m convinced that the neither pros nor celebrities have a choice when it comes to the song… I mean, wouldn’t the world champ pick an actual SALSA SONG??? Instead of a spiced-up version of Bailamos by Enrique Iglesias??? Which is not really salsa (even the spiced up version they used in the show)… The only reason I can think of is that the song picking was not up to Luda (or her partner)… but probably the show’s producers… anyway go watch that, and then watch Luda dancing with her regular partner Oliver, and you’ll notice a HYYYYYUUUUGGGEEEEE difference BTW, the video clip doesn’t show the judges score, but I SERIOUSLY doubt they got a 10, in fact, Gilles performance looked better than Luda’s, and she’s the world champ, well, guess it’s only us salsa addicts who really know what this is all about