I have been watching the ‘Dancing with the Stars‘ show for a while now and I have grown accustomed to watching great ballroom dances and good non-Latin Latin dance routines. I praise the celebrity dancers for their hard work and determination in learning something completely new to them. This is nothing against them because I truly admire their progress. However, I always have an issue when the professional dancers on the show are required to dance a specific genre of dance, such as salsa, and we come to find out that they don’t know what is real salsa dancing. Now, I do understand that there are different styles of salsa dancing around the world. My judgment takes this into account. However, when you slap on stereotypical non-salsa dance steps with house music and state that you are salsa dancing – that is a whole different story. The video below is what gives salsa dancing an improper typecast compared to what you and I know and love.
My biggest gripe with the whole thing is the judges. While Carrie Ann Inaba is measuring entertainment value and Bruno Tonioli is measuring timing (you can see him hit the table when couples dance), Len Goodman is supposed to be judge who prefers traditional steps and music. Len usually criticizes couples when they don’t follow proper dance structure in terms of proper steps for the assigned dance, but last night was a different story. I have finally come to accept no judge or professional dancer in the show knows what is real salsa dancing.
See for yourself at the judges reaction and let me know what you think!
Nothing to do with salsa except a few steps every now and then. It was cheeky and judges bought it based on their popularity. It could attract some people to salsa, but they’ll get informed in the process I guess.
This was crap. I agree with Julie 100%. Other than computer-based horns sparsely placed throughout, the music wasn’t salsa. The dance was repetitive and un-orginal, not to mention it wasn’t salsa. Dancing only on the downbeats isn’t salsa. Shouldn’t an enlightened Frenchman know what salsa is? Salsa is a worldwide phenomenon. Goes to show you that this is not a “reality” tv show in many ways: a) as mentioned, this wasn’t salsa music or dance; b) their performance didn’t earn them a perfect score–Gilles looks, popularity, and sappy bio did; and c) the celeb contestants probably have nothing to do with their routine or music in terms of choice. I thank you, July, for being the vigilant public watchdog for salsa dance and music, but screw these poppy BS TV shows…pardon my Gilles, I mean, French.
I guess I saw her disappointment on Twitter and assumed she wrote this article. Sorry, Anthony. It should read: “I agree with Anthony’s argument 100%.” I give credit where it’s due.
…as well as, “Thank you, Anthony for being the vigilant public watchdog…” which even though I said Julie, I spelled wrong (“July”). Boy, I really should pay attention when I write.
It’s stuff like this that makes me not like this show. It was so sterotypical– the maracas and the wierd ruffly dress. It’s too bad that’s what people are being led to believe real salsa looks like.
Oh, I don’t know about the criticism that it’s not salsa. To me, it looks an awful lot like some of the salsa competition pieces I’ve seen. If you remix the video with Latin music, I think the reaction would be different. Because the rhythm of the music is wrong for salsa, the musicality of the dancing isn’t what we’re used to. In other words, the *moves* are salsa-performance; the body motion/musicality isn’t.
“If you remix the video with Latin music…” I think the frustration here is over what the show’s audience was served under the name “salsa,” not about our reactions to a video.
I may agree that some of the moves might be proper salsa combinations, however the routine should not have received a perfect score to be fair to when they do the other dances. It just feels that giving them a perfect score for a bad salsa routine cheapens salsa as a dance genre.
I’m not that advanced to say a lot about the musical background of this whole choreography but as a matter of fact I saw this as wrong – meens that it really felt wrong for me.
As I’m dancing ballroom longer than salsa I realize that the dancers and the judges (beside that this is much about celebrity status etc. and because of this the ratings are made for the people who watch TV and can’t be understood by someone who knows a little about what exactly they are doing) are used to the whole ballroom feeling and the competitions there where at least every single latin dance has to be a show – only dancing is not enough there in nowadays.
I see this point of view on salsa dancing once a week when I’m dancing ballroom (since salsa is “new”, “cool” and “fenzy” there). I’m sure they would call the performance in this video as great and maybe even be jealous for their musicality – and I would love to proof them all wrong but as I’m alone there is no chance to do so.
I didn’t see any salsa in that dance. Plus there was no hips movement and i’m was hoping for a lot more than what I saw. He can dance but that was far from a salsa. Very disappointing that it happened.
Hey Anthony,
Yeah, they shouldn’t have called it salsa…. since they didn’t use salsa music.
A few of the moves were pretty much salsa choreography though.
Simon hit it on the nail. What we are seeing here is a Salsa-ish version of a mambo ballroom choreography done to house/samba music.
Let’s talk about the music. The music track was a mix of house and maybe samba. I don’t know. But it wasn’t salsa.
The dance was based on ballroom mambo, as is more clearly seen in this youtube video:
Columbus Dance Centre, Ballroom Dancing, Latin Dancing – Mambo / Salsa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOTEZqQLZI0
“Dancing with the Stars” mainly features Ballroom dancing! And in order to appreciate the show, one has to accept and understand that ballroom dancing has its own ways. As a general rule, BALLROOM DANCES ARE NOT THE SAME AS THE TRADITIONAL DANCES ON WHICH THEY ARE LOOSELY BASED, IN FORM AND IN MANY CASES NOT EVEN IN TIMING. i.e. Samba (Ballroom Samba) is not the same as Brazilian Samba. Rumba (Ballroom Rumba) is not the same as the Cuban Rumba.
Which brings me to the next point. In ballroom dancing, the nomenclature and designations of dances suggest that ballroom dancing is the natural, original or most accepted way of dancing. Perfect example is the Tango. In Ballroom dancing, the Tango is just called that, the Tango, which is differentiated from the actual and original Tango from Argentina. Ballroom dancers call that: Argentine Tango. The same happens with other ballroom dances.
My problem with this way of naming dances is that it is confusing for many beginner dancers. Often, beginner dancers walk into certain franchised danced studios (which I will not name) and get stuck learning a style that they will not be able to use at the club socially with “regular” dancers.
It’s like the corny joke: “What do people in China call Chinese food?…. Food.” I know, I know. Corny. But not so obviously, “What do people in Argentina call the Argentine Tango?…. Tango. What do people in Cuba call the Cuban Cha Cha Cha?… Cha Cha. What do people in Brazil call the Brazilian Samba… ok ok. You get the point.
So, in order to avoid confusion, when Ballroom dancers refer to dance forms and rhythms, they are referring to their Ballroom versions of dances, NOT to be confused with the traditional dances. FYI, there are different versions and styles for each dance in Ballroom dancing (American vs International). I won’t even attempt to explain further in this regard.
Back to the original video that Anthony posted. The Mambo dance is a dance rhythm within Ballroom dancing. Which is danced On2, by they way, (2,3,4, 6,7,8). I am pretty sure it is one of the five Latin Rhythms (Mambo, Jive, Cha Cha Cha, Samba and Tango). SALSA IS NOT EVEN AN ACCEPTED BALLROOM DANCE. However, many ballroom dance studios, teach Salsa dancing simply by teaching Mambo steps converted into On1.
What I find very infuriating is when “certain” dancers call our way of dancing “Street Salsa”. OMFG! When was the last time that I danced Salsa on the street??? Never. Or worse, the name implies “street people” who dance Salsa. Ok, lets not go there. He he.
And this is what we are seeing in this video. Fake Salsa dancing? Hmmmm… depends. If you are a ballroom dancer, this might be the way that you dance Mambo or Salsa. I have seen many ballroom dancers do the Cha Cha to Bachata. It’s just different. It’s just Ballroom.
DISCLAIMER, I MUST STATE THAT I RESPECT BALLROOM DANCING AS AN ART FORM AND THAT I DO NOT SUGGEST THAT IT IS INCORRECT. I MERELY STATE THAT BALLROOM DANCING IS BALLROOM DANCING.
Last night I watched this without sound so as not to wake other sleepers in the apartment. What I saw: the basic salsa step and patterns with some partnering tricks thrown in between. Certainly I wouldn’t give it a 10 in a salsa competition, but this isn’t a salsa competition, it isn’t even a real ballroom competition, it’s barely even a dancing competition as much as it’s a personality, performance, and audience-response competition. You can get all of those things and still be a crappy dancer, and that’s what I think the judges are scoring, that’s why someone who improved radically from last week earns higher scores even though essentially their dancing is still mediocre. In that case the scores are rewarding the overall “performance” of going from bad to slightly better, not just the performance of the steps.
I’ve looked at it that way for a long time, it’s the only way I can enjoy this show at all. Regular dance competitions do not take place in a vacuum, external standards always exist whether one meets them or not. On this show each competitor is in their own vacuum, the standards are defined by their own abilities and progressions, and that extends to the dance forms as well, what constitutes a salsa, tango, or waltz is much more dependent on the competitor than it is on an external standard, and how that competitor lives up to his/her own definition of the standard is what the judges are scoring. They’re not scoring “if he did a good salsa.” They’re scoring if he succeeded or failed at bringing something that works for him to the dance floor.
When I watched this with the music it struck me as like a combination you might get in a jazz dance class where the instructor decided to add a “latin flavor.” For that it was executed decently, actually well considering he’s not a professional dancer and presumably did not grow up doing plies, tendus, and hip isolations. Whether or not it was “perfect 10″ material, for this show I would say I’d need to know the whole story of this competitor and I haven’t been following this season so I really can’t say.
It wasn’t a real salsa dance but they’re not scoring on whether or not he did a real salsa dance, they’re scoring on how he’s competing in this strange game. What’s sad is that they PRETEND like they care how close the competitors come to external standards, and that misinforms the general audience. I look at this as a “two steps forward, one step back” situation. Exposure and relevance in pop culture is good for dance, it brings fresh students to the studio, fresh interest and life to the art. Unfortunately it comes at a cost because the arbiters of pop culture are businessmen, not artists. Misinformation can be corrected, but if there’s nothing to generate interest then dance becomes more and more esoteric and isolated from “what people are doing these days.”
In this competition all the dances are tools the competitors use to try and create a winning series of performances. This dance is an example of how they modify or dismantle those tools to that end. It’s not about how he uses the tool, it’s only about the product.
Don’t take it too seriously. I love the UK version and its controversies – it drives my salsa teacher mad and his rants about it are entertaining too!! It’s just an entertainment show and it has the merit of inspiring people to take dancing lessons. At least that’s how I got into both salsa and ballroom. It’s choreography for one thing (not freestyle) and it’s also ‘ballroom’ which has its own arcane rules and bears a very distant relationship to Cuba/Latin America. It was not what we’d typically dance on the floor with our partners, nor what you’d see in a salsa competition, which itself is a performance for an audience rather than true connection between two people. I agree that the performance did not deserve perfect scores – the timing looked wrong for one thing and the music totally inappropriate, the few actual salsa moves were very simple and poorly executed. Perhaps the professionals or a visiting troupe will do a proper performance on the show. The UK version certainly does this and it gives the audience another perspective on what’s possible – Rueda and Argentine Tango for instance has been shown to great effect – so maybe we should lobby the TV companies to spotlight a truly authentic salsa performance.
Isn’t that a reggaeton song from pitbull?? Personally I found it really hilarious, casue the first thing that came to my mind was imaging myself dancing salsa to reggaeton music, maybe next time we will see some salsa moves to Lady Gaga’s Pokker Face…. I hope not
I’m surprised at the total dismissal of the dance routine as not salsa by the OP and other respondents.
Don’t forget people; salsa is the music, first and foremost. A more valid criticism of this DWTS routine would be the choice of music. One would be hard pressed to defend the music as salsa music. To me, it’s samba-ish.
If you examine the dancing, you will find that this is a very typical amateur/beginner L.A. style routine. Yes they threw in extra cheesy choreography, but if you notice they always came out of it and broke on1.
Still not convinced? Take a look at the official rules of the WCS, which is a choreography based (as opposed to a freestyle/jack and jill type) salsa competition:
They only require 25% of the routine to reflect the quick-quick-slow of salsa timing. Out of a 4 minute routine, that’s only 1 minute!
Given the greuling schedule of the show, I didn’t expect much better than what was performed on DWTS, and found it descent representation of the competition style of the dance. However, they should be lambasted for using that music in a salsa routine.
Apparently no “Dancing With the Stars” edition aims to be “true” to musical roots… Don’t believe me? Take a look at this DWTS Australia edition video clip with a “Salsa” performance with none other than Salsa WORLD CHAMP Luda Kroitor…
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
Looked like salsa to me! The music just wasn’t salsa music but it looked like advanced styling and I really liked it. Hope to be able to do some of those moves in the future!
If you watch Dancing With the Stars long enough you will realize that Cheryl Burke will always fall back on “bronze” level steps or the more basic steps. If the star has a busy schedule or is just weak (remember “Mater P”?), this is all that can be taught in a week’s time.
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.
Here is the funny thing… They dance just like everyone in every club in the midwest and on the west coast. I find it embarressing. It’s just mainstream RUMBA. Not real SALSA. Every time I go to a club and dance “REAL” Salsa people surround us in amazement and are like what is that? That is not the Salsa de PUERTO RICO. Not real at all. The stuff that is on this website isn’t real either. It’s mainstream ballroom show type BS Salsa. GET REAL!
I suggest your read the article. We are disagreeing with the fact they did not use a proper salsa track and the moves weren’t done perfectly to gain a perfect score.
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.
As far as Dancing with the stars is concerned, They always use HORRIBLE music for all Latin music. One time I think they played a Bee Gees song for Salsa. WTH! LOL
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!!!
Pot calling the kettle black. With all due respect guys, the choreography on that video was not too far off from I typically see taught/danced in the American style (LA/NY) circles.
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 gave you some answers on another forum 
I’ve danced salsa on House music before, but this wasn’t even close to salsa.
Heck, was it so hard to put a salsa rhythm there? Even some good old Hector Lavoe!
Nothing to do with salsa except a few steps every now and then. It was cheeky and judges bought it based on their popularity. It could attract some people to salsa, but they’ll get informed in the process I guess.
This was crap. I agree with Julie 100%. Other than computer-based horns sparsely placed throughout, the music wasn’t salsa. The dance was repetitive and un-orginal, not to mention it wasn’t salsa. Dancing only on the downbeats isn’t salsa. Shouldn’t an enlightened Frenchman know what salsa is? Salsa is a worldwide phenomenon. Goes to show you that this is not a “reality” tv show in many ways: a) as mentioned, this wasn’t salsa music or dance; b) their performance didn’t earn them a perfect score–Gilles looks, popularity, and sappy bio did; and c) the celeb contestants probably have nothing to do with their routine or music in terms of choice. I thank you, July, for being the vigilant public watchdog for salsa dance and music, but screw these poppy BS TV shows…pardon my Gilles, I mean, French.
What did Julie say?
I guess I saw her disappointment on Twitter and assumed she wrote this article. Sorry, Anthony. It should read: “I agree with Anthony’s argument 100%.” I give credit where it’s due.
…as well as, “Thank you, Anthony for being the vigilant public watchdog…” which even though I said Julie, I spelled wrong (“July”). Boy, I really should pay attention when I write.
It’s stuff like this that makes me not like this show. It was so sterotypical– the maracas and the wierd ruffly dress. It’s too bad that’s what people are being led to believe real salsa looks like.
Oh, I don’t know about the criticism that it’s not salsa. To me, it looks an awful lot like some of the salsa competition pieces I’ve seen. If you remix the video with Latin music, I think the reaction would be different. Because the rhythm of the music is wrong for salsa, the musicality of the dancing isn’t what we’re used to. In other words, the *moves* are salsa-performance; the body motion/musicality isn’t.
“If you remix the video with Latin music…” I think the frustration here is over what the show’s audience was served under the name “salsa,” not about our reactions to a video.
I may agree that some of the moves might be proper salsa combinations, however the routine should not have received a perfect score to be fair to when they do the other dances. It just feels that giving them a perfect score for a bad salsa routine cheapens salsa as a dance genre.
I’m not that advanced to say a lot about the musical background of this whole choreography but as a matter of fact I saw this as wrong – meens that it really felt wrong for me.
As I’m dancing ballroom longer than salsa I realize that the dancers and the judges (beside that this is much about celebrity status etc. and because of this the ratings are made for the people who watch TV and can’t be understood by someone who knows a little about what exactly they are doing) are used to the whole ballroom feeling and the competitions there where at least every single latin dance has to be a show – only dancing is not enough there in nowadays.
I see this point of view on salsa dancing once a week when I’m dancing ballroom (since salsa is “new”, “cool” and “fenzy” there). I’m sure they would call the performance in this video as great and maybe even be jealous for their musicality – and I would love to proof them all wrong but as I’m alone there is no chance to do so.
I didn’t see any salsa in that dance. Plus there was no hips movement and i’m was hoping for a lot more than what I saw. He can dance but that was far from a salsa. Very disappointing that it happened.
Hey Anthony,
Yeah, they shouldn’t have called it salsa…. since they didn’t use salsa music.
A few of the moves were pretty much salsa choreography though.
-Neal
what they danced was a ballroom version of salsa…just like the ballroom everything from cha cha cha, rumba, tango, samba.
totally different to the original NY/LA/Cuban/Puerto Rican style salsa, on2 cha cha, cuban rumba, argentinian tango or brazilian samba.
hence the reason i don’t dance ballroom or latin…too fake and no passion!
Simon hit it on the nail. What we are seeing here is a Salsa-ish version of a mambo ballroom choreography done to house/samba music.
Let’s talk about the music. The music track was a mix of house and maybe samba. I don’t know. But it wasn’t salsa.
The dance was based on ballroom mambo, as is more clearly seen in this youtube video:
Columbus Dance Centre, Ballroom Dancing, Latin Dancing – Mambo / Salsa
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOTEZqQLZI0
“Dancing with the Stars” mainly features Ballroom dancing! And in order to appreciate the show, one has to accept and understand that ballroom dancing has its own ways. As a general rule, BALLROOM DANCES ARE NOT THE SAME AS THE TRADITIONAL DANCES ON WHICH THEY ARE LOOSELY BASED, IN FORM AND IN MANY CASES NOT EVEN IN TIMING. i.e. Samba (Ballroom Samba) is not the same as Brazilian Samba. Rumba (Ballroom Rumba) is not the same as the Cuban Rumba.
Which brings me to the next point. In ballroom dancing, the nomenclature and designations of dances suggest that ballroom dancing is the natural, original or most accepted way of dancing. Perfect example is the Tango. In Ballroom dancing, the Tango is just called that, the Tango, which is differentiated from the actual and original Tango from Argentina. Ballroom dancers call that: Argentine Tango. The same happens with other ballroom dances.
My problem with this way of naming dances is that it is confusing for many beginner dancers. Often, beginner dancers walk into certain franchised danced studios (which I will not name) and get stuck learning a style that they will not be able to use at the club socially with “regular” dancers.
It’s like the corny joke: “What do people in China call Chinese food?…. Food.” I know, I know. Corny. But not so obviously, “What do people in Argentina call the Argentine Tango?…. Tango. What do people in Cuba call the Cuban Cha Cha Cha?… Cha Cha. What do people in Brazil call the Brazilian Samba… ok ok. You get the point.
So, in order to avoid confusion, when Ballroom dancers refer to dance forms and rhythms, they are referring to their Ballroom versions of dances, NOT to be confused with the traditional dances. FYI, there are different versions and styles for each dance in Ballroom dancing (American vs International). I won’t even attempt to explain further in this regard.
Back to the original video that Anthony posted. The Mambo dance is a dance rhythm within Ballroom dancing. Which is danced On2, by they way, (2,3,4, 6,7,8). I am pretty sure it is one of the five Latin Rhythms (Mambo, Jive, Cha Cha Cha, Samba and Tango). SALSA IS NOT EVEN AN ACCEPTED BALLROOM DANCE. However, many ballroom dance studios, teach Salsa dancing simply by teaching Mambo steps converted into On1.
What I find very infuriating is when “certain” dancers call our way of dancing “Street Salsa”. OMFG! When was the last time that I danced Salsa on the street??? Never. Or worse, the name implies “street people” who dance Salsa. Ok, lets not go there. He he.
And this is what we are seeing in this video. Fake Salsa dancing? Hmmmm… depends. If you are a ballroom dancer, this might be the way that you dance Mambo or Salsa. I have seen many ballroom dancers do the Cha Cha to Bachata. It’s just different. It’s just Ballroom.
DISCLAIMER, I MUST STATE THAT I RESPECT BALLROOM DANCING AS AN ART FORM AND THAT I DO NOT SUGGEST THAT IT IS INCORRECT. I MERELY STATE THAT BALLROOM DANCING IS BALLROOM DANCING.
Last night I watched this without sound so as not to wake other sleepers in the apartment. What I saw: the basic salsa step and patterns with some partnering tricks thrown in between. Certainly I wouldn’t give it a 10 in a salsa competition, but this isn’t a salsa competition, it isn’t even a real ballroom competition, it’s barely even a dancing competition as much as it’s a personality, performance, and audience-response competition. You can get all of those things and still be a crappy dancer, and that’s what I think the judges are scoring, that’s why someone who improved radically from last week earns higher scores even though essentially their dancing is still mediocre. In that case the scores are rewarding the overall “performance” of going from bad to slightly better, not just the performance of the steps.
I’ve looked at it that way for a long time, it’s the only way I can enjoy this show at all. Regular dance competitions do not take place in a vacuum, external standards always exist whether one meets them or not. On this show each competitor is in their own vacuum, the standards are defined by their own abilities and progressions, and that extends to the dance forms as well, what constitutes a salsa, tango, or waltz is much more dependent on the competitor than it is on an external standard, and how that competitor lives up to his/her own definition of the standard is what the judges are scoring. They’re not scoring “if he did a good salsa.” They’re scoring if he succeeded or failed at bringing something that works for him to the dance floor.
When I watched this with the music it struck me as like a combination you might get in a jazz dance class where the instructor decided to add a “latin flavor.” For that it was executed decently, actually well considering he’s not a professional dancer and presumably did not grow up doing plies, tendus, and hip isolations. Whether or not it was “perfect 10″ material, for this show I would say I’d need to know the whole story of this competitor and I haven’t been following this season so I really can’t say.
It wasn’t a real salsa dance but they’re not scoring on whether or not he did a real salsa dance, they’re scoring on how he’s competing in this strange game. What’s sad is that they PRETEND like they care how close the competitors come to external standards, and that misinforms the general audience. I look at this as a “two steps forward, one step back” situation. Exposure and relevance in pop culture is good for dance, it brings fresh students to the studio, fresh interest and life to the art. Unfortunately it comes at a cost because the arbiters of pop culture are businessmen, not artists. Misinformation can be corrected, but if there’s nothing to generate interest then dance becomes more and more esoteric and isolated from “what people are doing these days.”
In this competition all the dances are tools the competitors use to try and create a winning series of performances. This dance is an example of how they modify or dismantle those tools to that end. It’s not about how he uses the tool, it’s only about the product.
Pile of bollox . end of
Don’t take it too seriously. I love the UK version and its controversies – it drives my salsa teacher mad and his rants about it are entertaining too!! It’s just an entertainment show and it has the merit of inspiring people to take dancing lessons. At least that’s how I got into both salsa and ballroom. It’s choreography for one thing (not freestyle) and it’s also ‘ballroom’ which has its own arcane rules and bears a very distant relationship to Cuba/Latin America. It was not what we’d typically dance on the floor with our partners, nor what you’d see in a salsa competition, which itself is a performance for an audience rather than true connection between two people. I agree that the performance did not deserve perfect scores – the timing looked wrong for one thing and the music totally inappropriate, the few actual salsa moves were very simple and poorly executed. Perhaps the professionals or a visiting troupe will do a proper performance on the show. The UK version certainly does this and it gives the audience another perspective on what’s possible – Rueda and Argentine Tango for instance has been shown to great effect – so maybe we should lobby the TV companies to spotlight a truly authentic salsa performance.
Isn’t that a reggaeton song from pitbull?? Personally I found it really hilarious, casue the first thing that came to my mind was imaging myself dancing salsa to reggaeton music, maybe next time we will see some salsa moves to Lady Gaga’s Pokker Face…. I hope not
I’m surprised at the total dismissal of the dance routine as not salsa by the OP and other respondents.
Don’t forget people; salsa is the music, first and foremost. A more valid criticism of this DWTS routine would be the choice of music. One would be hard pressed to defend the music as salsa music. To me, it’s samba-ish.
If you examine the dancing, you will find that this is a very typical amateur/beginner L.A. style routine. Yes they threw in extra cheesy choreography, but if you notice they always came out of it and broke on1.
Still not convinced? Take a look at the official rules of the WCS, which is a choreography based (as opposed to a freestyle/jack and jill type) salsa competition:
http://www.worldsalsachampionships.com/rules.htm
They only require 25% of the routine to reflect the quick-quick-slow of salsa timing. Out of a 4 minute routine, that’s only 1 minute!
Given the greuling schedule of the show, I didn’t expect much better than what was performed on DWTS, and found it descent representation of the competition style of the dance. However, they should be lambasted for using that music in a salsa routine.
Apparently no “Dancing With the Stars” edition aims to be “true” to musical roots… Don’t believe me? Take a look at this DWTS Australia edition video clip with a “Salsa” performance with none other than Salsa WORLD CHAMP Luda Kroitor…
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
Maybe they should pick Coldplay – Clocks Bueno Vista version instead of Bailamos, if they want something populair.
Looked like salsa to me! The music just wasn’t salsa music but it looked like advanced styling and I really liked it. Hope to be able to do some of those moves in the future!
that was totaly fake!!! salsa didn’t get enough credit!! actuallu there was barley any salsa in the dance!
If you watch Dancing With the Stars long enough you will realize that Cheryl Burke will always fall back on “bronze” level steps or the more basic steps. If the star has a busy schedule or is just weak (remember “Mater P”?), this is all that can be taught in a week’s time.
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.
Here is the funny thing… They dance just like everyone in every club in the midwest and on the west coast. I find it embarressing. It’s just mainstream RUMBA. Not real SALSA. Every time I go to a club and dance “REAL” Salsa people surround us in amazement and are like what is that? That is not the Salsa de PUERTO RICO. Not real at all. The stuff that is on this website isn’t real either. It’s mainstream ballroom show type BS Salsa. GET REAL!
I suggest your read the article. We are disagreeing with the fact they did not use a proper salsa track and the moves weren’t done perfectly to gain a perfect score.
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.
As far as Dancing with the stars is concerned, They always use HORRIBLE music for all Latin music. One time I think they played a Bee Gees song for Salsa. WTH! LOL
Hi you all,
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
Pot calling the kettle black. With all due respect guys, the choreography on that video was not too far off from I typically see taught/danced in the American style (LA/NY) circles.
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.
This is what happens when Americans touch other’s culture. Total destruction of the soul.
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