For those who haven’t found out yet, we thought we would make a post here too. This year’s World Salsa Championships have been ’postponed’. The message on the championship’s website reads as follows:
The Salsa Seven Inc. regrets to announce that “4th Annual World Salsa Championships at Disney’s Walt World Resort” scheduled for December 3-6, 2008, has been postponed. The Salsa Seven and Disney Special Programs are discussing plans for re-scheduling this extraordinary world-class competition.
While we know of several dance teams that had made it through the competing rounds, we have not received word if the dance teams will have to qualify again if the even does not take place before next December. The reason of the cancellation is not known.
Club Mayan results are in! Though they are not posted on the Mayan website yet, the Jamaican Salsero Blog has posted the information along with a review of the competition from the competitor’s perspective. The 13th Annual Mayan World Salsa Competition took place over the last two weeks, with professional finals this past Saturday.
The winners were David Nieto and Charlene Rose, followed by Raul Santiago and Sergia Anderson in 2nd place, and Christian Oviedo and Diana Sanchez in 3rd. Other well known dancers that didn’t make it to the top include Liz Lira with Luis Aguilar, who came in 4th place, and Isidro Corona and Sheila Zepeda (Bay area favorites), who have done quite well in Albert Torres’ World Salsa Championships.
Some have criticized the Mayan Competition, claiming that this once revered contest that determined the true greats has since been corrupted and is even being replaced by the World Salsa Championships (Albert Torres Productions). The main complaint is that the Mayan is “an LA competition“, meaning that in order to win, one must be from Los Angeles. This is evidenced by the fact that the International category is defined as “outside of California” (though even in the International warm-up dance, some of the internationals hailed from as far as San Francisco- see more info on the video below).
Despite criticisms, many of the best On1 dancers still compete in this competition every year. This year, there were some surprises. Couples like Isidro and Sheila, who won the semifinal round in the world championships, only placed 9th in the Mayan competition. The winners of the Mayan competition, David and Charlene, placed 4th in the semi-finals and 3rd in the finals of the world competition. Some of the discrepancies are no doubt due to differences between individual performances, but it is interesting to compare the two competitions. The results of the 2007 World Salsa Championships are below; you can judge for yourself once the Mayan videos are posted.
Details of placing aside, the quality of dancing is exceptional in this competition. Check out the Mayan website to watch the semifinal rounds videos in both pro and am categories.
Final Results On 1
1. Abel Peña y Zulmara Torres (Mexico y Los Angeles)
2. Roberto Areans y Marie Josee Strazero (Canadá)
3. David Nieto y Charlene Rose (Ecuador/USA)
For those who closely follow the Los Angeles salsa scene, the 13th Annual Mayan World Salsa Competition will be held on May 17th, 2008 with first prize being $5,000 dollars. That is still a good amount of dough even if the US dollar is falling…. (I wish we got paid in Euros or Pounds).
For those new in the salsa ‘world’, this is not a regular salsa congress competition – it is more about themes, costumes, lifts, tricks and basic dance choreography. Before the ESPN World Salsa Championships, this used to be the standard of salsa competitions when I first started dancing. They tend to be very liberal with the adding of random ‘rewind’ and ‘explosion’ effects in the soundtrack-features typical of LA style. Check out LA salsa greats like Liz Lira, David Nieto, and Christian Oviedo- who you would recognize from the “A Weekend in Salsa” video (the first couple dancing) that I shot at the last Los Angeles Salsa Congress.
Be sure to check it out if you are in the area. You can view Preliminary and Semi-Final round videos on the Mayan website. Before the advent of YouTube, these videos were a gift to all salseros looking for free online videos to be able to watch what is going on in the salsa scene. Enjoy…and wait to see who ends up winning the finals!
Hello Salsa friends. This is Dany Joshua and I have great news! If you missed the 2007 World Salsa Championships, don’t worry because you can catch the competition on one of the ESPN networks. If you live in the USA, then you can watch the broadcast in Spanish on ‘ESPN Deportes’ or in English on ESPN2. If you live elsewhere, see the schedule below. No excuses now! Set your Tivo!
As a side note, the commentator for this competition is New Jersey’s instructor/performer, Jai Catalano. A few years ago when I started dancing Salsa, I took classes with him at his Belleview (New Jersey) location. It is great to see that ESPN picked a seasoned Salsa veteran to comment and offer insight.
ESPN Deportes (USA and Puerto Rico):
May 6 – 9:00 pm EST
May 10 – 9:00 pm EST
ESPN2 (USA):
May 27 – 9:00 pm EST
June 4 – 12:30 am EST
June 19 – 2:00 pm EST
ESPN Dos:
(Caribbean/Mexico Region)
May 4 – 10:00 pm EST
May 11 – 10:00 pm EST
May 18 – 10:00 pm EST
May 25 – 10:00 pm EST
All the times are New York Time
aka EST (Eastern Standard Time).
aka MST (Mecca of Salsa Time)
Just kidding…
ESPN Latin (South America, Mexico, Caribbean and Central America):
May 3 – 5:00 pm EST
May 5 – 4:00 pm EST
May 6 – 4:00 pm EST
May 7 – 4:00 pm EST
ESPN Atlantic (Africa, Middle East):
May 8 – 2:00 pm EST
May 8 – 3:00 pm EST
May 15 – 2:00 pm EST
May 15 – 3:00 pm EST
ESPN Pacific-Rim (Australia, Pacific Islands, Japan, New Zealand):
May 4 – 2:00 am EST
May 4 – 3:00 am EST
May 11 – 2:00 am EST
May 11 – 3:00 am EST
Our friend Alan from Nuevotec Productions has made an awesome documentary about the ESPN Salsa World Championships – which is being called a ‘Salsamentary’. It is an amazing work to get to know how the entire World Championships started, learn about the people, the dancers and everything that goes on behind the scenes. Here is a brief description:
Salsamentary takes a look at the journey of six dancers as they step on salsa’s largest stage through its highest level of competitive dancing. Each dancer has their own reason for competing. Some enjoy the challenge of competing against the world’s best dancers. Others want to build their salsa dance resume and credentials quickly through the event, which is televised on several ESPN national and international stations, as well as DVDs sold globally. The rewards cannot be expressed just in terms of the prize money awarded to the first, second, and third places.
Bloch is carried here as well,...
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