Mayan Salsa Competition
For the past few weeks, there has been an amazing Salsa dance competition at the Club Mayan in downtown Los Angeles. This historic club has been host to HBO concerts and comedy specials. The venue has a gothic look on the outside and an eclectic mix of rooms, bars and balconies on the inside.
The best Salsa dancers in L.A. were selected from 4 weeks of elimination. Two weeks ago were the semi-finals and this week is the professional finals. The competitors look good – the Salsa girls look sexy and provocative, the guys look macho and strong. There is energy in the club and the crowd is excited. And yours truly, Mark and Veronica, get a front row seat since we are judges at this event.
The level of the professional couples was very good to excellent. The top routines displayed a combination of speed, acrobatic tricks, fast footwork and sensual moves. However, as judges, we believe some of the couples need to work on improving their footwork (particularly the ladies), musicality and partnership.
These finals had an usual twist and received mixed feelings from Veronica and myself. It turned out that one of the couples participating was a gay couple (in other words, two guys dancing together). Some competitions specify that the couple must be man and a woman, apparently the Mayan Salsa contest does not. I felt the gay guy (dancing as a lady) had better and clearer footwork than several of the lady dancers and Veronica felt that a man cannot duplicate the shape, sensuality and femininity of a woman in Latin dancing.
The overall dancing from all the couples was excellent and it looked like it would come down to Liz & Christian and the gay couple. Liz and Christian had a slight costume malfunction in the beginning but finished flawlessly. The gay couple performed well with no mistakes. When the scores were tallied, the gay couple had swayed the judges in their favor by a slim margin. They were the winners.
This is truly an exciting event and showcases the best Salsa dancers around. Don’t miss it next year!
Sincerely,
Mark and Veronica
The best Salsa dancers in L.A. were selected from 4 weeks of elimination. Two weeks ago were the semi-finals and this week is the professional finals. The competitors look good – the Salsa girls look sexy and provocative, the guys look macho and strong. There is energy in the club and the crowd is excited. And yours truly, Mark and Veronica, get a front row seat since we are judges at this event.
The level of the professional couples was very good to excellent. The top routines displayed a combination of speed, acrobatic tricks, fast footwork and sensual moves. However, as judges, we believe some of the couples need to work on improving their footwork (particularly the ladies), musicality and partnership.
These finals had an usual twist and received mixed feelings from Veronica and myself. It turned out that one of the couples participating was a gay couple (in other words, two guys dancing together). Some competitions specify that the couple must be man and a woman, apparently the Mayan Salsa contest does not. I felt the gay guy (dancing as a lady) had better and clearer footwork than several of the lady dancers and Veronica felt that a man cannot duplicate the shape, sensuality and femininity of a woman in Latin dancing.
The overall dancing from all the couples was excellent and it looked like it would come down to Liz & Christian and the gay couple. Liz and Christian had a slight costume malfunction in the beginning but finished flawlessly. The gay couple performed well with no mistakes. When the scores were tallied, the gay couple had swayed the judges in their favor by a slim margin. They were the winners.
This is truly an exciting event and showcases the best Salsa dancers around. Don’t miss it next year!
Sincerely,
Mark and Veronica
posted by mark.mendez at
1:12 PM
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