Salsa Sensation 2019
The Idea…
Salsa Sensation was a collaboration between QuickSteps Dance Club Studio and Espitiro Latino. Espirito Latino is a Latin Dance Organisation made up of Eleni and Nikolina that specialises in planning and operating Latin Dance events here in Adelaide. We got together and decided it was too long since a pair of world class salsa dancers had visited our beautiful city and we were going to make it happen!
After countless meetings, planning sessions and negotiations the weekend of the 10th and 11th of August had arrived. It was show time!
Madalyn and Artia – The Celebs
Artia Zandian
Artia is homegrown, South Australian dancing talent. Artia moved to Adelaide at a very young age and this is where his salsa dancing first begun. He later soent time living in Sydney, Milan and then Melbourne in order to further his salsa career. Artia has won multiple awards on the world salsa stage in both couple and solo competitions.
Not only is he an experienced and talented Latin dancer but his cheeky personality brings an extra level of entertainment to his private salsa lessons and workshops.
Madalyn Milazzo
When it comes to Latin dance in Brisbane Madalyn is queen of the scene! Starting to dance when she was only 6 years old she covered every style from ballet to tap, contemporary to Ballroom Tango. For years now she has been teaching, competing and specialising in street Latin styles such as Salsa and Sensual Bachata. Madalyn is an excellent teacher in both a private and workshop setting, choosing her words carefully and explaining concpets thoroughly. It is clear that she is an absolute master of her craft.
DAY 1
Madalyn and Artia touched down on Friday morning around 11am and headed straight for the QuickSteps studio. The private lesson spots we had available during the week were completely booked out in anticipation!
One by one QuickSteps members and members of the local salsa community alike visited the studio and enjoyed the knowledge they had to share.
Here is our studio manager Ben enjoying a lesson with Madalyn and brushing up on his salsa skills.
A salsa celeb’s work is never done! After a full day of teaching it was time for the two of them to rehearse together in preparation for Sunday nights salsa performance.
DAY 2
Saturday was once again a day full of private lessons. Back to back classes for both Madalyn and Artia were booked. Luckily there was a couple of hours in middle where they could step out of the studio and enjoy the sunshine whilst walking and exploring Rundle Mall.
They finished teaching around 6pm before Seb, Eleni, Nikolina and I took them out to dinner. We went to one of our favourite thai restaurants S2 On Flinders.
After dinner it was time to go out dancing. It was a bit of a hard choice with there being so many places to dance salsa in Adelaide now but we started at Brasilatino to see our friends Atthur and Layassa perform their new Zouk routine.
From there it was onto Salsa Saturdays at Latinos where we grooved until our feet couldn’t take anymore!
Attendees were thrilled to meet and dance with Artia and Madalyn, what a lovely surprise it was for them 🙂
Sebastien and I headed home but were asked to drop Madalyn and Artia back to the studio on the way. They really are the dedicated and wanted to squeeze in a couple of hours more training before bed.
DAY 3
Sunday was the biggest day of all. Private lessons, workshops and the Salsa Sesation Party and floor show.
WORKSHOPS
At 5:30pm Madalyn’s workshop started. She focused on Latin body movement and took the whole group through body isolation excercises and warm ups.
These same warm ups can then be practised and applied to general salsa and Latin dancing. By doing this, ‘salseros’ will find that their salsa, bachata and Latin in general will start to look more dynamic, stylish and professional.
We finally learned how to ‘twerk’! Bonus!
At 6:30pm Artia ran a workshop that included shoulder and arm movement excercise to help dancers keep timing an improve overall salsa ‘feel’. He explained that body movement is the root of all top shelf salsa!
We first started with shoulder and arm movement excercises and then combined this with knee movement. Talk about multi tasking!
Demo to end the Workshop
And of course, no workshop is complete without the group photo at the end as a keepsake.
At 7:30pm our star couple headed next door to their hotel to freshen up and have a bite to eat. The QuickSteps Team got the party started! The drinks were flowing and Dj Jonothan Teng from Mambo City hit the decks. The music was a mix of traditional, new age and remixed salsa, bachata and cha cha.
Hi Jonathan! 🙂
Performance Time!
Kevin and Jam performed their latest cha cha cha and had the crowd cheering! How’s that for a costume change? 😉
Then it was time for Artia and Madalyn’s debut of their new Salsa routine.
This is an unusual type of salsa called a rhumba… Now it’s been explained to me that this dance is highly flirtatious and is based around the courtship of a rooster and a hen. The rooster making multiple attempts to impress then hen, all the while the hen refusing and playing hard to get… Now this is the censored version I am giving you of course, that wasn’t the exact words that were used to explain to me in the staff room but you get the idea…
Quite the lift!
And here is the finished product…
PARTY TIME…
From here it was simply animation line dances, drinks, mingling and social dancing all night. We salsa danced until we could salsa dance no more…
More social dancing…. Salsa, Bachatas and cha cha cha…
Missed out on Salsa Sensation 2019? Don’t panic! We will certainly be doing this again. Keep an eye on the QuickSteps facebook page to stay in the loop 😉
Thank you again to Jonathan our Dj, Espirito Latino and all of the Latin community members and studios that came along to join us.
Mish x
