Zouk Performances to die for at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009
February 2nd 2009 06:02
Claudio & Monica social dancing at The SSC 2009
The search for what makes a choreo great goes on…
On the following nights of the congress my search for what can make a routine stand out went on. I will have to write about Fri, Sat and Sunday in a mix, although I wasn’t dancing I went to all the parties, shows and a few workshops, so I got a bit tired. This thing of having a fractured bone with a constant pain also added to my feeling exhausted. So although I had planed to write on Saturday and Sunday mornings I ended up sleeping instead. The dancers among my readers will understand me well, the people that go clubbing also, so most of you will not give me a hard time for my late writing.
And as I have the 3 nights of shows in my head, I will have to use them as I go, forget about the linearity of the tale and just enjoy the links in the thinking.
I realised that, as I said before, the music is essential but there are catches to it. For example, if you get a great music but doesn’t use it well it is as bad as if you didn’t get a great music. Look for music with ups and downs, breaks and strong beats, something dramatic always adds flair to the performance. And a good choreographer uses it.
One of the guys in the dance world in Sydney that is a master of this and one of my favourite partners in the dance floor is Claudio Gomes from Step Up. When I was just getting there with my zouk I went to a 101ºC Party and danced with him. It was one of “the good ones”, a perfect dance with no lost leads and the perfect following of his movements.
When we finished one of my fellow dancers came to me to say. (I remember it well, J. Gray it was): “I never got zouk until tonight. I saw you dancing with the Brazilian Teacher and finally got it. It was amazing.” And he commented on the following of the music.
So that is what he and his partner do best, Claudio and Monica with his Formation Team performed on Sunday and brought a perfect example, they chose a great music, added a nice costume and did a beautiful piece using every single bit of the song.
Once again I will proclaim not to be neutral. Zouk is my favourite dance and this year the shows I liked the best were the ones of this style. I know it is the Sydney Salsa Congress, so Salsa is in the spotlight but - Gosh! - no one that saw Kadu and Larissa, and Mafie Zouk, Larissa and Kadu will tell me they were not … WOW!
Kadu & Larissa Gafieira performance at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009
I couldn’t even describe how amazing those shows were, and here again it was very much into what I am talking about: fantastic choice of music and absolutely perfect use of the beats, but of course you are talking some of the best in the world here.
I’m trying to muster and chase words to describe what I witnessed… I cannot even call it “watched” as it was such an special event, that like a earthquake or a volcano explosion you “witness”; “watch” is not a word emotional enough to describe it.
By the end of each of the choreos I felt like saying only one thing: “Please do it again! Please, please, please, let me see it once more? Can I get the video right now? Can I take it home?” I felt like Scooby Doo when he got one of those dog’s cookies in the cartoon, I felt like I jut had a treat, felt like floating in the air, eyes closed, just tasting how good that was.
Larissa must be a semi-goddess with divine powers, like the ones from mythology made from the intervention of one of the pagan gods. She is so smooth, so liquid on stage and yet so perfect in her movements that it is indescribable. With partners that do what they do, Kadu and Mafie Zouk, there was nothing more amazing.
Larissa and Me, Mafie Zouk and Kadu in the back at the SSC 2009
Kadu and Larissa performed on Saturday and I went to bed not with the image of them in my mind but with the blur of incredible sensations they caused inside me.
Then on Sunday Mafie Zouk got her, in a choreography created and rehearsed in only one week together, I’m not even sure they had met ever before then, I don’t think so.
He may be a bit of a snob, but Mafie Zouk is still one of the best zoukers in the world. His body movement is so sexy girls feel like melting, guys feel like imitating. Putting him to dance with Larissa was not fair to the rest of the world. Then you add Kadu from the middle of the routine and you get the shivers.
Mafie Zouk social dancing at the Sydney Salsa Congress 2009
I cannot wait to see it again, and that will be only on video.
That is why this congress we cannot miss, even with a faulty wing. Things that happen here will not be replicated ever in any other place. The chances of getting these three again together on stage are very small indeed and even if they did, this choreo is unique made for this place only…
I got side tracked as I promise I’ll do a lot of times here. So I’ll finish here for now and continue in the next post… my next link will be the remarkable things on the SSC stage, improvisations and special appearances.
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Comment by Claudio Gomes
Thanks for the kind words.
Dancing with you has always been a great pleasure to me. Your energy and your passion are unique to you and they can wake up a dead man.
Nice posts and coverage of the SSC you've done here.
I can only fathom what will happen when you get better from your injury - "os homens que se cuidem!!!"