New York Congress 2008 Roll Call!

borikenSalsero said:
I'll be there Friday only...
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:banana: I'm finally meeting Boriken! I'm finally meeting Boriken! :banana:


Now we've got:

assinie
Beto
borikenSalsero
Brendan
DancerGirl
GRx
irishgirl
MacMoto
manou
noobster
Offbeat
OneCentSalsero
opm1s6
PielCanela
quixotedlm
SheilaB
vin

Can't wait to see you all :D
 
i couldn't make my feet dance again tonight, so i watched the performances and came home.

tonight i loved the cuban man who danced (all in white) with candy mena - he was completely mesmerizing. who is he? does anyone know the song he danced to - yo soy la rumba, or something like that? for the team performances, Yamulee really, really brought the house down in the finale. the various Puerto Rican children's couples were also *amazing.*

for the salsa competition, i was perplexed at the result - the winning couple didn't do much for me, whereas Adolfo and Sharee ( i know that's not the right spelling... sorry) were terrific, but only got second.

i also noticed that chacha featured more prominently in the performances than i remember from previous years.... seems like chacha is having a moment.
 
la_gringa said:
i couldn't make my feet dance again tonight, so i watched the performances and came home.

tonight i loved the cuban man who danced (all in white) with candy mena - he was completely mesmerizing. who is he? does anyone know the song he danced to - yo soy la rumba, or something like that? for the team performances, Yamulee really, really brought the house down in the finale. the various Puerto Rican children's couples were also *amazing.*

for the salsa competition, i was perplexed at the result - the winning couple didn't do much for me, whereas Adolfo and Sharee ( i know that's not the right spelling... sorry) were terrific, but only got second.

i also noticed that chacha featured more prominently in the performances than i remember from previous years.... seems like chacha is having a moment.
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how was santo rico?
 
opm1s6 said:
how was santo rico?
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I actually preferred the routine by Xibicion Santo Rico on the Friday night. I really liked the choreography (which was also by Thomas) and the way some bits were in sync and some in canon. In all it worked really well with the music. The start of the Santo Rico routine was very nice and very complex with all the changes. There were a few things that didn't completely work though. Once that sort of thing gets ironed out it should be much better.
Really good to meet people. Sorry I wasn't around too much. MacMoto, as ever, the dance was a pleasure.

Brendan
 
Brendan said:
I actually preferred the routine by Xibicion Santo Rico on the Friday night. I really liked the choreography (which was also by Thomas) and the way some bits were in sync and some in canon. In all it worked really well with the music. The start of the Santo Rico routine was very nice and very complex with all the changes. There were a few things that didn't completely work though. Once that sort of thing gets ironed out it should be much better.
Really good to meet people. Sorry I wasn't around too much. MacMoto, as ever, the dance was a pleasure.

Brendan
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Agreed. I wasn't a fan of SR's routine on Sunday night as the musical transitions were very abrupt and took you out of the performance. *LOVED* Yamulee's number on Sunday night as it was everything I expected from that group and more.
 
Beto said:
Agreed. I wasn't a fan of SR's routine on Sunday night as the musical transitions were very abrupt and took you out of the performance. *LOVED* Yamulee's number on Sunday night as it was everything I expected from that group and more.
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Hmm..Yamulee debuted their new routine at the NC Salsa Festival (August 8-10) and it was off the hook! I wonder if it was the same number? I haven't gotten the video from the event yet, so I can't recall what the name of the song was.
 
I thought the right couple won the comp. Sheila and Adolfo were clean but in my humble opinion Adolfo did not engage with the audience enough. They did do much better in the finals than in the prelims where he had some misconnections. My only question: are Kelvin and Licelott going to represent NYC in the On2 division or Cabaret?

Santo Rico didn't do too much for me either. Yamulee and BASo executed their routines much cleaner and made it look effortless.

The cuban guy was Mykel Fonts. His workshops were amazing as well.
 
GRx said:
The cuban guy was Mykel Fonts. His workshops were amazing as well.
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This guy is amazing. I only watched Saturday night performances. Eddie Torres introduced him. The previous night I had seen him dancing (outside near vendor area) on the carpet with Shani. At the time I didn't know who he was but his style, body movement, footwork, musicality, everything was top notch (personally I think he is as good or better than likes of Frankie, Oliver, etc). A woman seating next to me watching him whispered in my ear how much fun he makes dancing even for inexperience followers. I did see him immediately after that dancing with a few at best beginner levels followers.

I think we will be hearing a lot more about him. I read his bio last night. He is a product of top dancing school in Cuba. He seems to have been doing European salsa circuit in the past year based on his youtube videos.

At the congress I also saw at least half a dozen guys who were excellent at following!
 
Offbeat said:
This guy is amazing. I only watched Saturday night performances. Eddie Torres introduced him. The previous night I had seen him dancing (outside near vendor area) on the carpet with Shani. At the time I didn't know who he was but his style, body movement, footwork, musicality, everything was top notch (personally I think he is as good or better than likes of Frankie, Oliver, etc). A woman seating next to me watching him whispered in my ear how much fun he makes dancing even for inexperience followers. I did see him immediately after that dancing with a few at best beginner levels followers.

I think we will be hearing a lot more about him. I read his bio last night. He is a product of top dancing school in Cuba. He seems to have been doing European salsa circuit in the past year based on his youtube videos.

At the congress I also saw at least half a dozen guys who were excellent at following!
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since you've already done the homework, can you post some youtube links, please?
 
Offbeat said:
This guy is amazing. I only watched Saturday night performances. Eddie Torres introduced him. The previous night I had seen him dancing (outside near vendor area) on the carpet with Shani. At the time I didn't know who he was but his style, body movement, footwork, musicality, everything was top notch (personally I think he is as good or better than likes of Frankie, Oliver, etc). A woman seating next to me watching him whispered in my ear how much fun he makes dancing even for inexperience followers. I did see him immediately after that dancing with a few at best beginner levels followers.

I think we will be hearing a lot more about him. I read his bio last night. He is a product of top dancing school in Cuba. He seems to have been doing European salsa circuit in the past year based on his youtube videos.

At the congress I also saw at least half a dozen guys who were excellent at following!
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Fonts' afro-Cuban and body movement stuff is really good. As far as his overall appearence style, he looks like he is becoming a bit of a Juan Matos clone. His dance style is different than Frankie, but people forget how great Frankie is unless they see him get loose in 2008, and not in Youtube vids from 3 or 4 years ago that you watched a million times. Frankie was at Taj not long ago and he was killing it to the point where the band was singing about his dancing. I had to slow down a video to see exactly what he was doing, but it was very smooth. From what I have seen, Fonts doesn't have the partnerwork to be compared to Frankie, Juan, Oliver, etc., but as far as the afro-Cuban and body movement he is one of the best.

I think Nuevotec may have been at the NY Congress and got him on film social dancing. I understand that Sunday there was a circle on the carpet and all the performer types with the shades, pointy shoes and vampire look were social dancing/performing. Should make for some good videos.
 
AguaDulce said:
Fonts' afro-Cuban and body movement stuff is really good. As far as his overall appearence style, he looks like he is becoming a bit of a Juan Matos clone. His dance style is different than Frankie, but people forget how great Frankie is unless they see him get loose in 2008, and not in Youtube vids from 3 or 4 years ago that you watched a million times.
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I checked his videos. None of them are 1/10th as good as when I saw him dancing with Shani. He wasn't much into partnerwork but his style, footwork and body movement to the music is refreshingly fresh. I don't think he was letting loose. Relative to others he seems to be a new kid on the block and hence will be interesting to watch.

I don't know Matos, will check for his videos.

One thing I have observed across the board is that the videos are not able to capture the magic that you witness when watching the same dance live in person.

antigone said:
since you've already done the homework, can you post some youtube links, please?
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I didn't find any videos from the NY congress'08. Hopefully a few will get upload soon (I saw some big name dancers also shooting him on the digicam). There are some from European scene but the video quality is too crappy.
 
I can confirm that this guy has already been a reference for cuban style for about 2 years here in Europe.

There is no congress around here that doesn't have him on the performer/instructor list. Especially in Germany and Switzerland.

He is also kind of these ladies's darling :cool:
 
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