This is my 7th series and I still get my Salsas and Sambas mixed up too - could be a good night for us both!

Please refer to your Unofficial Guide to Dance the SCD way -Section II - Latin - Subsection 3 - Judges blag to latin dances, page 60 paragraphs 30 to 40.

Samba - Man tries to break woman's back with rolls, bounce abaht a lot.

Salsa - Flail, flail, flail.

Chah Chah Chah - Flail, Flail, Flail to a different beat.

Simples

At last , I think I have it , I think I've cracked it .!! All along it was that easy and I wasted six long years watching the dancers feet and trying to work it out ! Bravo .!


Now whats that one where they make huge effort to break each others legs , wrapping them around the others legs like an evil python.?

I would expect that they are all the hardest dance to do if you are man or a woman or a sportsperson or - most of all - tall ...

Isn't that the 'make a show of yourself dance'?

You have perfectly described the Argentine Tango without having to resort to sweaty gauchos, this entitles you to refer to yourself as a Judge, well done.

Where is the guide? Cant find it

" Fierce " cackle cackle .

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1136692


Impressive.

It's here:
"The Official DS Ballroom Dance Glossary"

I love it too, but in ballrooms terms it is a cha cha tune

On a slightly more serious note...

It's not surprising that people confuse samba and salsa - apart from the obvious name similarity, in SCD they're both referred to using the same terms, they both tend to use similar music (e.g. Mark and Karen's "Hot hot hot" is not a salsa tune, much more a samba tune), and to make it worse the pro dancers who know little about salsa tend to throw in samba moves all over the place.

And when you look at cha-cha, there's not really a vast structural difference between chacha and salsa - they're both uptempo latin dances based on a clave rhythm, so superficially they can look quite similar.

Thanks to both of you

Ummm...am confoosled.Doesn't take much If none of the pro's are very au fait with Salsa then why include it? Isn't there another dance that they could do instead? *cowers from possible barrage of abuse at ignorantyness*

Hell, it was pretty good, wasn't it? You're right, defo not Cuban, very LA - especially Brian's elbows and foot flicks but way better than the average - and the music was fab.

Yay! Someone on the board who really knows about salsa. How fantastic! So great you posted. Please keep posting.

I hate those big back steps too. Don't make sense. I wish, just wish SCD showed some authentic salsa - pref Colombian (some of the best salsa dancers in the world) or Cuban (so sexy) - so that SCD people could see what the real thing looks like. I live in hope

Very good point rossy. I think it's there because the producers know how popular it is throughout the UK, and they want to appeal to a younger audience, and look vaguely hip.

*breathes sigh of relief* Can't be too careful round 'ere ya know

Surely the pro's can't be too happy about that? Isn't there another dance they could put in the Latin instead?

Nope, it's a reasonable question.

Salsa's a dance which - when introduced - no-one in the show (including the judges and the professionals, with a couple of exceptions) knew much about. They've learnt a bit, since then, and they've imported Brian, but it's still a weak spot for them.

I assume it was introduced to "sex up" the show a bit.

Hopefully, in this thread at least, we won't have a go at people for wanting information about dancing and being honest enough to admit they don't know everything.

Re: salsa:

Well, they're all in the same boat. Plus, frankly, they don't have much of a say in it.


You'd have the same problem with any other outside dance.

"Latin" is a specific 5-dance grouping, which the professionals have spent many years learning. For any dance outside of that group, they'd have similar problems learning it.

One dance style I'd like to see on SCD is West Coast Swing - but again, that'd be new to the professionals.

How did I miss that thread? It should be a sticky!

Please don't mention the 'p' word, as I can't stand snakes and I had trouble sleeping for ages after Lisa and Brendan's show dance!

(PS The Rumba can have that effect some times too!)

But the big difference is that the Cha-Cha is a lot slower, at 128bpm (to allow the CC chasse), and the Salsa is upwards of 160bpm [according to ballroomdancers.com].

That's why it annoyed me last year when they used I Like It Like That for Christine's CC song last year - this is the sort of speed of a club-style Cha-Cha, not ballroom CC.

I quite like it when the pros need outside help. The pro dance tonight is supposed to be something special with an outside choreographer. From the brief VT I'm thinking Busby Berkeley or something similar in a big Broadway style!

More like a Merengue.

Whatever it was that Mark Ramps and Karen did with their's I think.