I'm interested to know what other people who dance Salsa regularly thought of the performances on Saturday night.

I've been Salsa dancing for about 6 years now, and although I'm still a distinctly moderate dancer myself I've seen enough great dancers to know what's good and what isn't.

My personal view was that Alesha's Salsa was worth at least a 9, that John's was no better than a 7, and as for Kate...well I've danced with no end of beginners who've been better than that at the end of their first lesson...a 2 would have been generous in my opinion.

What did other Salseros think?

I've never danced Salsa - but have watched others do it and agree with you - Alesha 9; John 7. I also gave Penny a5, Kate 3, and Letitia a 6.

Yes, we wouldn't be a million miles apart in our scoring for Penny & Letitia. I felt sorry for Penny, that piece of music was just much too fast for her...and there was no need for it. Salsa doesn't have to be danced at 100 miles per hour, and only the very best should try to.

Just asking NSS - do you actually dance a proper Cuban Salsa, because it's generally acknowledged that John and Nicole are the first to actually dance an authentic salsa. I was a huge fan of Ramps and I love Alesha, but they danced an interpretation of the salsa - more of a show dance really - amazing spectacle I know, but have you listened to Lilia's red button commentary (if not you should), those best able to judge appear to agree that John's salsa was amazing and without doubt the best salsa ever on SCD.

I have danced both New York (cross body) Salsa and Cuban Salsa, but the New York style is the one that is favoured by most Salsa teachers and dancers in this country in my experience.

You're absolutely right that most of the Salsa dances in Strictly Come Dancing are not 'proper' Salsa dances in the traditional sense, and that John's was much more true to the 'common' Salsa style. That having being said, there have been others who have danced very authentic Salsa in SCD, Matthew being a case in point, especially when he was dancing with Carol Smillie last year.

You have to remember that the professional dancers in Strictly Come Dancing generally have very limited experience of Salsa because it is not a competition Latin & Ballroom dance, which is why it was not in the original series. Indeed some of them freely admit to not having danced Salsa at all before SCD. Clearly Len falls into this category himself, which may explain his marks.

I started the thread because I am interested to hear whether other experienced Salsa dancers shared my opinions...they may disagree violently with me!

I do Salsa, have been for about 18 months now, so not great at it, but I loved Johns salsa, and did think it was the first one I have watched which had a large number of recognisable salsa moves, although I'm only intermediate, and they may do more in the more advanced classes. Imo, Penny and Ians had more salsa moves than Mark and Karens and Alesha and Matts dances, which although thoroughly enjoyable were more showdances. Kates was dire, I agree with you there, and Letitias just wasn't using her feet properly. If she had, her hips would have moved properly.
I'm lucky in the class I take, we do both cuban and New York, depending on the number of people in the class at the time!!
Last edited by roxysmum : 13-11-2007 at 01:53

Another very moderate cuban salsa dancer and agree that John's dance was the only one I recognised and thought 'gosh, I'd really like to dance with him'. I know that's not judging, but I think Len's mark reflected that 'performance' aspect of their dance.

I watched SCD with a group of salsa dancers, some of whom are very advanced. They absolutely hated all the salsa's but liked John and Nicole's, his major problem was a lack of fluidity in the shoulders; even though the posture was right for salsa. They fell about laughing at the scores but they think the whole programme is silly and in the end agreed with the final order.

Now I'm a diehard Matthew and Alesha fan, I loved their dance and personally awarded it a 9 and my group were happy to agree with me that she was the best dancer but they didn't like their salsa. Acknowledged it had more content and there was some salsa styling but it just didn't look authentic - a hybrid of salsa styles plus a little disco; hip hop styling and samba. They thought the biggest problem was Matthew.

It's pistols at dawn ......... but I thought I'd share as you asked.

What is interesting is that Shouty Salsa Man was very taken with Mark last year and it was he last year and this year who went to the training sessions with his partner to help with choreography etc .
Darren also had help last year , can't recall off hand who , but that routine was choreographed for him by experts and the judges didn't like it at all .

Ian and Penny's looked a bit like Darren's from last year and I think Karen had a very good point when she said Penny was left on her own too much , too far away from Ian and exposed .

I agree with much of what the OP said ; Len was about 2 marks out .
That said , the order on Saturday was not too far out .

I thought John's was the most recognisably salsa. Everything else looked more like samba or chacha (in the case of Anton and Kate).

Mind you, I was confused by Len's comment on ITT last night about the different forms of salsa. I understood that the type of salsa would be Cuban style (that's what it says on the BBC SCD web site at least) - so I dunno why he was wittering on about different salsa styles.

Alesha was the better dancer, and her technique and timing were better, but it wasn't as much a salsa dance really. All that wiggling of the shoulder got on my nerves...

John was overmarked by Len, yes - but I think Alesha was also overmarked. I'd put John at 32-34, Alesha at 30-32.

Oh, and I've been doing salsa on and off for about 12 years now, plus a small amount of teaching. But I'm also still in the "moderate" camp

Thanks for that link as I didn't know they specifically stated that it would be Cuban salsa. That's what I dance and with people who are passionate about it. What that in mind, the only male dancer I would want to dance with would definitely have been John.

Weeelll.... they specifically said Cuban a lot early on - I tend to notice this sort of thing - and they clearly state it on the site. However, they didn't make a big deal of it being specifically Cuban salsa over the past week.

Now, that change could be simply an omission, or it could be a deliberate decision to widen the genre from "Cuban salsa" to "Salsa dancing" in general - which would incorporate Columbian, NY, LA, etc. Which is why I was confused by Len's comment about different salsa styles on ITT.

I guess it all depends on whether you subscribe to the cockup or conspiracy theory of SCD, really

I'm grateful for the feedback - I'm by no means claiming that my opinion is correct, that's why I was interested in what other regular Salsa dancers thought.

Amazingly, most of us seem to agree - there's a novelty in salsa.

I'm so sorry - the pistol at dawn remark was aimed at my salsa friends who were very rude about my all time favourite dancer - Matthew Cutler. Definitely not aimed at you.

Well, let's face it, Ian didn't do a great job - his posture was weird, he lacked onfidence, it was too fast, and overall it looked like a samba/salsa hybrid.

Possibly he relied too much on "shouty man" (Chris Marques) for the choreography.

Fixed that for you...

And I think you'll find it's "short shouty man"; at least that's how he's known in our household. Not that I would normally care about his height, but boy-oh-boy does he come across as someone suffering from "short man syndrome". Loved they way they got him to dance with Penny, just so he could look even more ridiculous than usual.

P.S. You know me from somewhere else: avatar with a dancer spinning over my head...

The only professional they liked (even a little bit) was Nicole. They hated all the male professionals with Matthew coming out best. They thought Penny & Ian's dance was dreadful, couldn't believe that salsa dancers had specially choreographed it for them. They couldn't comment on Anton because they were laughing too much.

Never going to watch my favourite programme with that lot again - even if they were very, very funny.

Nicole's got some experience with salsa I believe.


Heh, Anton's was very funny.


They sound like a great laugh, they should be on ITT as a panel


Heh, I thought "Hmmm, that sounds like someone I know" before I even read your last comment

The weird thing is, Chris and Jaclyn can clearly dance, and can clearly choreograph - if you look at this clip from their group dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci5bvSL7Ozo

It's serviceable salsa - nothing wonderful, not up to the level of Salsafreak Edie's group for example - but it's OK. So I dunno where all this shoulder-shaking stuff come from, really.

I've been doing 'American' salsa for 3 years & recently started doing the Cuban style which is quite different & confusing eg instead of the man starting on the left leg, he starts on the right - unless there's different styles of Cuban. From what I saw, there were elements of both styles in the performances.
I'd have scored John a 9 & Alesha an 8 because I agreed with Arlene that her footwork wasn't quite right. I also think the choice of music ie Michael Jackson made it more disco than salsa.

Ummm... dunno. I'm not sure what American style is either, though - do you mean New York style? Or LA style?

It sounds a bit like you're describing the difference between "On1" and "On2" salsa... It's all very confusing, this dancing stuff, innit?


Actually, I had thought that the music would be awful, but it wasn't as bad as I thought, on the day.