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| Sorry, we're in the middle of a facelift so some of the links may not work |
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SalsaFanatics' Salsa Party Dates for 2009/2010 at 1574 Walkley Road.
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SALSAPALOOZA UPDATE:
June 13 at the Glebe Community Centre:
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| Hi!!! Thanks for taking the time to check out the SalsaFanatics!!! We have been teaching in Ottawa since 1999. Our current Salsa teachers are: Ariane, Andrea, Joanne, Linda, Mj, and Roy; and they have a combined 43 years of teaching experience. As for our social Salsa dancing experience, we have a combined 60 years of social Salsa dancing experiences and counting. Like Wow!!! ;-) Our SalsaFanatics' teachers and members of our dance troupe regularly attend social Salsa functions in Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto. In addition, we hold regular SalsaFanatics Parties for our students and any other salsa dancers, where you can dance Salsa for 4 hours straight in addition to attending a pre-party workshop. We also have our famous party "mixer" where we give everyone a chance to dance together, with people you may not normally know or dance with. Our dance team has performed at various Salsa Congresses in North America and as far away as Sydney, Australia! By attending Salsa congresses, we have the chance to dance with dancers of all skill levels and with other great Salsa dancers from all over the world to ensure that our dance skills are up to date, and that we can lead and/or follow other advanced dancers with different styles and moves. Taking workshops from international Salsa teachers is a great way to find out their teaching methods and also learn new fresh patterns! We then analyse what we have learned, and relay this information to our students. Our teaching philosphy is based on our personal experience through social dancing and NOT from instructional videos. We hold "teachers meetings" on an ongoing basis to discuss ways to improve our students progressively, what's working, what is not working, what is good or bad, should we change this way?, should we change that way?...yes...we do a ridiculous amount of analyzing daily!!!! Each of our teachers have their own distinct dance style, but we also believe that there are standard moves and body movements that we want to pass on to our students through our group classes. We teach the mechanics, but everyone can put their own style into a move! For example there are 4 basic arms styles that we show in the pre-intermediate classes. But they can be combined in 5 different ways. ;) Which is more than enough to make you look good. This is just one example of what we teach in class. So what kind of 'Salsa' do we teach!? We mostly teach on the '1' beat and the style is more of a hybrid. We really love the New York and Puerto Rican style but ours is not pure New York/Puerto Rican, nor it is LA style. We teach what we feel is useful to our students, and they can choose what style they want. We do not teach Cuban style as there are a few other Salsa Schools in Ottawa that specialize in Cuban dancing (Rueda). Although we teach on '1'. We do love dancing on the '2' beat (NewYork/PuertoRican) and we occasionally teach it on our higher level classes. We will offer pure on 2 classes if the demand is high enough. So let us know if you want to dance on 2!!! How do we progress our students to the next level? Each person learns differently and at different pace. If two people take the same course at the same time, both of them will not progress identically (basic knowledge), therefore, we look at each student and evaluate them separately. Because there is only so much time we have in a week, we categorize our classes from beginners, pre-intermediate, intermediate, mid-intermediate, intermediate-Advance. When we feel the students in each class have met the standards that we have shown them and they have executed the moves well and on the beat of the music, we then ask them to move to the next 'level'. There is so much to learn from each class that the average stay in each class is close to 4 blocks or more. Some stay for the entire season in one level because of the amount of information that they are getting. We feel the more patient a student is, the better they become. Most of the good dancers that we have developed were patient and willing to listen and wait for our decision to move them up a level. Once they are in the next 'level', they are more confident that they can do the other more complex patterns. What is our school like? The facility is great! Plenty of parking around the area, the centre is extremely clean, and the room is big and bright!! As for the teachers, we are friendly, and aside from Roy, there is always another teacher of volunteer who can speak french (3/5 of our teachers are perfectly bilingual and the others do their best!!! ; - ) For every class, we have 2 teachers teaching and at times, we have extra assistants helping out and giving advice to the students. We ensure there is plenty of dancing in each class while we walk around giving advice, tips or answering questions after we have taught a certain step or style. We'll make sure to give gentle reminders if we think a move or style is being forgotten during the practice time. Do I need a partner? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! ; - ) Our school has been very successful in ensuring that you WILL have a partner. We regularly switch you with someone every few minutes to learn the steps or styling. When the music comes on, you are switched very often so that you get used to different leads/follows thus making you a better dancer. What type of students do you have? Age wise?? They all vary. ;-) some are young and some are mature (wink!). The majority are very patient, willing to learn slowly, friendly, as they know there are tons of moves to learn and practice. Having a class that is too fast paced is not very ideal as students tend to forget the previous moves. Overall, our students have been outstanding in attitude and support!! What if I'm from another school and want to try your school? It is best to be evaluated by us, we ask that you try our Salsa 2 class because based on our past experiences it is the right class for people who have not taken classes with us from the start. There are exceptions of course. Unless you have only been taking classes for a few months, then Salsa 1 is the ideal class for you. When potential students skip these classes, we find that they usually have difficulties catching up on footwork and arm styles that are expected in our classes in order to keep them running smoothly and not cause frustration for other students. |