San Diego has a new dance team under the direction of Susie Nguyen and Juan Garcia.  Renamed as Ooh La La Dance, the duo help direct a number of dance teams including the Cosabellas and Hot Tamales. 

In 2007, Juan and Susie participated in the 3^rd Annual World Salsa Championships as the first San Diego couple to represent America’s Finest City.  The video here in this post showcases their performances at the Championships. 

This new dance company, along with many other local favorites like Majesty in Motion and A Time to Dance Studio, will also be participating in the upcoming San Diego Salsa Festival later this month.  Make sure to check them all out if you attend!

For everyone that attended the San Diego Salsa Festival last year you’ll remember that a major focus of the Festival was the salsa competition.  Indeed, the majority of salsa festivals or congresses are great opportunities for salsa dance teams, both local and from afar, to showcase the hard work they put into their dancing.

The San Diego Salsa Festival has the added benefit of being an official qualifying location for the World Salsa Championships .  This major salsa dance competition is being held on December 3-6, 2008 in Florida and brings together the best in what salsa dancers have to offer.

The objective of the World Salsa Championships is to see which couple or teams in each division can best interpret salsa music and dance regardless of the repertoire of tricks that are employed.  What this means is that the competitions are looking for those who truly feel the music and can express what they feel in the dance for the benefit of the salsa community.

The World Salsa Championships is a collaboration of salsa dancers around the world united under Albert Torres and The Salsa Seven, Inc , the producer of the event and pictured below.  The hope of this major event is to bring more visibility to salsa dancing as a whole to the general public and to create what he describes as “unity through salsa.”

So what can we expect at the San Diego Salsa Festival for competitions?  There will be 4 categories of competition with only 1 couple and only 1 team moving on to the competitions in Florida .  The areas of competition include On1 salsa couple dancing, On2 salsa couple dancing, Team dancing, and a Cabaret couple division.  An example of Cabaret style might look something like what is seen in this video included in this post below.  (A Time to Dance Studio, the major supporters of the San Diego Salsa Festival, appear here during a recent performance at Aubergine.)

The judges will determine who moves on to the World Salsa Championships based on timing, overall technique, difficulty, connection/partnering skills, choreography/originality, appearance, and showmanship.

The winning couple and teams not only secure a spot at the World Salsa Championships, but they also get compensated for their hard work.  This compensation comes in the form of paid flights to Florida courtesy of the San Diego Salsa Festival along with all meals and hotel accommodations provided by Salsa Seven, Inc.  Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Don’t miss a great opportunity to cheer on your favorite dance team and RSVP for the San Diego Salsa Festival!

I wanted to let you know about another Salsa Congress coming up in July in Las Vegas, Nevada. Specifically, the Sin City Salseros in association with David Nieto are hosting the 5th Annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress .

For those of you unfamiliar with Salsa Congresses, the 5th Annual Las Vegas Salsa Congress and other congresses like it are official qualifier rounds for the World Salsa Championship coming later in December.

San Diego’s own Majesty in Motion will be competing with David Stein assisting as a guest instructor.

The event will be July 4th -5th at the Tropicana Hotel……..hope to see you all in Las Vegas!