Spotlight On Vallarta: Salsa Dance Champions Ignite the Floor at Quizas
Roberta Rand - SF Productions August 17, 2009
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| If you would like to learn how you can advertise your Banderas Bay area business on Spotlight on Vallarta, contact David Tarr in Puerto Vallarta at 044-322-133-0138, or call 1-877-824-1277 toll free from the US. | ![](../images/spacer.gif) | Mexicans love to dance. And on any given night along the Malecón, you can find every dance style from disco to banda, with dancers working up a sweat in silhouette against the strobe lights of the open-air clubs.
![](../images/spacer.gif) But last Saturday night at Quizas on the River Cuale - if you were lucky enough to get an invite - dance played out at a whole different level with Salsa Picante, a group of Mexico's best salsa dancers from Guadalajara, who shared the floor with a few hand picked salsa champions from around the world.
![](../images/spacer.gif) Spotlight on Vallarta captured the group at a one-night, invitation-only exhibition of salsa pyrotechnics that would likely render Dancing with the Stars wannabe's frozen in mid-"guapea." Dancers from as far away as Argentina burned the floor with moves that magazined at 160-220 beats-per-minute. Body rolls, shoulder shimmies, spins and rapid-fire footwork were the rule as 50 couples unpacked their best moves from 10:30 pm until 2 am.
![](../images/spacer.gif) Among this year's dancers were National Mexico Salsa Champion David Zepeda Ayala (a PV resident), Bethzy Zamorano and Gustavo Sabino from Guadalajara, and Lucho Geraldes from Argentina.
![](../images/spacer.gif) For those of you who may not know Salsa's origins, it's believed to have started in Cuba, with a dance style called "son." The term "salsa" was adopted in the 1970's. Types of salsa correspond with countries and regions - from Cuban "Casino" to "Ruedo de Miami" to "Salsa Filipina."
![](../images/spacer.gif) Generally speaking, in salsa dancing, the upper body remains level while the dancer shifts his or her weight from one hip to the other, creating the famous "figure-8" hip-roll. Early versions of Salsa included the Mambo and the Cha-Cha. The dance continues to evolve with plenty of room for improvisation.
![](../images/spacer.gif) The key instrument in a salsa band is the conga drum, which provides the core "clave" groove. Other instruments that round out salsa music are the tres guitar, maracas, timbales, güiro and cowbell.
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Roberta Rand is Public Relations Manager for SF Productions TV. She just relocated to Puerto Vallarta from Colorado Springs, Colo, with her dog, Bo. She's worked as a magazine editor, web editor, marketing copywriter, essayist and author, whose book Playing the Tuba at Midnight explored the quirks of living single. |