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We paired Salsa Dancers and Coaches in a dance challenge… can they choreograph a 60 second dance in only 30 minutes?
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
– You gonna do this leg up.
00:01
Here, hold it here.
00:02
Higher.
00:04
Higher.
00:05
– [Narrator] We brought two seemingly
00:07
different groups of people into our studio
00:09
to see if they could unite
00:11
in a one-of-a-kind dance challenge.
00:19
– [Producer] What is your favorite dance move?
00:21
– Do I just do it? – Let’s see it, you got it.
00:22
Let’s see it.
00:23
Hey, I like that.
00:25
– One of my favorite dance moves
00:27
is what we call the Suzy Q.
00:29
But then actually adding some hips.
00:31
– I like the little Dougie, I like the little,
00:34
you know, like that.
00:35
A little Dougie.
00:37
– I love tango.
00:38
and I love the Ganchos.
00:41
– I do praise dance.
00:42
I used to praise dance, so I would do like,
00:44
you know. – Ooh.
00:45
– I love a good shimmy.
00:47
Start with a little step and then give a, ta.
00:49
– Hey
00:50
– [Producer] Do you know what you’re doing here today?
00:52
– No. – Not really,
00:53
no. – No, we don’t.
00:54
– [Producer] Today you’ll be choreographing
00:56
a 60 second dance routine to a song
00:59
that I’ll be giving you. – That’s fun, that’ll be fun.
01:02
– Oh Jesus!
01:03
– [Producer] You’ll only have 30 minutes
01:04
to choreograph and practice before your final performance.
01:07
– Nice. – Okay.
01:08
– All right.
01:09
– I love the challenge.
01:10
– I think because we– – Absolutely do that.
01:11
– work a lot together,
01:13
it’s absolutely doable. – It’ll be it, yeah.
01:15
– Thank God I know them.
01:16
– [Woman] Before you start,
01:17
we’re gonna be adding a few more people to your team.
01:20
– Oh, interesting. – Oh, I see
01:21
what you did there. – Are they dancers?
01:23
– This is great.
01:24
– [Woman] Teammates, please come out.
01:29
– Oh hello, hello. Wow. – Look at here, look at her.
01:32
– How you doing? – Hi.
01:33
– Hi, Carol. – Nice to see you today.
01:34
– I was like, oh lord.
01:36
Now I gotta elevate my game
01:38
or at least try to hang with them.
01:40
– Oh,
01:43
I’m trying to be appropriate.
01:44
I think I was thinking, you better don’t put your hand
01:47
too low on my waist, man.
01:49
– The moment that the coaches were added to the challenge
01:53
absolutely changed
01:55
the vibe,
01:58
what was possible.
02:00
– Salsa dancing has been used in sports
02:02
to work on foot work or speed,
02:06
so I was really excited
02:07
what we would be able to offer each other.
02:09
Nice to meet you. – All right,
02:10
Okay.
02:13
– [Producer] Okay team, this is your song.
02:21
– Often, non-dancers make the assumption with Salsa
02:24
that it’s all sex or too sexy.
02:26
But I feel like,
02:28
it’s so often tied to culture and music.
02:31
I think because I grew up in it my whole life,
02:34
I don’t see it like that.
02:35
– It’s a way for us to celebrate life,
02:37
to celebrate our bodies.,
02:39
and what it is to be in connection to one another.
02:42
– It has that soccer feel
02:43
I like that, – It does.
02:45
I like vibe to that, right? – Well yeah, like…
02:49
Yeah.
02:50
– [Woman] Your time begins in three, two, one, go.
02:54
– Okay. – All right.
02:55
Okay. – I think you will take
02:56
the center with the girl and the two–
02:58
– Flanking.
02:58
– So oh, I’m holding hands?
03:00
Oh yeah well. – Like the girls
03:02
should like go around the guys.
03:04
– I’m non-binary so I don’t know, whatever that falls into.
03:06
– So you’re gonna go around Antonio too.
03:09
So all the girls are gonna around.
03:12
– For an a– – Fa, nah, nah.
03:14
– She get in front and then we do, dip.
03:17
– And look at each other – Oh, oh.
03:18
at the end. – This is it.
03:20
– I’m not,
03:21
I don’t what the fuck are we doing.
03:23
I guess what was happening was, ladies do this
03:25
men do this,
03:27
and I don’t believe in that.
03:30
It’s just universal what are you comfortable with?
03:33
I don’t believe that I fit into a female or male category.
03:36
I think I’m able to bring both of those energies.
03:39
I don’t subscribe to the pronouns like they or them.
03:43
I’m able to take a he, or a she or
03:45
whatever someone feels comfortable with
03:47
but at the same time, yes I’m non-binary
03:49
and I can do all things.
03:52
– I do wish that in the moment I would have been like,
03:54
hey, hold on a second,
03:56
let’s take a moment and actually acknowledge
03:58
what Kris just said.
04:00
Sometimes in Salsa dancing we have
04:02
people playing certain roles.
04:03
We do need to be having these conversations
04:05
inside these spaces differently.
04:06
When it comes to partner dancing
04:07
a woman can lead in salsa dancing
04:09
a man can follow and vice versa.
04:11
A woman can dance with another woman.
04:12
A man can dance with another man.
04:14
– And let’s dip on eight.
04:15
– Do you wanna dip me?
04:17
Should we switch it up? – Come on
04:18
let’s dip you. – It could be fun hey.
04:19
– It could be cute. – Let me dip you, yeah.
04:20
I’m gonna dip you. – Yes.
04:21
– Oh, you gonna dip him?
04:22
– I could hold you down. – Perfect.
04:24
I love that.
04:25
– I like that. – Six, seven, eight.
04:26
And one, two, three, four, and five, six
04:29
seven, eight. – And then it should turn
04:30
to hip hop. – Give us a move
04:31
we can repeat.
04:31
– May we hear the from that part?
04:33
You can rave it.
04:36
– Okay. – You know what I’m saying.
04:37
– Let’s do it an eight of that.
04:38
– So we’ll go, right. – One, two, three, four.
04:40
– Left. – five, six, again.
04:42
– Right. – One, two, three
04:43
– We repeat.
04:44
– Left. – Five, six, seven
04:45
– Now start raving. – Now.
04:46
– There are things I wanted to say.
04:47
But at the same time it wasn’t about me.
04:49
I dance a lot, but I never really choreograph.
04:52
And I always wanted to.
04:53
But I always had that wall up there
04:56
because I don’t wanna mess up.
04:59
– You get the next move, what do you want?
05:00
– No, no, no – We can come together.
05:02
– this is, this is – Then we jump back
05:03
– okay. – into one line
05:04
This is when I think the one line
05:05
comes in. – Yeah, jump back
05:07
into one line – Instead of us separating
05:08
in a triangle, we come into one line.
05:11
So this is where we probably go
05:15
– Oh yeah. – Yeah.
05:17
– Nice, I like that.
05:18
– So this where the praise dance part comes in.
05:20
– What about you, what would you like next?
05:21
– My move is the Dougie.
05:23
You know the Dougie? – Let’s do the Dougie.
05:24
– You know you get a little,
05:26
little of that, little of that.
05:27
– Yeah, keep the mouth open and all, I got it.
05:29
– Yeah, it’s more like a swag.
05:33
– To be honest, toward the middle of rehearsal,
05:35
I had a moment where I thought this could not go well.
05:39
– I think we need to have a lift in there.
05:41
I definitely think we need a lift.
05:44
– How are we gonna incorporate the lift?
05:46
– Like the lift is just something easy, like you just
05:48
grab this leg and just turn me around.
05:49
Turn me around, just go around, that’s it.
05:51
This is.
05:53
– Antonio is such a good partner.
05:55
– You’ll be fine.
05:57
– You guys do something different, we’re gonna do the lift
05:58
because it seems like you don’t want to do the lift.
06:00
So, it’s okay.
06:01
– Okay girl, you can lift me up if you can.
06:03
– Feel like there was a lot of ideas being thrown around
06:06
and I saw little bit of disagreement.
06:08
– This is after it, this is after that.
06:10
It was a little stressful because I’m a perfectionist.
06:13
We were working with people that, you know
06:15
they’re non-dancers, so they weren’t really learning
06:17
as fast as I would want them to learn.
06:20
Got you bro.
06:22
– No, no no, no we have to, hang on.
06:24
– It was tough, honestly.
06:26
I’m not the best dancer.
06:27
– We got nine minutes.
06:29
– Oh, if you all do the lift and we do
06:30
the macarena. – Wait, wait, wait.
06:31
If one do solo, we gon’ all do solo.
06:33
– No we don’t have time.
06:35
– So let’s stick to what we were doing.
06:36
– We can do the macarena.
06:37
– I could tell that when we offered a suggestion
06:40
they assumed right away it would be too difficult.
06:43
– Can we be here, like we’re in our own space as coaches
06:47
and they walk in.
06:48
And as you walk in, motivate us into getting into our
06:51
inspirational dance. – I like that.
06:53
– There’s always a story behind a dance.
06:55
Not just shaking your waist and shaking your hip.
06:57
And I felt like being coaches
06:58
being in that mind frame
07:00
and then the salsa dancers come on to loosen us up.
07:02
Just like you see in the World Cup.
07:04
Just like you see at soccer stadium.
07:06
– We should just, just wile out in the last one.
07:09
We do the macarena.
07:10
Simple, keep it simple.
07:11
– Being black descent, you can come off as too assertive
07:16
even if you don’t try, so I’m very aware of that.
07:18
Say things continually and then put your foot down.
07:21
We can do the macarena.
07:23
– Well we can do it while we are walking to our places.
07:25
– Are you doing the whole full version?
07:27
– The same way I’ve been doing since kindergarten.
07:31
– Ready? Final pose, final pose.
07:33
Six, seven, eight.
07:35
– I don’t know.
07:36
– Let’s see final pose guys.
07:38
– You can do this leg up.
07:39
Here, hold it here.
07:41
Higher.
07:42
Higher.
07:44
– It’s all right, I’ll coach you through it.
07:45
You just give me your leg, you breathe.
07:46
– Ha, you’ll coach me through it.
07:48
Let’s do this one. – Ready?
07:49
We can just do trauma. – And smile.
07:50
Hold me up since you can hold me up, I’m heavy man.
07:52
Yeah I work out remember?
07:54
– [Producer] All right guys, your time is up.
07:55
You are gonna go and get changed for your final performance.
08:00
– Good job. – Thank you.
08:00
– Good job guys. – Yeah, shimmy, shimmy.
08:08
– I felt excited.
08:11
I felt really happy with what we had created.
08:14
– I’m a pretty sweaty person in general
08:16
so I was already like sweating from getting it down.
08:19
But I was surprisingly not nervous.
08:22
– Boy, when my daddy see this.
08:24
Man holding me up.
08:32
– Bring it in.
09:32
– The dance went really, really well.
09:35
Much better than what I expected.
09:38
You need to relax sometimes and don’t be so pushy
09:41
and have fun.
09:43
– It’s a win, we did it.
09:45
I think the start of it, you can tell these
09:46
different perspectives that weren’t meshing.
09:49
By the end of the performance it was like
09:51
oh no, we mesh.
09:53
– If there’s anything I learned from this experience
09:56
is if you believe in yourself, then you can make it happen.
09:59
And that’s what coaches do right?
10:00
We motivate each other.
10:01
We believe in each other.
10:03
And as a team, we win together.
10:10
– Come on guys, come on.
10:11
Bring it in, bring it in.
10:12
Hey, did you like this video?
10:14
Comment down below and tell me your favorite part.
10:16
And like and subscribe to SoulPancake
10:18
for more awesome videos.
10:20
See you next time.
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This post was previously published on YouTube and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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Photo credit: Screenshot from video