AN impressive crowd of around 450 people crammed into the ANU Sports & Recreation facility centre on Saturday night for the gala performance of the first-ever Canberra Latin dance festival. 

Ecuadorian-Australian sisters Raquel and Andrea Paez of Canberra’s Salsabor dance studio who, together with their computer geek friend Darian Bridge founded the festival this year, told “CityNews” that more than 50 per cent of those present were active dancers. They pointed to the high participation of Latinos, Asian and African dance lovers, as well as the groundswell of ordinary Aussies keen to surf the wave of Latin dance which is engulfing the whole of Australia.

Most states and territories were represented on the floor, with prominent dance studios in attendance, including Melbourne’s Spin City Dance, Sydney’s Latin Dance Australia and Latin Motion Dance Academy, Perth’s Juan Rando Dance Academy and Brisbane’s Latin Steps Dance Company.

Promotional stands flanked the action on the floor of Sports & Recreation facility, of which Andrea commented, “we’re very happy with the space because it has such fantastic floor, it suits us.”

After the MCs urged everybody in the house to engage in group-hugs, Canberra’s Subsdance Dance Studio kicked off the night, flooding the stage with feathers, sparkles and gyrating bodies Rio-style, while another Canberra group performed a burlesque style thanks to the song “Reciprocity” from “Chicago.”

Although the festival contained familiar dances, it tended to focus on more contemporary Latin genres, with some of the most spectacular segments coming in the form of the now-popular bachata style originating from the Dominican Republic and which looks set to replace lambada as the “safe sex” dance.

As well, there were impressive showcases of the alluring Brazilian zouk dance, another more contemporary style demanding more virtuosic skills than a common garden cha-cha does.

Though some of the performances came close to social dancing, others were showcase presentations, like the segment by Christian Szilagyi and Elysia Baker from Spin City, who combined the talents of hip hop and ballet.

Each act was short, keeping the crowd cheering and calling for more, but the highlight of the evening was undoubtedly that of the festival’s international guest artists, Neeraj Maskara from India and his regular partner, Olesya Sydorenko, from Singapore, who danced a spectacular salsa to a Latin-beat version of  “Summertime.”

After a word of thanks to the ACT Government and promises that this would be an annual event (more cheering and calling), Raquel burst into song with the words “We have a festival.”

But it was not yet time to disperse. Two dance floors were waiting, so, after the entire audience joined in a final song and dance routine to “Chi-Chi-Chihuahua,” the crowd salsa’d, cha-cha’d and zouked the night away.