Zahra Gor­don

Sal­sa en­thu­si­asts will be put to a chal­lenge at this year's Sal­sa Fi­es­ta TnT hap­pen­ing at the Cas­ca­dia Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain from May 31 to June 2. This is the sal­sa con­gress' fifth an­niver­sary and to mark the oc­ca­sion, in ad­di­tion to host­ing in­ter­na­tion­al in­struc­tors, par­tic­i­pants can take part in the Sur­vivor Chal­lenge and the Na­tion­al Open Sal­sa Com­pe­ti­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Mar­tin Jim, a lo­cal dance in­struc­tor and mem­ber of the Sal­sa TnT or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee, in the Sur­vivor Chal­lenge par­tic­i­pants will be taught a dance rou­tine at the be­gin­ning of the week­end from which the best per­form­ers will be cho­sen to dance with in­ter­na­tion­al guests such as Tito Or­tos, Tama­ra Livol­si and Dorottya Ujszazi. This is the first year for the chal­lenge and al­so the first year for the com­pe­ti­tion. The win­ner of the Na­tion­al Open Sal­sa Com­pe­ti­tion will rep­re­sent T&T at the World Sal­sa Sum­mit 2013.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, Jim said the event has grown over the past five years from 72 to 140 par­tic­i­pants and the au­di­ence has dou­bled from 200 to 400 guests. He at­trib­uted this growth in pop­u­lar­i­ty to the unique­ness of the event, which in­cludes 40 work­shops, Latin dance par­ties and dance show­cas­es. Par­tic­i­pants and au­di­ences al­so ap­pre­ci­ate the qual­i­ty of both in­ter­na­tion­al and lo­cal dancers in­clud­ed in the con­gress.

Past in­ter­na­tion­al guests in­clude Su­sana Mon­tero of the UK Latin Dance Acad­e­my and Marchant Birch and Davina Birch of the UK Alche­my Dance Com­pa­ny. This year lo­cal par­tic­i­pants can al­so look for­ward to net­work­ing with re­gion­al dancers from Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and St Vin­cent.

Jim is par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py about this year's com­pe­ti­tion. "I'm hop­ing that the ex­po­sure to the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el of dance that the win­ners will get at the World Sum­mit will help us (in T&T) un­der­stand where our game is and how much we need to im­prove it–and that will in­spire us to do bet­ter," he said.

Jim has been a dancer and in­struc­tor for more than 20 years. He said Latin dance be­came pop­u­lar in T&T in the 1980s through es­tab­lish­ments like The At­tic (for­mer­ly in Mar­aval).

Jim said he be­lieves the Latin dance com­mu­ni­ty is now near 2,500 peo­ple in­clud­ing dancers, in­struc­tors, and spec­ta­tors. There are many small­er events through­out the year, he said.

He added that many peo­ple, like him, are drawn to Latin dance be­cause of the mu­sic. "The mu­sic is sim­ply so amaz­ing. It's full of dif­fer­ent rhythms and very sen­su­al. It's a mix­ture of jazz, per­cus­sion Afro-Cuban mu­sic and the songs re­al­ly call to you. I can­not not move my feet when I hear sal­sa," he said.

IN­FO BOX

�2 For more in­for­ma­tion about Sal­sa Fi­es­ta TnT, a sched­ule of events and prices for class­es, you can vis­it their­Web site: www.sal­safi­es­tat­nt.com. You can al­so con­tact Jim via phone:471-5898 or e-mail: sal­safi­es­tat­nt@gmail.com