AnaBanana
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I think it has a lot to do with a very strong influence of ballroom dancing in Russia and as that approach to Latin dance sinks into figure skating, they lack a more authentic, or as some call it "urban social latin dance" approach to those styles. It's like, you look at the salsa world champions from Cali, Colombia and then the Russian Latin Ballroom world champions and those are like, two worlds apart.I like Bobrova/Soloviev`s FD, it suits them and is miles better than that weird Bird program from 2014. The Short Dance is bad though, but Latin isn`t exactly their strong suit. I think any rhythm would have been better for them than Latin American.
Meanwhile, there is a myriad styles of salsa being developed across Latin America and other huge latin dance epicenters, like NYC, Miami, or LA (and maybe, arguably, Houston) and the Latin Ballroom dance is like crystalized in time - same old overacting, overreacting, and meaningless overdrama except now it's all over the place - in the FS, in DWTS, and on all kinds of other TV shows and media outlets. I wonder why the authentic Latin Dance is still not making it into the expressive sports like FS and why this year's program are so monopolized by the ballroom approach to it (especially so among the Russian ice dancers).
P.S. I said "meaningless" because there is a ton of history and culture in the actual authentic Latin dances. For example, in Cali and across some souther regions of Colombia it has historically been associated with a very nuanced racial history where in some events, for example, the dance was performed at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacks_and_Whites'_Carnival ">Blacks and Whites' Carnival</a> while people were throwing back and white powder at each other - in a way, it was done to symbolize that unique moment when everyone's faces become whatever color because of the powder and the race stops to matter, the society is celebrating the point of cohesion and unity devoid at least for that second of racism and discrimination. Can ballroom Latin dance provide the same level of meaning? Not in this world.