One Year In The Cradle ...
... Of Latin American Dances
Former World Champion Ten Dance Blanca Ribas Turón, ESP, reports regularly about her work taking her across South America to assist National Member Bodies in the training of their couples.
We last heard from her in July, when she was in Cali, COL, for the pre-event to The World Games 2013.
Now she sent us a report covering the entire one-year stint. It will be reproduced here in several parts.
Part I | Argentina
2012 should become a special year for me. Almost for one whole year I had the opportunity to tour trough nine different Latin American countries, giving lectures to couples and coaches on behalf of the Word DanceSport Federation.
Teaching ehythm to Latin Americans? No, it was not meant this way, of course! The aim was to use the enthusiasm for dancing in general to generate interest for dancing as an international sport.
Becausein comparison with Europe and North America, Latin America lags somewhat behind in terms of dance practised as sport. Authorised by WDSF President Carlos Freitag and Sports Director Marco Sietas, I was able to use this year to promote DanceSport in this part of the world. Carlos and Marco had above all The World Games in Cali, COL, in July 2013 on their minds, where DanceSport will again feature prominently. The 2013 edition should be the first one to have competitive couples from Latin America representing their countries in the WDSF contingent.
I was able to give my first lessons in the southern hemisphere in February 2012 in Buenos Aires. I was immediately impressed by the good level of dancing in Argentina. There are some dancers who were already very successful in international competition. Leonardo Cuesta is one of them and he's also the President of the Argentine DanceSport Federation. Together with his wife Lila Flores he reached the final of the “German Open” at the Senior level in 2011.
While working in the capital of the Tango, I used the opportunity for my own continued education. I spent many nights learning the Tango Argentino with Estela Arcos. She was also the person who “brought” competitive dancing from her Tango workshops in Europe to Argentina and thus laid the foundation for DanceSport in this country.
To be continued!
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