Cuban Salsa: Siete Alborotado
Alborotado means “Exited” in English. It is from the “Salsa Lovers” DVD 07, Miami, USA, around year 2005 and uploaded to YouTube much later. Maykel Almuina, the Lead in the video, is the creator of all the moves on “DVD 07”.
Siete Alborotado is one of Maykel’s more interesting moves. It opens like Siete Loco and Siete Loco Complicado! That is, no matter how impressive the move is, it should never be used because there is no way to lead the start in social dancing!
The exit from the halfway position of Siete/Panqué requires that the Follow’s left hand is available on top of her right shoulder! It almost never is because in that position most Follows prefer to style their left hands in front of them, or to hold it tight to the body.
The Alborotado move is too “creative” in my opinion. It is a hopeless way to teach dancing. What serves us best in the long run is to learn generalised and optimised building blocks, we can use and combine again and again with endless variations. One-off stuff is mostly a waste of time: we can’t remember it, and it is difficult to reuse in another context.
Maykel is an excellent dancer but I don’t like the Miami style of the “Salsa Lovers”: Back rocking all over the place, ridicules long steps at times, hectic power style, more show and performance than relaxed and romantic social dancing.
