Cuban Salsa: Siete Alborotado
Alborotado means “Exited” in English. It is from the “Salsa Lovers” DVD 07, Miami, USA, around year 2000 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. The first count of eight is like Siete Loco, that is Panqué on 1-2-3 and Coca-Cola on 5-6-7. Next Michael goes counter clock-wise for a full count of eight showing us one-off stepping that only exists in that move, and it hasn’t been seen ever since!
The next count of eight is also a typical one-off Maykel turn with another Coca-Cola. Next he goes into an interesting right turn Dile Que No, I haven’t seen it before or ever since.
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 we can’t reuse it.
Maykel is a good 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.
