First Bachata Competition in Australia – For the non-professional dancers.
It is amazing to see over the last few years just how fast Bachata has evolved to become the preferred style it is today in Australia. Following the same world wide pattern, Bachata is the most popular Latin dance style in Australia, second only to Salsa. In the four years since Bachata had been introduced, it never occurred to anyone that the future held the running of the 1st Bachata championship, and how it would attract and involve so many contestants, spectators and prominent dancers.
Alexis Meza, from Viva Magazine, was in fact the pioneer that encouraged this great idea. When he contacted the Bachateros to share his idea, we were eager to back him up from the beginning. Sharing the same excitement as the Bachateros, it was no surprise that other Latin schools throughout Sydney rapidly followed suit to support the event. Alexis quickly had an impressive lineup on the panel of judges for the competition, and an array of exciting prizes for the winners.
We didn’t know how big this was going to be and how many competitors we were going to have. In the end, there was no need to be concerned as the organizers had to run a pre-selection heat to reduce the number of enthusiastic contestants from 7 couples, to 5 couples.
At the pre selection heat, we saw the popularity of Bachata and its different styles. We saw couples dancing the Traditional way, the Moderna style, and also the Dominican style as well. It was such a delight to see just how much Bachata had grown so much in Australia.
At the night of the competition, a packed Petersham RSL was witness to 5 couple contestants who showed extraordinary Bachata skills on the dance floor. The first round consisted of free-style Bachata, dancing to a selected music track. Some of the couples had to adjust to the different styles of Bachata music that the DJ played, one of the songs had a mix of Merengue, Reggaeton and Bachata, all in all, it was felt that all contestants show cased their abilities to adapt and freestyle.
For the choreography round, all couples displayed their creativity and musicality. Different props were used for the choreos: guitars, chairs, hand chains, and in one choreography, acting certainly played a big part of it.
The winners of the night, Mitch Bilic and Natalie Kyan put on a show that left the audience wanting more. The couple danced a combination of traditional Bachata with a Moderna style. They had great moves, fantastic connection with each other and smooth musicality which was obviously a winning formula. Watch Mitch and Natalie winning performance:
The winners of the night were:
1st place – With a total of 854 points
Couple # 30 – Mitch Bilic & Natalie Kyan
2nd Place – With a total of 816 points
Couple # 60 – Marzio Cecchetto & Lilly Harrington
3rd Place – With a total of 752 points
Couple # 20 – Jeremy Roach & Lucy Cook
The 1st Bachata Competition in Australia made something very clear, Bachata is here to stay! With the high caliber of performances, we are left wondering how awesome the competition is going to be in the years to come. Only time will tell, in the meantime, we will continue dancing and enjoying our Bachata.
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