Salsa Dancers to Watch

Salsa Dancers to Watch is a compilation of salsa dance couples who compete internationally. They participate in salsa dance congresses, competitions, conventions and festivals. OIn additions, most of them have been dancing for a minimum of a decade. Also, most of them have extensive dance backgrounds in many different genres including ballet, jazz, modern, hip-hop, contemporary, and Afro Latin. Lastley, we have chosen this group of salsa dancers after watching hundreds of salsa dance performances online.

David Zepeda & Paulina Posados (Mexico) @ 6th Sala Spring Festival 2015 photo

Salsa Dancers

Adrian Rodriquez Carbajal & Anita Santos Rubin

(Adrian & Anita @ Amsterdam Salsa Congress 2016)

Adrian Rodriquez Carbajal & Anita Santos Rubin are Latin dance competitors from Montevideo, Uruguay and Pont Grosso, Brazil, respectively. They began their Latin dance partnership in 2005.

Anita has a classical dance background in ballet, jazz and contemporary dance. In 2000, she settled in Spain joining the National Ballet of Zaragoza.

Adrian traveled to Barcelona, Spain to pursue his passion for salsa dancing. In addition, he won various Latin dance championships in Spain and traveled to many International events.

In 2005, he met Anita at the Salsa Congress in Tarragona (Spain). Consequently, they began dancing together 6 months later. Since that time they have traveled the world competing, teaching and performing at Latin dance festivals and congresses representing Spain. Additionally, these salsa dancers make a perfect dance performance team.

Simone Sanfilippo & Serena Maso

(Simone Sanfilippo & Serena Maso, To Dance Festival, Turin, Italy 2017)

Simone Sanfilippo & Serena Maso are Latin dance champions from Italy. They started dancing together in 2007. They began winning Latin dance competitions in the first year of forming their dance partnership including the World Cup of Latin in Lyon and the World Championships for the merengue.

In the next few years, they earned the title of world champions at the International Dance Organization (IDO). They continue to travel worldwide competing in the Latin dances including salsa, bachata and cha cha. They won 2nd place in the Salsa On 2 category at the World Latin Dance Cup 2014.

Karen Forcano & Ricardo Vega

(Ricardo Vega & Karen Forcano @World Salsa Summit, 2016

Karen Forcano & Ricardo Vega have been dancing together since 2009. She was born in Chile and started classical ballet at the age of six. Shortly thereafter, she started learning salsa and merengue influenced by her mother who was a ballet dancer.

Ricardo was born in Argentina. He was inspired to dance by his family, particularly, his grandparents who were tango dancers. In addition, he started classical dance as a child and continued with contemporary dance, jazz and Latin dance.

Together, they won 1st place in the cabaret division at the World Latin Dance Cup in 2012 through 2014.

David Zepeda Ayala & Paulina Posados Dagio

David Zepeda & Paulina Posados, Mexico) @ 6th Salsa Spring Festival 2015

Paulina Posados Dagio & David Zepeda Ayala are the undefeated 6X Salsa On 2 Latin dance champions at the World Salsa Summit and World Latin Dance Cup.

David was born in Pueblo, Mexico dancing many diverse forms of dance including ballet, modern, jazz, acrobatics, hip-hop and Afro-Latin dance rhythms. Also, he also performs and choreographs for Mexican resorts and Internationally. In addition, he trained with the best including Fernando Sosa, Eddie Torres, John Narvaez and others.

Paulina was born in Morelia, Mexico and started learning to dance as a youth. She began training in ballroom dance with the Latin dance group, “Ritmo Latin,” learning many of the Latin dances including cha cha, samba, cumbia, merengue, salsa and more. Also, she trained in ballet, jazz and gymnastics. In addition, she has gone on to win many Latin dance titles starting in 2005 as salsa champion at the Acapulco Salsa Congress. Lastly, Paulina has trained and danced in professional Latin dance companies including, Salsamania, directed by John Narvaez and Liz Rojas.

Rafael Barros & Carine Morais

(Rafael Barros & Carine Morais, Brasil @ WLDC 2016)

Rafael Barros & Carine Morais began their Latin dance partnership in 2008. They were both born in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil. Also, both Rafeal and Carine started dance training at the age of 14. In addition, at the age of eighteen, Rafael, was already offering dance lesson in forro, samba, bolero and other types of Latin rhythms. Moreover, he traveled to San Paulo in 2005 to compete in the Salsa World Congress in Brazil and two years later moved to San Paulo, where he met Carine.

Carine studied ballet as a youth then started training in ballroom dance as a teenager. She opted to specialize in salsa in 2008 and began her dance partnership with Rafael.

How we chose these Salsa dancers!

(Adrian & Anita @ Salsafestival Switzerland, 2010, from YouTube)

We culled through hundreds of salsa dance performers, teachers, choreograpers and competitors. Also, we have searched through dozens of dance performances, routines, competitions, Latin dance congresses, festivals and conventions to make our decision on which Latin dance competitors to choose for this video blog. Most likely, we have excluded some that certainly could have been chosen and included some that might have been omitted. Nonetheless, this is just one video blog of amazing salsa dancers performances in Latin dance competitions.

Lastly, we will be curating more collections of Latin dance to upload to our world dance website. Also, if anyone has any dancers, performances or suggestions for us to add, please feel free to write us (see our contact page at DanceTime Contact Info).