Salsa heat drove off winter's cold Thursday at Acrobat for the 2008 Winter Salsa Carnival's Pre-party.
So many were looking for a spring salsa fix, the line-up to get in stretched down the street as late as 11:30pm. And people were still coming in at 12:40am.
The room crackled with anticipation and with energy as the shows came on around 11:00pm. Mas Mambo's group opened to a really lively crowd, followed by SalsaTO.ca's Mike & Sharon whose entertaining style had them cheering for more. Sorry folks, no pix of Mas Mambo or SalsaTO doing their thing as SalsaTO was performing or waiting to go on. Mambo Dream Team's Teen Group stepped lively, Cory's solo blend of Afro-Cuban Jazz gave people a lot of styling ideas and iFreeStyle's Shine's group closed out the evening.
The backstage experience was just as electrifying as the performances themselves. Some of the groups were walking through sticky points in their routines. Others were swapping tips. Almost everyone was taking pictures of themselves or the group. Moments before some of the groups went on they circled tightly, paused and then stepped out to the cheering crowd.
DJ Nilson, DJ Montuno and even DJ MAS spun the tunes that kept the crowd hot all night long.
