Strickly Salsa's Kathy Chaves and Nancy Di Nino audition
for Madonna's World Tour in New York City!

Written by Nancy Di Nino
March 2001

When we first got word that Madonna was holding auditions in New York for her upcoming World Tour, there was no hesitation by Kathy and I. I said " Girl! Pack your bags, ain't no way we are missin' this one!"

For anyone, especially teenage girls, growing up in the Madonna era of "Like a Virgin and Holiday" (we all remember those all time favourites). We all recall a time we would watch Madonna on TV and wish we could be her or be there dancing with her; and we would sit in our living rooms, dressed up in those 'then' forbidden tummy half-tops and jelly bracelets, and try to bust out those moves to her dance routines attempting to be exactly like her.

On Wednesday, March 14th, 2001, a casting call was made for Madonna at the Musical Theatre Works in New York City. Over 3000 dancers, men and ladies lined up for up to 6 hours to get a chance to audition. The anticipation was nerve-wracking! The countless questions of many anxious dancers and the silent thoughts -- Do we have the right look? Right attitude? Right skills? What if? The wondering if there could have been more training or more preparation and the doubt.

As hungry dancers striving for the top, we bonded together sharing our helpful experiences with each other in effort to try to figure out what exactly would be expected of us at the audition and the choreographer, Mia Michaels. For those of you who aren't familiar with Mia Michaels, she doesn't mess around! She is highly technical, creative and demands a lot from her dancers. We all knew that the most important thing was gaining the experience... not just getting the gig. We were lucky enough to get an opportunity to demonstrate our skills. After auditioning over one thousand people in a matter of 12 plus hours, they did a random pick of the remaining people in line and sent about another 2000 people home. Once they call your number, you exhale, and it's at this point you say all I can do is try my best! All the hours of training comes down to moments like this and it's all worth it!

Competition was tight! It was crucial you knew your dancing technique! And essentially the vast majority of dancers had many, many years of experience in jazz, ballet and other dances. In our first audition, we demonstrated our stuff in seconds, and it felt so great to be seen by professionals who are the best in the world.

We were early, waiting to audition our 2nd set. In the 2nd set, the actual audition was a jazz sequence, which was quickly demonstrated barely twice, if you blinked your eye you'd miss half of it. Jazz technique was a must, it came down to how well you picked up the sequence, executed it, and whether you have the right look while doing it. How much you can impress your highly trained judges in the 2-4 minutes you are in front of them is what will make you or break you…and after it's all over, you exhale again and hope for your number to be called.

Although we didn't make the Madonna Tour, Kathy and I were more then happy as we gained knowledge and a valuable experience to help us grow and prepare for the next time around. Like I always say, it's easy to dance…. but it's entirely different to be a dancer. Where it starts and ends is in the studio, the hours of preparation, mental conditioning, technique…all takes time, it requires skill that is acquired over years of training, not overnight. That's what we strive for… so until next time… watch out Madonna, here we come!

After our long eventful day, we decided to finish our night off with a salsa fix. On a Wednesday night, "Nell's" nightclub is one of the popular hotspots for salsa dancing in New York. We knew we would be bombarded with people asking us to dance "mambo on 2" which we fully appreciated and had fun doing… but then Kathy and I decided we'd give the New Yorkers a taste of our style and fire. After finding a couple of people that did dance on "1" and showing a little of our open shines, we quickly drew a crowd by the New Yorkers, curious as to where we were from. We also met up with a fellow salsero. For those of you who are familiar with Angel Ortiz, he is a well-known instructor and performer and dances with Bacardi.

We had lots of fun dancing with Angel. The night quickly came to an end and boy were we exhausted ….we were ready for some serious R&R and our return to Toronto.