Recently it was brought to the attention of the office of Zouk Nation that the organizers of the Berlin 2nd International Zouk Congress have chosen to use a quote from the Zouk Nation website on the the poster for next year’s Congress. The quote that appears on the poster reads, “If Tango and Salsa were the dances of the 20th Century, as it has often been referred, Zouk is the dance of the 21st Century.” I was curious what Nicholas Bambo, the Creative Director of Zouk Nation, and the person who is credited with originally having made that statement had to say about it.
“It’s from a piece I wrote for the Zouk Nation website on the overview page for the dance section of the site. It’s something I’ve repeated over the years in interviews and on television, so I guess it’s no surprise that someone else has decided to use it.” He views it as simply being a sign of the times we live in, and not something anyone can control. “You write something one day, the next day it appears in print on the other side of the world in a completely different context.”
However, Nicholas pointed out, that technically it isn’t an exact quote. The original statement reads “If tango was the dance of the twentieth century, as it has often been referred, zouk is the dance of the twenty-first century,…” The person who created the poster has added the word “salsa” to the quote, which creates two problems.
The first is historical. “While salsa was tremendously popular during the twentieth century, and still is, to my knowledge it has never been referred to as ‘the dance of the 20th century.’ That honor was reserved for tango and tango alone.”
Nicholas also pointed out that by adding the word salsa there is a grammatical problem with the sentence. “…as it has often been referred…” should be switched from the singular form to the plural form so that it reads, “as they have often been referred…” “It’s a small thing,” he says smiling, “but I was an English instructor for a number of years, so it’s kind of hard for me not to mention it.”
When asked what his feelings were about having been quoted, he said, “Although it would have been nice to have been recognized as the source of the quote, the fact they chose to use it is still somewhat flattering and I look at it as being a good sign. It tells me that all the hard work we put into Zouk Nation is starting to have some kind of an affect. And if using the quote helps them sell more tickets to their Congress, more power to them.”
you are hilarious, nicholas!