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Education
“Life is too short to learn and do everything at your best, but I believe it's never too late to try and start learning something new and it's never too late to become a master at what you love most. There is no teacher that needs no further learning, no dancer that needs to train nomore, no choreographer that needs no inspiration from others... there is no sense to live without any dream and any goal to achieve...”
Riccardo
Riccardo was born in Rome on June 2nd 1979. Growing up learning music (piano, flute, guitar, singing) and practicing many sports at a competitive level (mostly football), he encountered the world of dancing at the age of 23 starting to attend a basic course of Caribbean dance at Perugia, where he moved at the age of 19 to study at the faculty of Vet Medicine. At the first impact with this kind of music and dancing he immediately fell in love with bachata that became his favourite style, but eversince he had the feeling that as soon as he would have learned more about salsa he could fall in love with that at the same way. A year later he started learning some hip hop – for a few months, with Miguel Valentin (from the "Chiquito y su Dominican Power" team), from Republica Dominicana. In 2004 he saw a professional salsa show by “Johnny Vazquez y su Imperio Azteca” for the first time and the the overall performance deeply impressed and charmed him. Two weeks later he met Fernando Sosa and Tropical Gem and he decided to begin to learn the Los Angeles style of salsa (he was learning only Cuban and Puertorican beforehand) by attending several workshops, especially with Fernando Sosa, Johnny Vazquez and Francisco Vazquez. Although he kept on learning the puertorican and the cuban style with some of the best dancers in the world (Felipe Polanco, Tito & Tamara, Maikel Fonts, Alberto Valdes, Seo Fernandez, Roly Maden exc.), for a year he was mainly into to the L.A. style until he started travelling around Europe visiting international salsa festivals and getting interested about the New York style that wasn't very popular in Italy at the time. In 2005 he met Jazzy from Guatemala, and got influenced by his way of combining varoius styles along with salsa - especially jazz - and also by the way of mixing up a dynamic style of Salsa, going more towards L.A. style, with the “on 2 rithm” that goes into the New York style. That was a time of a breakthrough when he was learning and improving his New York style, attending workshops with all the most famous international artists of that time and onwards - later years (Eddie Torres, Franky Martinez, Juan Matos, Adolfo Indacochea, Yamulee, Jhesus Aponte, Jaison Molina, Hacha y Machete exc) getting a lot of experience and inspirations, while keeping on performing and competing mainly in salsa L.A. Style. In 2007 he started to learn some modern jazz with Alex Imburgia (from the dance academy I.A.L.S. in Rome) but he has been bound to interrupt after few months as he started giving regular classes in Poland.
At the beginning of 2009 he finally moved to Wroclaw, Poland. He opened his dance school Fly Dance Academy there. The hard work of the school management all on his own in a foreign country, plus additional activities like setting up the international events that he organized and DJ at the clubs, slowed a little his general dancing education. In that period he mainly focused on the bachata style that he was learning and teaching since the beginning and that became his main style at the international festivals where he was working as artist.
But his interest and passion for dancing never decreased and in fact after 3 years of hard work across his activities in Poland he came back training regularly and continued to improve his skills in different styles like jazz, hip hop, reggaeton, afro/cuban discovering in the meantime some new styles like contemporary, dancehall, house, new age.
Teaching
Since he was young, Riccardo had some experience in teaching over a variety of fields like music, sport, school and even giving seminars at University, but his first real experience as dance teacher was in November 2004 when he moved to Poland for 3 months because of the Erasmus exchange program. In that time he was teaching bachata (as first one in that country) and salsa Puerto Rico style, giving regular classes in Wroclaw and some workshops in other cities. When he came back to Italy he began to teach in Perugia in the Energy Dance school, where he gave classes for two years.
“In 2006 he started his own courses in Rome founding the “Universo Salsero”, the school of all styles of salsa that later on became the name of his dance company. In January 2007 he opened his own courses also in Perugia and then in August of the same year, after having closed his classes in Rome, he began to give regular workshops in Wroclaw, during the weekends. He was the first teacher giving classes of all styles of salsa and bachata at the same time, in those cities, as where he was working. The main reason of the name “Universo Salsero” was the idea of teaching these styles to people from every country and every culture, considering salsa as a unique culture and conception of dancing, but at the same time giving value to all its styles and specifying all the differences. In October 2008 he founded his own school in Wroclaw, no more only a salsa school, but a real dance school with the name of “Fly Dance Academy”.
Despite the big satisfaction of making dancers grow up in Italy and especially in Poland, able to perform shows on some massive stages and even to teach (many of them are actually working as teachers and/or performers), his work as dance instructor had got the highest consideration being invited to give workshops in different cities and countries and especially to teach at international festivals around Europe.
During those 10 years of career, apart from the regular classes at his school, he has been teaching the following styles on workshops and festivals:
Bachata (dominican style, sensual, fusion, urbana, bachatango, acrobatica)
salsa (Cuban style, L.A. Style, New York style, Puerto Rico style)
Rueda de casino, Cuban afro/rumba, Son Cubano, Reggaeton, Cha cha cha, Pachanga, Spin technique, Musicality, shine on 1 and on 2, Man style.
Competitions
In 2005 he has taken part in two dance competitions with Olesya (from Ukraine), for the first time, winning the first place at the regional championship, in the FIDS, in the New York style/Puertorican salsa category and the second place at the regional championship (Umbria-Lazio-Toscana), in the Nueva Federcaribe federation, in the same style. In that year he also won the competition organized at the international salsa congress in Wroclaw, Poland with Anita (from Poland), presenting as the final performance the show "Thank you", that after a year he modified and renamed as "The one". In 2006 he won again the regional championship in both federations (FIDS and Nueva Federcaribe), with Misa (from Czech Republic), winning the first place also in the Open competition multi-regional in the category of Puertorican salsa, the second place in bachata and the third place in cuban salsa. In May he took part in the international competition of salsa Los Angeles style in Sofia with Janine (from Germany). That was valid as a qualification for the world championship in Las Vegas, reaching the final and presenting his new choreography "Who's bad". As he had never found a fix dance partner he couldn't take part in any other competition till February 2008, when he prepared the new show "Eloisa" and partecipated, with his best student from Italy, Ariola (from Albania), at the "National contest in choreography" organized in all Italy by the "Bologna Salsa Festival" and reaching the final that took place in Bologna in March. Still without a fix dance partner he decided in april 2009 to take part again in a competition and this time with Monika Stoyanova (from Bulgaria): they joined together and won the italian championship in Rome in the categories of salsa Los Angeles style and New York style.
DJing
Since he was small, living in Rome, Riccardo organized many big parties that, growning up, became real dance parties. In Perugia, even before he was learning any dance, he became very popular for the students party he used to organized, where is was also dj and animator. With the opening of the salsa school in Perugia he started to work as dj in some club of the city (Tana dell'Orso, Merlin, Domus) and he has been invited to play latin music even in some event, mostly organized by the University of Perugia. In Wroclaw he played from October 2007 till the summer of the next year in some clubs where he was organizing his monthly latino-american party "La noche latina" (Daytona, Senso, WZ, Queen, No Name, Bayer, Happy Hour). From September 2008 he has been playing latin-american music in the Cuban club “Casa de la Musica” where he was the music coordinator for 3 years (since that club was opened till he stoped to be dj there). In January 2009 he begun to play salsa and bachata in “Szuflada” club where every Sunday was the popular salsa party “Domingo en Salsa” that ended two years later when the club was closed. From that time he has been playing in all main clubs of the city and he also had a role as a salsa or bachata dj in some international festival where he was working as teacher too.
SHOWS
Thank you - 2005 (hip hop - salsa L.A. style)
Who's bad - 2006 (salsa L.A. style)
The one - 2006 (salsa L.A. style)
Homenaje a Ray Barretto - 2007 ( solo show: salsa on 2, cha cha cha, bugaloo)
Eloisa - 2008 (afro/cha cha cha, salsa N.Y. style)
Gente de la Havana - 2009 (team show: hip hop, afro/rumba, salsa cubana al controtiempo)
My love - 2009 (bachata)
Perdoname - 2009 (team show: bachata)
La forma en que mientes - 2011 (jazz, hip hop new age, afro/rumba, salsa cubana)
El avion de la salsa - 2011 (salsa L.A. style)
Morir amando - 2011 (bachata)
Paradise - 2013 (jazz,bachata)
La razón - 2013 (cha cha cha, salsa N.Y. style)
The immortals - 2014 (team show: salsa, afro, hip hop, krump, tutting, dancehall)
Odio - 2015 (bachata)
Bomba - 2015 (team show: salsa shine New York style)
Cuando un hombre se enamora - 2015 (bachata)
Mambito en la playa - 2015 (salsa shine New York style)
Cancioncitas de amor - 2015 (bachata)
