About Us
Maintaining such a successful online magazine is not an easy task. So we are lucky to say that the Bachateros has the best team in this regards! We all share the same passion for the dance and are all great friends!
Juan Ruiz, Director – Main Bachatero
Juan Ruiz is known as the “Father of Bachata” in Australia, he is one of most known Bachata promoters in the world, and he is the pioneer of the Bachata Moderna style. Juan has taught and performed all over Australia and all over the world.
Juan’s unique Bachata style is known as Bachata Moderna, which is based on the concept of the crosses and the flavor of Zouk, Kizomba, Tango, Hip Hop and R&B. He has an incredible talent of fusing the passion these dance styles have & yet remains true to Bachata form, maintaining the feeling & emotional elements that makes Bachata what it is.
In his efforts to promote Bachata to the next level, Juan came with the idea to create a community website for all the bachateros and latin dancers in Australia, idea which was taken gratefully by the community. The website Bachateros.com.au has become a worldwide brand in the Latin industry, where various artists have shared their music through the website, and many dancers can share their passion with articles and stories.
Juan Ruiz is also one of the directors of the biggest Bachata Festival, the Sydney International Bachata Festival.
Email Juan: juan.ruiz@bachateros.com.au
Jennifer Howarth, Managing Director
Jennifer comes into the Bachateros team from New Zealand . With a dance repertoire of 6 years of Ballroom Dance, she decided to move to Sydney to carry on with her exploration of Dance. This was where she was introduced to the Latin genre of dance and has not looked back since. Jennifer became a student of Latin Motion and was initially taught by Nestor Manuelian (Modus Vivendi Salsa Productions). Since then she has managed to evolve her own style of Bachata which was not hard to do with the training she has received from Juan Ruiz over the past two years.
Jennifer is also the Managing Director of Bachateros.com.au. She has had experience managing several corporate companies in New Zealand. Jennifer is our Website Content Editor and is responsible for the work that goes into the Bachateros tours (watch this space for future tours!!), event reviews for Salsa and Bachata events that happen around Sydney i.e the Bachata Festival 2008 and the 1st Sydney Bachata Competition. She has also travelled internationally to review events like the Malaysian Salsa Festival 2008.
Jennifer collectively works with the Juan (the main Bachatero) to also give you reviews and promotions on the new and upcoming Bachata bands from all over the world and keeps Sydney up to speed with profile interviews of prestigious and influential Bachata instructors worldwide.
Email Jennifer: jen.howarth@bachateros.com.au
Samantha Cilia, Artistic Principal
Samantha is responsible for the creation and development of the Bachateros teaching syllabus. The Bachateros believe that having a strong and detailed syllabus ensures that all workshops and classes being taught across the country involve the same fundamentals. This guarantees that their style of teaching is consistent in all classes. The Bachateros are also highly aware that their syllabus provides interested promoters with an inside look into exactly what the Bachateros are all about and what exciting new styles of bachata they can offer at their events.
For this reason, the syllabus is constantly updated to keep pace with the creation of new and exciting material. Samantha is responsible for this weighty task.
The Artistic Principal is also in charge of the management of the Bachateros heavily booked event calendar and workshop timetable. Being a very organised and pro-active person, Samantha makes sure that the Bachateros are as informed, organised and professional as can be. She researches and informs fellow Bachateros of upcoming events and ensures that all team members are provided with adequate information to enable the Bachateros team to exceed the Bachata community’s expectations. As there is so much happening these days in the Bachata world and the broader latin dance community, it’s important that the Bachateros’ event calendar is always kept up to date.
When Samantha isn’t in the studio working on new techniques to share with the Bachata world, you’ll find her spreading the love of Bachata nearly every night at salsa venues across Sydney, so make sure you ask her to dance.
Tania Crivellenti, Main Writer
In her passion for dancing in general and bachata specifically she started expressing it through her calling: writing.
She has been dancing her whole life. In Brazil she was a Ballet, Contemporary and Modern dancer for a long time. It is ironic that when she arrived in Australia in 2003 she discovered LDA (www.latindance.com.au) and the Latin and Brazilian dancing. Juan Ruiz was her first bachata instructor.
She worked for almost 4 years in the administration at Latin Dance Australia during the day and developed her bachata, zouk, salsa, forró, cha-cha, merengue and gafieira skills at night.
She is seen in the dance floor here and there. She is always at 101oC Party, frequently at Martini Bar, sometimes at Coolabar and Step up Party and never misses Marcelinho’s Forrogodes once a month.
Email Tania: tania.creations@gmail.com, Tania’s blog: The Dancing Bug
Published texts at bachateros:
1) If you think Bachata is boring, I’m sorry to say, but you are doing it wrong…
2) Bachata, the sweetest of all tortures
3) Bachata – the no pretence dance
4) Enjoy the bachata ride
5) A few more basics…
and many more to come
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