Friday 20 April 2012

Wish you weren’t here

The brand new ZIN newsletter (April 2012) says:
First Zumba® Instructor Conference Is a Worldwide Hit!

Top-notch media from all over the world traveled to London, England in February to visit the first-ever Zumba® Instructor Conference. Reporters were blown away by the passion and off-the-charts energy of our instructors.
And what could be the best way to commemorate this historic event? Two scenarios spring to mind.
  • The truly cunning: to present the highlights of the Conference in such a way that anybody (both attendees and those who did not find either time or money to go there) would not just think that it was half grand well spent, but also ready to part with such (or larger) sum come the next conference.
  • The really nice: to give back something useful to ZINs whose hard-earned cash made this conference possible in the first place. (But frankly, I wouldn’t put much money on it).
Guess what? Neither of these. Instead, we are sent just another £@€%!#$ CD/DVD set.

On ZIN 38, the music keeps hitting new lows, what with annoying trademarking, imaginative lyrics like “Dancing the salsa, Zumba te llama” (Dancing Salsa), misinformation (Zumba Time!! is not a calypso) and even a house song. And did anyone notice the small print on the disc:
All songs PPL & PPCA free except track #6.
That’s new. I just checked all ZIN CDs and DVDs I have: none of them has exceptions like this. I don’t care much about Pitbull’s song but this sets an unpleasant precedent. After all, thousands of instructors are using Zumba’s covers or even so-called “originals” instead of the real thing precisely because they are free to use without paying additional licenses.

On DVD: another masterclass by Beto, no better (to put it mildly) than Beto’s classes from the times when ZIN volume numbers were in their twenties and the man himself still did care about stuff. The choreography is rather tired, with the only exception of The Trip. Wait a minute. Is this really Beto or his avatar from Zumba Fitness Rush?

Another novelty is that there are three different instructors in one-on-one class, each presenting three songs. This may be not a bad thing, considering that you are bound to dislike at least one of them. As an icing on the cake, we are reminded that we are not supposed to break down the steps for the class. Nice.



Song List

  1. Bunda — Merengue — by Watatah
  2. Dancing Salsa — Salsa ◊
  3. The Trip — Arabian Reggaeton *
  4. Loco — Cumbia ◊
  5. Eva Maria — Quebradita *
  6. Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor) — Hip House — by Pitbull feat T-Pain
  7. Zumba Time!! — Calypso — by Watatah
  8. Balans — Caribbean Hip-Hop — by K-Liber4life
  9. Stereo Love — House *
* Covers
◊ Zumba Fitness originals

No comments:

Post a Comment