Helsinki Kizomba Festival.

Between the Kizomba professionals!

As I told already before, last weekend I got to know to a new dance in a three-day Kizomba festival. During the weekend we had in total 12 hours of teaching from João Rocha and Mafalda Amado who came to visit Finland for the festival. On Friday we started with basics, on Saturday continued to some figures and body movement and on Sunday finished with tarraxinha, Semba and Kizomba with Tango flavor. We were able to put everything learned into practice on Friday's and Saturday's parties. Added with Sunday's Zouk practica, basically all I did during the weekend was dancing! No wonder the days passed past so fast.

What distinguishes Kizomba from other pair dances I've danced, is the emphasized importance of a connection with your partner. Leading in Kizomba is really delicate and soft (if done correctly!), so you really have to be able to listen the lead and synchronize yourself to your partner's movement. You dance really close to your dance partner and most of the leading is done with chest, but also with legs and thighs. In Kizomba its all about small things and movements, so it is not a dance to entertain viewers but a dance to be enjoyed by the dance partners. Because there aren't any big or complicated figures, the body control and basic movement is a key word to this dance. Many are happy just to do the basic steps for the whole dance but then again they need to be done correctly.

What I found to be the hardest thing learning Kizomba from the very beginning was the movement of hips. The basic movement isn't from side to side or eight-shaped, like in many Latin dances, but from back to forward, and this felt quite unnatural for me, especially in the beginning. The steps and figures aren't hard, and I didn't find following that difficult after realizing the points where pay attention to. Actually I got a lot of good feedback about my following from several leaders. Closing your eyes helps with the following and finding the connection. So Kizomba isn't too hard dance to start with, but mastering it needs lots and lots from body control!

As you might know, rhythmically Kizomba and Zouk music are quite alike, and Zouk can be danced into Kizomba music and vice versa. Maybe because the two dances are so different, Kizomba dancers seem to hate Zouk dancers and Zouk dancers have the same feelings about Kizomba dancers. When me and Michaelo danced Zouk before the classes started on Saturday, the teacher switched of the music and announced loudly: "Okay guys, one thing clear: NO Zouk!!" What if I want to be both Zouk and Kizomba dancer? Are both Zouk and Kizomba dancers going to dislike me then? No seriously talking, I really like both of the dances and would like to continue dancing also Kizomba.

Talking about Zouk, I have some happy news to tell: the Finnish zoukers are now having professional teaching here in Helsinki starting this week! Freddy and Andressa moved here to give us lessons, and for now they are staying for three months, but if everything goes well they will stay longer. So yesterday they gave a short Zouk class in Sunday's practica which was crowded. This is such an amazing opportunity to finally learn this challenging dance, so I just had to take it even though the classes are quite expensive, especially for me as a student. But how disapponted would I be if Freddy and Andressa left after the three months and I didn't take their classes? So from this week on I will be taught by professional dancers every week for three months! How exiting!

Last but not least, here is a video from the festival where João and Mafalda show most of the movements and figures they taught us during the weekend.