Dancing With Dancers (Again).

Last year's Dance With Dancers event was so great that I just couldn't skip it this year either. It's a dance event organized by the Finnish National Ballet in Alumnisali in the Opera. The night includes lots of different dance shows plus a band and a DJ to make the audience dance in between the shows. This time there the audience were treated with ballet, contemporary dance, pole art, competition dance etc. Great night and I was even able to dance some Zouk with Michaelo there! A definite must-go for next year too.

So, what has been going on in my dance life this fall? Well, I haven't been able to dance as much as I have done before. I had to stop my regular Zouk classes and settle just taking some F&A's drop-ins every now and then. This month my Australian friend come to visit me, so its been even more quiet time for dancing. One new thing that I started on September was Voguing, and those dance classes have definitely been my Wednesdays' saviors! Voguing classes are really my only regular dance classes I'm taking at the moment so there is a huge change to my previous 3-4 dance classes per week rhythm. I am already seeing the negative results of this change: I am now stuck to my current level and not proceeding anywhere. The ones who continued with F&A's classes have already created a gab between those who left the group.

I also feel like there haven't been that many chances to go social dancing this fall. I was really looking forward the Zouk Sunday practicas to start again but there has been some problems with a place to hold it. However, now we are gathering every Sunday at 6pm to Kisahalli, so come to say hello to me there! There hasn't been much dance parties either and of course I was out of the country when Finzouk had the 2nd anniversary Zouk party in Helsinki. The best dance parties I've been this fall have been HOT's parties. Well, there would be many Salsa parties around but I still haven't found a Salsa dancer inside me. Maybe I should go to some Salsa classes or something.

Another thing is that taking the intensive Mzouk course might have affected my Rio style in a negative way, a least until now. So all in all, if I'm thinking of my technique, it hasn't been a good fall at all. Then again, I have been able to shake off some of my self-criticism when most of the chances for dancing are most simply for pleasure and not for learning technique. In this sense this more quiet period might have done some good for me after all. It has also shown that there are other lovely things than dancing out there too - something I sometimes seem to forget when dancing takes over me.

After the FREACA competitions I started to wonder with Michaelo what's next. Practicing for the competitions was a good and motivating target for our practices but since either of us are now taking regular classes, having one-to-one practices with no new material to work with sounded quite useless. We came to a conclusion that we would still have time to make a choreography before I leave, so he arranged us to one dance event to perform it. Its going to be a busy two months to work with the show for December though! (Well, actually Michaelo already made a first draft of the choreo while I was traveling in Portugal.) So at least these practices will bring some more dancing to the rest of the year. Also I'm really excited about the Zouk festival in Helsinki next month. I know it's going to offer the kind of dance parties I've been waiting for.

Yesterday I actually had quite a nice dancing night in HOT's party. I was supposed to go there just for couple of dances but stayed until the end. I was feeling somehow surreal on my way to the party but dancing helped me once again to get my mind off from my mixed and confused feelings. Dancing is such a great and fast way to escape reality. Fast but treacherous.

Till the end, here you can find a video of me dancing in one of the Sunday practicas: http://youtu.be/1Ue2ZtEwIZ0.

There Are Short-cuts to Happiness, and Dancing Is One of Them.

Have you ever had this feeling that time just seems to disappear somewhere when you would like it to stop? It's like waiting for eternity for something to happen and then when it is actually happening the moment is gone before you notice. I bet this happens to everyone when on holiday.You save money and wait for a whole year and then, puff, a time machine takes you into the future after the long-waited trip to paradise. Annoying, huh?

Well, something like this happened to me this summer, without warning or a long wait though. My dancer friends have been asking where have I been lately. What have I been doing? Good question. Time just have seemed to disappear. Summer left me thousands of precious memories but my time machine have now taken over my desperate attempts to extend the summer, and I have to accept a new phase in my life. A phase to enjoy my last months in Helsinki before I leave the city in January. So don't worry, I have been around, happy and dancing, I'm still all of that and, eventally, I'll come back.

The same rule about time applies to dancing. You can achieve perfect moments of paradise with the right connection, the right music and the right feeling, but then the paradise is gone in the blink of an eye. It is just then when you would like to scram STOP to that evil time machine of yours but fear you'll lose some of those precious seconds of pure happiness while doing that. This also goes to performing choreographies and taking part to competitions. You start practicing months and months before, giving maybe countless of hours for polishing up your movements, and then in the moment of truth you know who is entering the stage. And again puff, time disappears.

Actually the reason to start writing again was a promise I made in a dance competition I took part yesterday, FRESCA Latin Dance Competition 2012. My promise was to update my feelings here if the competitions went well, and it just happened that I walked home with three medals from all of the dances I took part with Michaelo: 2nd place in Zouk and Kizomba and 3rd place in Bachata. Even though I am really happy about the placing (it did feel great to go up to the stage again and again to get the prizes!), the medals are after all just reminders of the amazingly good feeling I had during the competitions. I couldn't see the audience or hear the cheers. It was just music, Michaelo and a great amount of adrenalin in my blood. I am happy that the judges and the audience were able to see our passion to dancing. After all, dancing is really about expressing, not impressing.

What comes to my evil time machine: even though it seems to steal my time, there is something it can never steal. The warm feeling of the valuable memories I live through that will always be stored into my heart. Why, you might ask. Because those are timeless.

Dance Holiday.

Hola, I'm back from my dance holiday! And wow what a holiday it was! First two crazy Zouk parties in Zurich followed with a week of Mzouk intensive course in Barcelona. I feel like I'm a whole different dancer now! I would have so many stories to tell I don't even know where to start.

So, I and N Girl decided to have an explosive start for the holiday and took party passes to Swiss Zouk Festival. First I thought that it wasn't worth of all the money we spent for the flights but how wrong I was. Seriously the best parties I've been. Especially the last two hours in Saturday's party. Oh. My. God. I think I've never had that strong dance flow that I had then. Crazy crazy crazy. Theres no words to describe the feeling. Some even came to comment on my dancing afterwards. A tip for ladies: if you ever have an opportunity to dance with Kamacho, K-Yo or Dadinho, do that!

I really needed the ego boost I got from the parties in the Spiral Dancers' Mzouk course. Being there was like I never danced Zouk before. Talking about going out from my comfort zone! Then again that is the best way of learning, and I already felt the changes in my dancing when I had a practice with Big O this week back in Helsinki. It wasn't only Mzouk but everything from body control to different new concepts of dancing. We had classes on contemporary, contact impro, voguing, musicality, anatomy to mention few. I could recommend the course for anyone who wants to learn more about dancing, not even mentioning Mzouk. I feel like I realized many things about how I can use and control my body in dancing.

I think I still need to process everything that happened during the Mzouk course and go through all the pictures I took so I'll come back later with more stories from my amazing dance holiday. Before that I'll try to find some dancing to ease my coming-back-to-my-normal-life-depression. How perfect it would be if I could live like I did during the 11 days: just dancing, eating and sleeping!

Difficult Decisions.

Even though there’s still some summer left, I already had to face a difficult decision concerning the coming fall. There is a huge probability that I won’t be in Helsinki (nor Finland) after the Christmas holidays for quite a long time, at least 6 for months, and this of course has an effect to my after-summer-life. After checking out the uni courses I have to complete during the fall term to be able to do this, I am afraid that studying is going to take so much of my time that there won’t be much time left for dancing anymore. Honestly, I’m not that keen on the idea of changing my life I have been enjoying so much, but I guess life isn’t always a bed of roses (or, what we Finns say and would better suit the context, dancing in the roses).

So, my Zouk group is going to continue with two classes per week after the summer and I had to face the cruel reality: I cannot continue with the group any more. Since this week ended the summer season’s classes, I had my last Zouk classes this Wednesday and Thursday. I hate doing things for the last time, especially when I know I’m going to miss doing them! I know it is not the end of Zouk dancing in my life, but there won’t be regular and progressive teaching any more. All of this is making me sad because I have been enjoying the classes so much and I can really see the huge positive effects they’ve left into my dancing. But hey, at least I can take some drop-in classes every now and then and there is always the weekly practicas where I can still dance with the Zouk group members and try to learn from them. Trying to think positive here! What made me happy though, was that everybody were so understanding when I told them about my decision. Thank you.

It is hard to even think of my life without having this big proportion dedicated to dancing. It has been some kind of counterbalance to my studies and work, something that gives me energy to keep on going even when really tired or sad. On the other hand, it has become an addiction I cannot live without. An addiction that sometimes can take over my life leaving no time to think anything else. It is too easy to fill up my calendar with dancing and use that to escape the reality. In the end, I want to have something else important in my life than just dancing. Then again dancing had given me many friendships that would last even if I stopped dancing for good. I doubt that (stopping dancing) would happen though.

Dancer N:o 267.

Ladies, warning: I danced with this guy last night. Recommended to avoid:

Nah, just kidding! I just happened to say to him that I rate every new dancer I dance with here in my blog, so I was able to make him to give some crazy dance poses for me. Best way of getting new followers! No really, it was nice dancing with you S.

Anyway, yesterday I did something exceptional: I skipped my Zouk class and went instead to a dance party organized by Helsingin lavatanssit. Its a group of people who started organizing free-of-charge Finnish style ballroom dance parties (lavatanssit) in Helsinki this summer. Lavatanssit has been a thing for old people for too long time already, so the parties are targeted for young people who like dancing and having fun. What's the best thing about these parties is that they are held in my neighborhood, like one kilometer from my apartment! Really, nothing ever happens there. I always have to travel one hour to get somewhere and now I was back home in 10 minutes, awesome! Actually it was me who suggested them to contact this place, Lava, where the party was held. How great it would be if they started having also dance classes there after the summer?

Before the party started we had 1,5 hour class of Argentine Tango which was my second time I tried the dance. I really liked the class and made me wonder if I would have time to take some basic classes of Argentine Tango in fall (surely I won't have time to learn all the dances I would like to but this is something I have been thinking already for a while). I was lucky to get one dance from the teacher during the class and got good feedback from my following. However, I think it would be quite impossible not to follow his incredibly clear leading.

The party itself made me really happy that I decided to skip my dance class. Everybody seemed to be in a great mood, the place was nice (though a bit small), I danced with couple of new good leaders and it was simply refreshing to dance ballroom for a change! I'm definitely coming back in August.

Hey, I haven't told about this Zouk flash mob we're doing! Its actually pretty cool because many countries around the world are participating at the same day! The date is set to 16th of September and our practices are primarily on Tuesdays at 8:30 pm at the Opera. Come and join! Here is the choreography for the dance (from the wonderful Alisson&Audrey!!) and a video from our first rehearsal couple of weeks ago. If you won't participate yourself, come at least see the flash mob. I'll let you know the exact place later on. This might actually end up to Guinnes World Records!

Voguing.

Ever since I went to my first Vogue party and got my first glimpse of this dance – it was some freezing cold night last winter – I have wanted to try dancing Vogue myself. Last week I finally had a chance to do this when Dance.fi organized a summer camp with different kind of dance styles. I can’t remember when was the last time I have been in a solo dance class, or if I actually have ever really been in one, so this was something different that I have been craving lately after dancing almost only and nothing but Zouk.

Voguing was definitely something that forced me to step out from my comfort zone: big, still and angular hand movements were quite the opposite of the flowing Zouk dancing. For those who don’t know about Voguing, it is a dance style originally from New York’s drag queen scene, so many movements are exaggerated, dramatized and either really feminine or masculine. In addition to dancing Voguing consists of runway walking, posing and battles between other Vougue dancers. There’s three styles called Old Way, New Way and Femme, from which the two latter have taken influences from ballet, acrobatics, jazz dance, yoga etc. All in all, Voguing is an imposing and even militaristic-looking dance that can easily capture the viewer’s attention with the Vogue dancers’ I’m-way-better-than-you-bitch attitudes.

The four beginner classes I took introduced New Way and Femme styles that have quite a different feeling. I’m glad they started with the very basics since it was really hard to keep my arms and wrists in straight lines, hard meaning both challenging and tiring. We started with hand movements keeping rest of the body as still as possible (sounds easier than it was!), did some runway walking and posing, tried dancing in the floor and went even to some acrobatics. All the time we were supposed to imagine someone taking pictures of us, so in every second you had to look gorgeous and give poses to the camera following the music’s beat. Even though I had no idea what I was doing I was having heaps of fun doing it.

Later on, me and Big O., who I dragged along since I was too nervous going alone, tried to combine Vouging into Zouk which worked surprisingly good. He was right saying that solo dancing did me good and that is something I want to start doing after the summer. I was thinking of Ballet but then again Voguing would be something only few could do. I think it would be much more interesting to say that I dance Zouk and Vogue than, let’s say, Salsa and Ballet, don’t you think (or at least it would cause some sorry-but-what?!-responces)? Besides, for an attention-loving girl like me Voguing wouldn’t be that bad idea.

Summer of Dance.

I apologize for my low profile lately. I didn’t think that June would go so tremendously fast and I simply haven’t had time to sit down, go through my thoughts and write them down. If for some rare reason I happened to come home relatively early (that is, before 9-10 pm), I have been too tired to do anything but crash to bed. Actually writing this down makes it sound bad. Am I pushing it too much? Would it be better to stop and calm down?

No, I’d rather like to think that since far I have been enjoying my summer to the full, and isn’t that how summer should go? Enjoying every moment, every warm sunshine, every dance step I take. The summer has already made me feel so good that I feel like I just might come apart from pure happiness, and dancing has had a lot to do with that feeling. I have fallen in love with dancing all over again!

I haven’t been holding on to my decision to cut down on dancing during the summer, but I have been able to change my attitude into a summer mood. I don’t want to stress out if I’m not progressing with my technique or following but to rediscover that ultimate enjoyment dancing can give. I want to relax my mind and let my body follow the good feeling. I still do pay attention to the main things I should work on, like controlling my energy and finishing my moves beautifully, but I forgive myself when I don’t succeed or do the best I could. I fell in love with this aphorism I came across the other day: “When you stumble, make it part of the dance”. If I wouldn’t stumble and fall down, how could I learn to get up from the ground? This kind of a mindset have actually made me more confident dancer.

So, a lot of dancing has happened during the last month. What comes to my normal week days, I have been spending every Wednesday and Thursday evening in Zouk classes, and had one-to-one Zouk practice at least once a week. Sunday evening is the time to go dancing Salsa to the Opera, and there has been couple of nice dance parties (and after parties!) going on in Helsinki during the weekends. I’ve spent two weekends in dance festivals, first in Berlin and second in Tampere, and danced my feet sore in both of those. I had maybe the best birthday party ever when me and Michaelo rented Helsinki Salsa Academy’s studio and threw a dancing party there. The evening was simply perfect and it made me into an intense dance flow, the best I’ve had for a long long time. On top of that, our choreography was received with huge cheers and I danced my first own roda with an amazing feeling, not even mentioning the after party that lasted early to the next morning! On the Mid Summer I had a quick peek in Finnish lavatanssit, and last weekend I did my fist dance in the rain in Pihlajansaari 24 hour Salsa party. What an amazing feeling it is to dance in warm summer rain, wow. One other thing I started doing this summer, was going back to the gym club I used to go before I started dancing so much I didn’t have time to do anything else. Going back there has given me a great opportunity to challenge my body in a total different way to dancing. The only thing I haven’t been doing really, is sleeping enough. Mondays have gone half sleep at work, and for the first time in my life I have been drinking coffee. Despite that, all these active moments counterbalanced with chilling out, having long lunch breaks and sleep-overs with my friends, the summer has offered me many reasons to smile non-stop, and that’s what I have been doing. Even thinking about all the special moments I’ve had puts a big smile on my face right now.

Even though a lot has happened, the summer is far from being over yet. I’m planning on continuing to enjoy every moment it brings and every dance I dance. You might hear from me from time to time, but don’t except as frequent postings as before the summer. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing my dance feelings but I just love more making those feelings and living them through. This summer is here only now, and it’s going to be over sooner than you notice.

Dear Diary,

I haven't been opening my heart to you for a while. I should have since it always makes me understand what is going on in my mind. My approach to dancing is the same what I have for life: I go with my feelings first. This doesn't make my life easy and it does cause some extra drama every now and then, but its not a thing I would like to change really. Usually listening my feelings leads me to the right track and shows me the way I want to follow. One other thing that then again that doesn't apply both dancing and life is thinking before doing. Dancing is at its best when I don't have or want to think of anything. I just do what feels good or right, or even better: what I don't even realize doing. Doing the same thing in life, however, tends to lead into trouble or, at least, makes it a bit more complicated. Unfortunately sometimes I follow my feelings so slavish that I find myself doing things I might have not done after thinking it through.

My feelings are one thing to blame when it comes spending all my time (and money!) to dancing. Dancing can just feel so amazingly good and sometimes it makes me discover some feelings I have never felt before. Before the summer I decided that I was going to have a relaxing and quiet summer: no commitments, no plans nor tight schedules. But what have I been doing the whole June: running from one dance event/practice/class/party to another! Damn you dancing, you ruined my peaceful plans! Then again, the summer has already made me so happy and there is no denying that I have had heaps of fun. So, if you don't hear from me, I'll most probably be doing the same I've been doing the last couple of weeks.

You know what is the best thing of coming back home from dancing weekends? The people you've danced with add you in Facebook and send you thanks-for-the-amazing-dances-messages! Even though its a small thing, it gives me a good feeling every single time, and it just happens to be that the messages come from the dancers I enjoyed dancing with the most. I bet all of my favorite leaders just don't happen to also be polite and the leaders I didn't like that much not. What I like the least after coming back home is (in addition to the lack of sleep and huge amount of tiredness) going to a local dance party and not having a possibility to get surprised of great connection with people you've never met before. However, after coming back from Berlin I had a great night in Havanna's Zouk&Kizomba evening when I had no chance of leaving the dance floor. I hope my homecoming will be that easy the next time too.

So I have again huge amount of videos from Berlin and also from Tampere Bachata & Kizomba festivals in my camera to post here. But you know what, Diary, it is summer now and I don't feel like having any more extra responsibilities, so I might just keep them to myself.

Zoukking in Berlin. Photo by Berg Chabot.

Can You Control Me?

So here I am, at the airport waiting for my flight to Berlin Zouk Congress! The reason I'm still waiting is a Finnair's strike that just happened to start two days ago. Let's see when my flight actually leaves... Anyway, unlike last congresses, this time I don't feel nervous or anxious but just super excited to meet new dancers and to have so much fun in the dance classes and parties. The weekend is going to be awesome, I tell you! This week I also signed in for a week-long Mzouk intensive course that is going to be held in Barcelona in the beginning of August. All of the Finnish Zouk dancers that went there last year said that its definitely worth going to so I couldn't resist. I also got N Girl to go there with me. We still need to sort out our accommodation, flights and stuff but I'm already so happy that I decided to go there even though I'll have to limit all my summer holidays just for these two Zouk events.

Last Zouk class the whole group got some personal feedback from F&A. It is little bit ironic that my biggest weakness is also my biggest strength. See, I have lots of energy when I dance, which is really good, but sometimes it is hard for the leader or for me to control that energy, and that is when things start going wrong. Then again, it is better to have too much and take some out than not have enough and try to put something more. I just need to concentrate to control my movements and following better and I can move to the next level! Its great that we can get this kind of feedback especially when F&A have been following our development for a longer period of time.

Okay, my flight is finally leaving! Berlin here I come!

If You Dance With Your Heart, Your Body Will Follow.

So much to write about but no time to write about it. So many great dances and new dance feelings. No can do, I need to sleep too. This is what I have to tell you though: on Thursday evening I will be zoukking in Berlin! It is summer and life smiles.