Let's Welcome back to Seattle: Freezy Bruce and Laura Lannetone on June 18th, 2016.
Show Me What " U" Got U'rban Kiz Workshop is a three hour intensive for Urban Kiz meant for the experienced dancer. There are three hours of workshop are specific for intermediate / advanced students. This is one single intensive workshop broken into three 1 hour chunks. You still have the choice of taking one or two hours workshop. but its best to take the three hours to get the most out of it: to understand the spirit and the meaning of the workshop.
SCHEDULE
SAT Jun 18 at the Century Ballroom in West Hall
12:30 - 1:00 registration
1:00 - 2:00 1st hour
2:00 - 2:30 break
2:30 - 3:30 2nd hour
3:30 - 4:00 break
4:00 - 5:00 3rd hour
5:00 - 5:30 practice/wrap-up
Don't forget 3rd Saturday Late Night with DJ Jim Renn follows from 11pm - 1:30am in West Hall.
REGISTER NOW:
What is Urbankiz? [Freezy's words]
A new interpretation of the kizomba steps, the music of our generation ( creativity , musicality, body movement , fluidity , playing with the music and steps). If you want to know more then come and see by yourself!
Why Show me what ' U ' got?
This workshop will take ' U ' to build your confidence, your style, your skills, your Lead/Follow and ATTITUDE. This is a good opportunity to strengthen your basics to be creative and finally to start to build a real kizomba dancer who ie nont afraid to express themselves.
Show me what ' U ' got will be the first step of your dancing Freedom. Students not just be learning to be better dancers, they are also going to know what to stop learning!
STOP: BEING SYSTEMATIC ,
STOP:USING THE SAME ROUTINE FOR EACH EVERY SONG
STOP:DOING SAIDA TO SAIDA TO SAIDA TO SAIDA
STOP: THINKING ABOUT THE NEXT STEP
STOP: ANTICIPATING AND BACKLEADING
STOP... STOP....STOP....STOP...STOP...!
Freezy has designed the workshop to help dancers be free and create. Learn how to manage the weight, stay in balance and listen to the Master (music) to open your mind's hidden drawers on the dance floor!
Teachers: Freezy Bruce and Laura
Monday, May 23, 2016
Sunday, May 1, 2016
MAY Happenings for Kizomba Seattle
Welcome to May with Spring officially here which means summer is not far behind! Here's what's up in Seattle for Kizomba.
May 6 - First Fly Friday at West Hall; Drop in lesson at 9 Dance 10p-1:30a (Cover $16, Dance Only $10) with DJ Mary
May 12 - 2nd Thursday at West Hall with DJ Jay 9:30 - 1:00a (Cover $9)
May 13 - 2nd Friday KiZouk at Salsa Con Todo 9pm - 10pm dropin; dance 10pm - 1:00am (mix of zouk and kizomba)
** May 13 - 15 Seattle Bachata Kizomba Festival at Salsa n Seattle (www.seattlebachataKizombafestival.com) **
May 21 - 3rd Saturday Late Night at West Hall with DJ Kevin Boyle 11p - 1:30a (Cover $7, $13 joint cover with All Vinyl Salsa in Main Ballroom)
May 26 - 4th Thursday at West Hall with DJ Jay 9:30 - 1:00a (Cover $9)
May 27 - 4th Friday KiZouk at Salsa Con Todo 9pm - 10pm dropin; dance 10pm - 1:00am (mix of zouk and kizomba)
May 28 - 4th Saturday Late Night Kizomba at SCT 11pm - 4am
May 12 - 2nd Thursday at West Hall with DJ Jay 9:30 - 1:00a (Cover $9)
May 13 - 2nd Friday KiZouk at Salsa Con Todo 9pm - 10pm dropin; dance 10pm - 1:00am (mix of zouk and kizomba)
** May 13 - 15 Seattle Bachata Kizomba Festival at Salsa n Seattle (www.seattlebachataKizombafestival.com) **
May 21 - 3rd Saturday Late Night at West Hall with DJ Kevin Boyle 11p - 1:30a (Cover $7, $13 joint cover with All Vinyl Salsa in Main Ballroom)
May 26 - 4th Thursday at West Hall with DJ Jay 9:30 - 1:00a (Cover $9)
May 27 - 4th Friday KiZouk at Salsa Con Todo 9pm - 10pm dropin; dance 10pm - 1:00am (mix of zouk and kizomba)
May 28 - 4th Saturday Late Night Kizomba at SCT 11pm - 4am
WEEKLY CLASSES, PRACTICAS, BOOTCAMPS:
* Kizomba Bootcamp (part of the Seattle Bachata Kizomba Festival but can be paid for separately) on Fri May 13
* Weekly Practica on Mondays at Dimension Apartments or Metropolitan (please check group page for the latest) 8p - 11p
* Kizomba 1 and Kizomba Lab (NEW COURSE!) with Frances and Jay: May 19 to Jun 9
* Kizomba on Wednesdays at 8pm in Salsa N Seattle with Mario with a weekly practica following.
* Kizomba Semi-Privates with Dennis (contact Dennis Richards directly)
* Kizomba Immersion with Galina Mar 8 to May 12 Tuesdays 6-8 pm
* Kizomba Workshops every 4th Saturday kizomba workshops 6-9pm
* Kizomba Bootcamp (part of the Seattle Bachata Kizomba Festival but can be paid for separately) on Fri May 13
* Weekly Practica on Mondays at Dimension Apartments or Metropolitan (please check group page for the latest) 8p - 11p
* Kizomba 1 and Kizomba Lab (NEW COURSE!) with Frances and Jay: May 19 to Jun 9
* Kizomba on Wednesdays at 8pm in Salsa N Seattle with Mario with a weekly practica following.
* Kizomba Semi-Privates with Dennis (contact Dennis Richards directly)
* Kizomba Immersion with Galina Mar 8 to May 12 Tuesdays 6-8 pm
* Kizomba Workshops every 4th Saturday kizomba workshops 6-9pm
If anything comes up at the last minute - this group page feed will have the latest.
Please post Kizomba events to Hurry Out (www.hurryout.com) and check out www.kizombaseattle.com
Friday, February 19, 2016
This Thing Called GINGA
If you type ginga on google (at least as of today), you get this on the top:
GINGA IS RHYTHM....in soccer. It's swinging your body from one side to the other to deceive. Ginga is creativity. It's the pedalada and trivela. Ginga is the opposite of boring. It's the opposite of mechanical soccer. It is having fun with the ball. It is grace. It is being fluid and coordinated. IT IS SOUL. IT IS DANCE
I love this definition. Sure, its context is mostly in soccer (Brazilian) but for dance, these parts resonate loudly with me:
GINGA IS RHYTHM.
I got this suggestion from my belly dancing instructor when we were working on our "freeze" pose. She said "Don't be afraid to look at yourself in the mirror and try different poses to find your best one." No one is looking so try a pose that highlights everything good about you. Its can be difficult to do (and it sounds so narcissistic) but this exercise of looking at yourself can help to make you appreciate who you are.
I think this might be the hardest part about learning ginga: loving what you can do with your own body. You can take all the movement and styling classes you want and in fact I highly recommend it. But, don't lose sight of the fact that you when you're dancing, you to have love who you are, love how you move, love how it makes you feel and then love how you can connect with your dance partner when you dance.
GINGA IS RHYTHM....in soccer. It's swinging your body from one side to the other to deceive. Ginga is creativity. It's the pedalada and trivela. Ginga is the opposite of boring. It's the opposite of mechanical soccer. It is having fun with the ball. It is grace. It is being fluid and coordinated. IT IS SOUL. IT IS DANCE
damn...that Brazilian has got Ginga!
I love this definition. Sure, its context is mostly in soccer (Brazilian) but for dance, these parts resonate loudly with me:
GINGA IS RHYTHM.
Ginga is creativity
Its the opposite of boring.
Its having fun.
It is grace.
Its being fluid.
IT IS SOUL
IT IS DANCE
Read that and let it soak ... let it simmer and then read on.
This thing we call Ginga is something that ultimately has to come from inside of us. Your Ginga comes from YOU: the individual, the dance partner moving with someone to the music through dance.
Since I started dancing Kizomba, I've heard people say that to dance this dance well, "you need to have Ginga". I thought, they are just talking about body movement right? So I studied how to move my bunda, my feet, my chest... and then someone said, that's not it. So I sought more clarification. Along the way I heard many different definitions for ging and someone described it as styling. So, following my experience with learning salsa, I sought out these ladies styling classes. During my very first set of lessons about "styling", my instructor said: "styling should never interfere with the lead and follow dynamic of the dance."
Since Kizomba is danced in close proximity to your partner, I thought there was a contradiction with learning individual body movement. Why are we learning these movements that we may not be able to use? Unlike salsa where there is so much space to express, there doesn't seem to be any at all in Kizomba where we have to move as one.
Another aspect of ginga also that came to my attention: what's the "right" ginga? I heard people comment about how one person's ginga was not natural and how another's was perfect. When is the movement natural and expressive versus contrived and interfering with the lead? How do you practice it? These were all things I pondered as I worked to find my ginga. I started to ask my friends who led me to let me know how it felt when I applied different movements to my walk. I also asked them to articulate what it was like to dance with different people so I had a point of comparison.
As I focused on this aspect of my dance, I had to redo, undo, retry and try many things as I received coaching from other instructors and peers about what the appropriate body movement is. Some said my body movement was just fine, some said I had too much (those salsa hips going out of control), some said it was too sharp, some said whatever I did was fine. It was quite the conundrum for me. How was I to get validation with so much mixed feedback?
My aha moment arrived when I realized that the reason I was getting so much mixed feedback was because I was trying to hard to dance the way I thought I needed to dance instead of just trusting myself to dance. I was working with another instructor who was trying to explain a nuance in the movement. I was very confused with what he was saying so I just decided to stop thinking and just move with him and he exclaimed - "That's it! You got it."
Many of us suffer from Ginga - Envy: we see someone else's bountiful bunda and the movements resulting from their expression and grace and we want "to be like that". In that moment of wanting to be like someone else, we can easily forget that to truly have ginga, we each have to find OUR OWN way to move with grace and soul.
One part is practicing movements to extend your range of motion and get to know the muscles in your own body and how they can move independently and in concert with other body parts. I call this part the mechanics of understanding your walk and how to flow naturally with it, how to extend movements when the music allows and where it can be extended while still staying connected to another person.
The other part, is learning to love who you are: wobbly bits or skinny bits or whatever you think kind of bits - ALL OF IT. We are each blessed with our own beauty that often times we ignore and to really develop your ginga, you need to embrace all of you. This way, when you move, you move with all the confidence and grace that is uniquely yours.
As you are learning about how to move and how your body works, spend LESS time in the space of "do I look like that person?" and MORE time in the space of "do I feel and look good about how I move?".
Since Kizomba is danced in close proximity to your partner, I thought there was a contradiction with learning individual body movement. Why are we learning these movements that we may not be able to use? Unlike salsa where there is so much space to express, there doesn't seem to be any at all in Kizomba where we have to move as one.
Another aspect of ginga also that came to my attention: what's the "right" ginga? I heard people comment about how one person's ginga was not natural and how another's was perfect. When is the movement natural and expressive versus contrived and interfering with the lead? How do you practice it? These were all things I pondered as I worked to find my ginga. I started to ask my friends who led me to let me know how it felt when I applied different movements to my walk. I also asked them to articulate what it was like to dance with different people so I had a point of comparison.
As I focused on this aspect of my dance, I had to redo, undo, retry and try many things as I received coaching from other instructors and peers about what the appropriate body movement is. Some said my body movement was just fine, some said I had too much (those salsa hips going out of control), some said it was too sharp, some said whatever I did was fine. It was quite the conundrum for me. How was I to get validation with so much mixed feedback?
My aha moment arrived when I realized that the reason I was getting so much mixed feedback was because I was trying to hard to dance the way I thought I needed to dance instead of just trusting myself to dance. I was working with another instructor who was trying to explain a nuance in the movement. I was very confused with what he was saying so I just decided to stop thinking and just move with him and he exclaimed - "That's it! You got it."
Many of us suffer from Ginga - Envy: we see someone else's bountiful bunda and the movements resulting from their expression and grace and we want "to be like that". In that moment of wanting to be like someone else, we can easily forget that to truly have ginga, we each have to find OUR OWN way to move with grace and soul.
One part is practicing movements to extend your range of motion and get to know the muscles in your own body and how they can move independently and in concert with other body parts. I call this part the mechanics of understanding your walk and how to flow naturally with it, how to extend movements when the music allows and where it can be extended while still staying connected to another person.
The other part, is learning to love who you are: wobbly bits or skinny bits or whatever you think kind of bits - ALL OF IT. We are each blessed with our own beauty that often times we ignore and to really develop your ginga, you need to embrace all of you. This way, when you move, you move with all the confidence and grace that is uniquely yours.
As you are learning about how to move and how your body works, spend LESS time in the space of "do I look like that person?" and MORE time in the space of "do I feel and look good about how I move?".
I got this suggestion from my belly dancing instructor when we were working on our "freeze" pose. She said "Don't be afraid to look at yourself in the mirror and try different poses to find your best one." No one is looking so try a pose that highlights everything good about you. Its can be difficult to do (and it sounds so narcissistic) but this exercise of looking at yourself can help to make you appreciate who you are.
I think this might be the hardest part about learning ginga: loving what you can do with your own body. You can take all the movement and styling classes you want and in fact I highly recommend it. But, don't lose sight of the fact that you when you're dancing, you to have love who you are, love how you move, love how it makes you feel and then love how you can connect with your dance partner when you dance.
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