Urban: a new flavour of Zouk

Zouk is such a beautiful, soulful dance. It is complex yet simple; multidimensional yet stilling. One of the things I love about Zouk is that it is so dynamic; it can be danced to almost any type of music and fused with so many different styles. Last weekend I had the pleasure of hosting Aline and Charles who introduced me, Canberra and lets face it – Zouk – to Urban dance.

Aline, Xarjie, Me and Charles after an epic weekend of workshops and parties at Kmotion Studio

Coming from a professional Salsa background, Aline has been dancing and choreographing professionally for over 12 years. Initially partnering with Dadinho, Aline has taught Zouk at numerous International congresses since 2013. Charles, on the other hand, comes from an urban hip hop, house, lockin’ and poppin’ background… I literally had to ask him what ‘Popping’ was – it is the quick contraction and relaxation of muscle groups often seen in street dancing (just in case you were as ignorant as me!).

It must have been a watershed moment for Zouk when these two started dancing together and fusing the two different styles. The result is nothing short of amazing. It is a completely different flavour of Zouk that further increases the diversity of this dance. The popularity of the Urban style of Zouk skyrocketed when their routine to ‘It won’t stop’ went viral on YouTube. Seriously. Check it out.

Mega Party Weekend with urban overtones

Brought to Australia by Cloud 9 Zouk in Brisbane (THANK YOU! – You are awesome!), Aline and Charles visited Canberra for the Mega Party Weekend put on by Kmotion studio. And what a Mega Party Weekend it was! We had people visiting from Brisbane and Sydney who traveled all the way to see Aline and Charles. And it was worth the trip with what ended up being a mini congress – complete with a Jack’n’Jill competition.

I really enjoyed the Urban Kizomba workshops with Chris and Amanda from Sydney – so much so I will start to properly learn this style. But of course, my focus was on Aline and Charles’ Zouk classes.

Wonderful workshops

Aline and Charles took the time to focus on what we needed assistance with as a Canberra Zouk community; and focussed their workshops on that. To me, this speaks volumes to their professionalism and passion.

Aline and Charles custom built their program to help us improve, not a cookie-cutter approach that would be easier to teach.

Focussed on bonneca and isolations, we were guided through some urban dance moves that we could easily integrate with our own dances. A lesson on musicality challenged us to break apart a song and hear the different beats and accents to exploit. Then we were shown how to integrate these new skills, cementing them in our dance lexicon.

This iterative approach to teaching concepts is not new; you really understand the technique, making it to stick in your brain. What is unique about Aline and Charles’ teaching is the specificity they use in their language and examples. Each concept is broken into component parts and explained so precisely. Most importantly, *and this is the super ace bit*  they go over it all at the end of the workshop and allow students to film the detail for future reference.

Reiterating the technique and skill with their precise explanations results in the longevity of their style. Already I have had a number of social dances with different leads executing their moves. This is a refreshing change: I have learned cool new moves at other workshops never to be used again because the learning loop wasn’t sealed.

Passionate Professionals

I believe that the world would be a better place if everyone danced. Especially if people get taught by Aline and Charles; two professionals who exude passion for dance and for life. Professionals have different motivations (pure or not) for different reasons. But Aline and Charles’ motivations come from a place of passion for dance as well as people. They share their skills because they genuinely love helping others along their dance journey, not for fame or money.  They dance with beginners to grow the community, as well as experienced dancers to enhance their skill.

Humble and giving of their time, experience and knowledge, Aline and Charles are just really great humans.

If you ever get a chance to do one of their workshops – do it. You will never regret it. Your repertoire of Zouk moves  will grow and you might just get addicted to this new flavour of Urban Zouk!