Monday, July 30, 2012

Kizomba.....it's frickin' hard!

I had a blast at Dancing4Fun's Latin Dance Classic. I took several classes that I think will help me as a dancer overall. I also got interviews with all of the instructors about technique, etiquette, lead/follow, etc.

The one thing I couldn't seem to nail down, which was a brand new dance for me, was kizomba. It's not that I'm a slow learner, but that kizomba is a frickin' hard dance!

If you're curious about what kizomba is, I honestly wouldn't tell you to look it up on Youtube, at least not without explaining a few things. First and foremost, kizomba is not a presentational dance. By that, I mean it's absolutely NOT meant to be performed or judged or critiqued in the way that other dancer are (though I'm sure it doesn't stop people from doing so). You can't really do very elaborate styling and tricks that you could in other dances. Secondly, if you're a dancer and you watch it, you will probably think, "Oh, that's easy...what's the big deal? These people aren't even really doing anything. Why do people even want to learn this? I bet I can learn it in five minutes."

Good luck with that because I've gotten to a point where I pick up dances pretty quickly and after a *THREE HOUR* workshop, I'm still clueless and so is everyone else that was in the very same workshop.

The point of kizomba seems to be more about being close with someone and feeling the music. Because you're so close with someone, it's actually hard to do the dance because it's tough not to step on each other.

So, we shall see what kizomba looks like in the US. I really hope it doesn't get hijacked by overzealous performers that want to make a show out of everything....but we'll see.

Keep checking out my blog because I'm going to have some really cool pieces very soon that feature various dance instructors' advice and opinions and you won't want to miss that.  


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