Intellectual Dancer Newsletter #014
Current State Of Mind
A bit of a hopefully constructive rant:
In a FB group of kizomba, a dancer posted a video of some cool urbankiz dancing but in the description put (it's not kizomba) but was expressing interest in learning to dance like the dancers in the video. I put some thought into the comment I shared and I will share it here as well as that's what's on my mind this morning:
I just feel that the language of it's not this or that is not inclusive and doesn't help grow the dance and it feeds into the division we are suffering from.
In my opinion it's better to say urban kiz is a different style of kizomba. Saying urban kiz is a completely different dance as is Lindy Hop is a different dance from Bachata is not the same, dances umbrellas exist!!
The Swing Umbrella includes dances like Lindy Hop, Balboa, Shag, West Coast Swing, etc.
The Latin Umbrella includes salsa, bachata, merengue, cha cha etc.
The Kizomba Umbrella includes semba, authentic kizomba, tarraxinha, tarraxo, kompa, urbankiz, kiz fusion, etc.
It can be confusing bc the name of the umbrella is the same name as the name of the dance and music as just kizomba, but it's not hard to clarify. The word kizomba can refer to the kizomba umbrella, kizomba as a music style, or kizomba as a dance style.
Brazilian Zouk does a wonderful job of this by acknowledging and respecting multiple styles of BZ and then the student can choose which ones they want or learn ALL of them. It all boils down to growth versus division. Let's please stop the it's NOT this or that posts.
Regardless of the dancing you know what's more important POSITIVE, ENCOURAGING, AND WELCOMING ENERGY!! People aren't going to want to spend time around negative energy regardless of how right people think they are.
There is no certification or degree to become an instructor, so no single instructor is going to have all the answers. I've been dancing 9 years and I'm still learning new things. Most instructors are just doing their part in their spare time from other adult responsibilities to dedicate to help spread the dance locally.
Every student is on their own journey and will be exposed to different teachers who have different pieces of knowledge about the dance.
Instructors (we are all students) and students continue to learn and work on your dancing and take classes from lots of different teachers and don't forget to continue to fill your dance cup with what brings you joy.
Song I'm Currently Jamming To
I heard this song played a lot of Future Zouk, it has a cool groove!
Recent Content
New videos on Elevation Technique are posting to Learntokiz this week!
Cool Video I'm Watching
Did you see the new robot that Tesla launched?!?
Upcoming Travel
2021
9/12 - San Francisco, CA - Neokiz Workshops
9/18 - Portland, OR - Neokiz Weekender
10/2-3 - Chicago, IL - Neokiz Weekender
10/22 - Phoenix, AZ - Neokiz Weekender
12/3-5 - Denver, CO - Attending Elevation Zouk Festval
2022
1/13-17 - Arlington, VA - Attending Interfusion Festival
Event details can be found here. If you'd like to setup a Neokiz Weekender in your city, let me know!
Question Of The Week
What fills your dance cup with joy and have you done enough of that lately? Why or why not?
Past Newsletters
You can view past newsletters here.
Thanks for reading!
Thoughts and feedback on the newsletter or on anything covered within are always welcome, just hit reply. The thing I love most about writing this newsletter is follow-up interactions with readers.
