Current State Of Mind

Alright here we are halfway through the first month of 2024! Things are starting to ramp up in different domains. Of course at the beginning of the year we have lots of desires and wishes for better days ahead with our goals and desires, at times it can just be a desiring to struggle less than the year before.

Interfusion 2024 Reflections

What is Interfusion?

If you haven’t heard of Interfusion Festival, it’s a pretty dope event that encompasses a lot of different topics. In essence, Interfusion Festival is a unique blend of dance, personal development, and holistic wellness, attracting diverse participants.

There are dance and movement classes ranging from bachata, west coast swing, kiz, Brazilian zouk, afro, and more! Brazilian zoukers are definitely the largest dance group.

On the holistic side, classes range from conscious communication, wellness, acro yoga, intimacy, sexuality, and more!

Media Team

If you notice a slight difference in appearance, it's because I migrated to a new email service, which should allow for easier scaling as I begin building various email lists for the different activities I’m undertaking online.Media Team

I’m coming off attending the Interfusion Festival for the 3rd year in a row. The first year I attended as an attendee, the 2nd year I taught & DJed, and this year I was part of the media team capturing video.

If you’ve been a part of the newsletter for a bit I think I’ve shared this goal of the four domains that I’m focusing on are dance, code, media, and intellectual thoughts via Ogarocious Dance, Ogarocious Codes, Ogarocious Media, and Ogarocious Thinks.

On the media side of things, I shared an edited photo each week in this newsletter. I’m also trying to push myself to improve on the video side of things with editing and animations. So we shall see how the recap reel comes out as I have a lot of footage to go through and I’ll be sure to share it with you all!

Classes I Took

Micro Zouk with Kuna

• I took a really dope class by Kuna covering Micro Zouk, there’s a lot that I can share on this class that I will probably share in a separate post or blog.

Write Your Own Story

• A cool class where the big takeaway was being charge of writing our own stories and that everyone’s story is worth sharing. There were definitely lots of tears in this class. She had us do this cool exercise where we wrote 100 lines with 3 words each just letting whatever flowed to flow onto the little notebooks provided. The end of the class ended with us dancing to Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield LOL!

The Wheel Of Consent

• I love to continue taking classes on consent to gain further understanding of the intricacies in the fundamentals of consent. There’s so much to learn about making, declining, and negotiating requests based on our own desires and capacities at that given time. We also played the 3 minute game while focusing on our desires of what we want to receive, limits of what were willing to receive, and also limits of what we are willing to give and receive.

Solo Musicality with Marcus & Tren

• Marcus & Tren are a super dope WCS couple and I loved the musicality class I took from them! It’s always very fascinating to see how experienced dance instructors break down movements, answer questions, offer encouragement, and troubleshoot on the fly.

Cuddle Party

• This was my very first cuddle party I’ve attended, and there were at least 500 people there. It was led by Monique Darling and after establishing consent dynamics and tuning into our hell yeses and allowing our maybe’s to be no. Such on awesome thing to reframe receiving a no as a gift from someone honoring themselves.

Cacao Ceremony

• This was also my very first cacao ceremony and here there were at least 700+ people. I loved that the ceremony had a very religiously spiritual vibe. It was apparent in their ceremony that they honored the elders in the rooms and the babies and infants of the room, so honoring all the stages of life. There was a moment of silence for those that are no longer with us, honoring ourselves, honoring indigenous lands, the earth, the world within ourselves, and our ability to manifest. Such awesome intentional moments.

Overall Highlights

• Receiving lots of compliments on how good my hugs are
• Receiving a few compliments on my smell/cologne
• Sharing so many awesome hugs with some of my favorite humans
• Fire Brazilian zouk dances with Hermela, Helen, Kimberly, Josette, & Tori
• Feeling the overall peaceful and happy vibe of event

Song I'm Currently Jamming To

This was the song we choreographed to in the solo musicality class with Markus & Tren!

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Recent Content

• [REEL] Explaining X, Y, & Z intentions in Warwick!
• [IMAGE] Connected calendars across WCWD.
• [IMAGE] The easiest hook step to lead.
• [PODCAST] 111: Interview with William Araujo
• [CAROUSEL] Carousel of the 14 communication channels of a dance class.
• [DANCE VIDEO] Me dancing urbankizouk at Elevation Zouk Festival.
• [FB REEL] A reel showcasing the timezone being updated automatically on WCWD.
• [FB REEL] Me mic’ed up in a snippet during a private lesson.
• [FB POST] Thoughts on a true instructor.
• [FB REEL] Breaking down 90° variations from retrocesso.
• [FB REEL] Converting Basic 2s intro saidas.
• A quirky post from 2018 when I went on a ramble about the fetus vortex.
• A teaching moment from my time in Warwick going over T-Bone entries from saidas.
• A breakdown of the snippet of time I took to build out the recurring events feature with WCWD.
• A reel breaking down a reverse J-Hook Exit from my time in Warwick.
• A reel about missteps in your dance journey.
• A reel of a practice session with Rika in Boston earlier this year tinkering with CCW touch steps rotations.
• A carousel on actively seeking out feedback in your dancing.
• An image of the communication channels in a dance class and the 42 channels being used with the timeframes of before, during, and after a dance class.
• An image showcasing the 6 lanes of kiz.
• The 16-count phrase mapping worksheet is now available for download!

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Photo of the Week

My bro Tom DJing at Interfusion!

Dance Meme of the Week

Another goodie!

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Cool Video I'm Watching

A cool video where this guy goes through the steps of creating his own flying umbrella.

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Upcoming Travel

2024

01/11-15: Attending Interfusion Festival (Available for Privates) - Arlington, VA

02/1/4: Neokiz Weekender in Kansas City - Kansas City, Kansas

02/23-24: Neokiz Weekender in Guadalajara - Guadalajara, Mexico

03/1-3: Neokiz Weekender in Roanoke - Roanoke, Virginia

03/9-10: Neokiz Weekend Immersion: Workshops + Party - Denver, CO

03/31 - 04/3: Victoria International Kizomba Festival (Hosting the J&Js)- Victoria, British Colombia

03/15-17: Neokiz Intensive - Atlanta, GA

05/3-6: Neokiz Weekender in Edmonton - Edmonton, AB, Canada

05/17-20: Kizowna 2024 - Kelowna, BC, Canada

07/20-24: 8th Annual Neo Kizomba Festival - Austin, TX

10/24-27: Zouk Conexao Festival - Atlanta, GA

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Question Of the Week

How can we overcome conditioning that our worth comes from what we give?

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Answer of the Week

Tying into the question of what I asked last week, one thing I want to let go of in 2024 is saying yes to too many opportunities that take time away and don’t ultimately bring me closer to my major goals this year.

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Past Newsletters

You can view past newsletters here.

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‍Dope Dance Resources

• A cool project to create a global directory of dance events for dancers, artists, and organizers!
• Find out how you can thrive at your next dance event with the Ultimate Dance Event Survival Kit.
• Find out how you can organize your dance journey with the Dancer’s Training Journal 1.0.
• Level up your kiz online with Mr. Neokiz!
• Learn more about the Ultimate Musicality Course For Dancers to level up your musicality!
• Get the 16-count phrase mapping worksheet download for free!
• Join me at my urbankiz festival in Austin, July 18-22, 2024!
• The WhereCanWeDance.com Podcast - Check out my dance podcast!

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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.

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Feel free to forward this to other friends in your circle!

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Charles

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