Dear all, we have some plans for this
summer!! It is showtime!
It’s a plan of Laili and me after doing a
few choreography courses, to really engage the students in promoting
their passion and their hobby and with it our dance studio. We want
THEM to show what partnerdance is! We focus mainly on zouk and
bachata. Most people know the carnaval samba and salsa, but the other
dances are so nice but they are less known because people just don’t
know about it or have never seen it. One of the things you hear
regularly when we talk about zouk is ‘ah you dance zumba’ or
‘kizumba’. But of course it’s something else and it can be difficult
to describe what is different or what is so nice about it. And it’s
so easy when you show people what it is and they immediately get a
feeling with it. They don’t have to think about technical
differences; it’s about whether they like it and what feeling it
provokes with them. Some people love it instantly, some people think
it’s not for them. And that’s all fine. We don’t want to make all
people dance zouk; we want to reach all these pf people that would
love to dance, but just don’t know about it.
THE PLAN
I want to drive
around in our DA van and jump out of the wagon, dance, jump back in
and do at least 100 locations this summer, show them zouk and
bachata, and hang out with crazy fun students and teachers :))))
We
have a lot of possibilities to offer in our show-on-the-go. Depending
on the venue, on the location, the request and on the possibilities
at that time. Our teachers and our students are trained in freestyle
social dance. If that is more applicable to that specific event, we
can do freestyle dancing. But really what we would like to show is a
set piece, a choreography, because then we can really tell a story.
When everybody wears the same costumes and knows what to do it is a
beautiful way to get the message across.
A SHOW OR A
CHOREOGRAPHY??
Actually, everthing you perform before an
audience is a show. A choreography is in that sense one of the tools
you have as a showmaker or as a choreographer to bring across your
idea and to make it reproducable. With that, you can consistantly
show the same thing. With freestyle dancing, every dance can be quite
different. In the demo-training we also train people to use freestyle
dance but at the same time to consistantly focus on showing the same
thing. If you look at a theater, you have the background to make a
decor, you have the sound real, you have the light plan to help you
make a show. That is not within the scope of what we are doing now.
We want our show to be close to partnerdance and appeal to people in
a way that they might think: “oh this could be me”.
WE
LOVE TO DRIVE
So what we are setting up is a show team, but
with a special goal: to engage the audience and give them the
feeling: “ah this is nice, I would like to do this”! Sometimes
when we perform with our team of teachers at a festival, then of
course we want to show the best dance we have, to come up with new
moves and new ideas. It’s like a car convention: show your newest
stuff and high tech. What we want to do with this team is about
showing the dance, show the feeling and showing the variety of the
people that dance the dance. So this is not about the cars and gears,
but this is really showing people: “we love to drive”.
JOIN
THE TEAM
If you want to join, you have to have a little zouk
or bachata experience and be willing to perform.
The main group
will be the people who have done the choreo-training in zouk/bachata
and the demo training. These will also be the tools we will use
mainly to do the freestyle dance or the choreography. The great thing
is, is that possibilities are open and there are several things we
can do: we can work with couples and with groups. If we have a team
with a bit of variety, we can make a lot of different performances
which will appeal to different people and will show the width of the
dance school as well.
So if you want to join, you should register
no later then the 25rd of may. That way you can still join
in in the training of the latest choreography that is called ‘lost
without you’. I hope this appeals to the listeners at home because it
refers to them. We need you. We need to incorporate all those people
to get other people to start to dance. It’s like a snowball effect. A
snowball effect in the heart of summer.
SUMMER SHOW-ON-THE-GO
SCHEDULE
In summer there will be a lot of outdoor festivities
and festivals in the whole of Holland. There will be stages in every
village and in every burrow of the city. There will be a lot venues.
A few where we have performed previously is the city stage in
Delfshaven or the open theater near the big church. So these are a
few examples of the stages we have done in Rotterdam, but our scope
is not only Rotterdam.We would like to include the whole province of
South Holland and possibly beyond.
In february we were at the
Brazilian Dance Festival in Amsterdam which was great!! We will of
course perform at DA Dance Festival in june in Rotterdam at
Oostervant. So if these choreographies go well, we would like to do
more festivals. Because festivals fit our vision: they also want to
show the roots of the dance. They don’t only showcase the highest
acrobatic performances, but also show the participants who join the
festival, who are actually the stars of the festival.
An other
example where we regularly perform is the Delft Stadsbal. It will be
the 21st of September so probably that is another venue we
will showcase. It is taking place at Theater de Veste, a beautiful
location. If you want to perform in the theater, you definitely
should join the team!