Siargao Zouk Retreat 2023 | That kind of dance immersion I would keep coming back to!

The main reason why I went to Siargao last April was to support one friend who wanted to attend an event - the SIARGAO ZOUK RETREAT 2023. Initially, I backed out when one of the organizers invited me because of the future expenses I will incur. However, that friend assured me that she would pay for me in the meantime just as long as I will go with her. And so I did.

If you haven't heard about Zouk yet:

Brazilian Zouk is a Latin dance that began in Brazil during the early 1990s. It originated from a Brazilian dance called Lambada with influences from other Brazilian dances. Source

The event was held last April 21-24,2023. Yep, some 3 months ago. Well, I like to write my blogs sometime later because of laziness. 😅 But I still work on making sure to share them on Hive as my life diary. Anyways, the location was on the second floor of Lokanto where they also serve delicious Mediterranean food on their restaurant.

I already know the basics of Zouk after a couple of times attending workshops so I was anticipating learning some advanced moves and techniques during this event. Amazingly, the artists Janina Janice and Brandon Gonzalez didn't fail to do so. For 2 days, 2 hours daily, they shared an essential, basic, fundamental but refined way of moving and awareness of the body's sensitivity to that of the dance partner.

Janina also taught us ladies safe head movements and transitions, which I have been wanting to learn for a very long time because this is also essential in our Bachata dances. She was very hands-on with us ladies, if she sees any one of us struggling, she would approach us and guide us properly to execute the movement.

Apart from Zouk, Artists Sindi Obando and Chris Pasco also held Bachata Classes where they taught us breathwork and connected it with our movements on the first day. It was all about energy flow and maintaining it in our dance and movement on the second day. Such concepts were very much helpful not just for one specific dance like Bachata but also for other dances like Zouk!

Unfortunately, we would always start late around 6.30 pm instead of 5:00 pm. So my energy would quickly be drained by the time we have our Bachata classes. And when it was time for our social dancing, it was already around 11:00 pm and most of the participants were already exhausted. Still, we managed to gather our energy after our dinner so we could apply what we learned on the dance floor.

If I could suggest on what things to improve, it would be to start early so participants can still rest up, have dinner, and prepare for the social dancing. Another thing was to have the social dancing as an "open house" event to attract or entice dancers or non-dancers to join. It would have been more fun that way.

Regardless, It was an incredible experience at the Siargao Zouk Retreat 2023! Attending workshops with amazing artists like Janina Janice, Brandon Gonzalez, Sindi Obando, and Chris Pasco have been a fantastic opportunity to learn and refine my dance skills in both Brazilian Zouk and Bachata. It exposed me to different perspectives and approaches to Afro-Latin dancing that I would never get to learn if I didn't go for this.

Will share some videos soon or in the later future. 😁