Bolero & Samba Workshop: Applied Brazilian Dance Fundamentals!

This workshop applies fundamentals of Brazilian dance to bolero and samba partner dances that influenced Brazilian Zouk. Fundamentals techniques can help improve the connection, musicality, balance, creativity and many other aspects of any other partnering dance. Each class is one hour and 15 minutes, with a 10 minute break in between. Technical dance expertise provided by professional Brazilian instructors: Gui Prada and Gustavo Martins, and the very special guest from Brazil, Kelly Reis! ***** 6 Classes, plus social with a little bit of each Brazilian dance to bring you straight to the enviroment of the best brazilian parties without leaving the US. Weekend Schedule: Saturday: 1 pm Class one: Bolero I: Building the basis and learning possibilities (Kelly ) 1pm Warming up, feeling your axis and learning the first steps, some variations and how to connect with your partner. The understanding of the start point and your partner axis, weight transfer, and connecting the breath will lead to a clear body conversation. The same fundamental is applied to Samba, Zouk, Kizomba, and Tango. This class will show how to connect with the floor (grounding), engage with your partner ( frame), lead properly the weight transfer, and engage the breathing. Class two: Bolero II: Lead and follow principles behind Bolero’s “S” (Gui) 2:15pm Brazilian Bolero is the foundation of all Brazilian partner dances. It presents a set of principles in lead and follow techniques that are easily applicable to other partner dances, especially Brazilian Zouk. One of the fundamentals of Bolero is the “S”, a pattern that can be lead from many different places and in many different ways. To understand this fundamental well and apply it in your dance, it is necessary to talk about engagement, frame, tension, torsion, tension, grounding and flow. In this workshop we will talk about the basic “S” movement and how you can apply it to your dance style. We will study how to lead and follow it in close and open embrace, and, in this case, with both hands or just one. We will get a grasp on how versatile and amazing it can be and you will finally understand that thing that the Zouk Pros do sometimes that you don’t see much classes or regular socials. Class three: Samba I: Rhythm, pulsation and grounding with cruzado and balanco(Kelly). 3:45pm Feeling the pulsation, understanding the beat, and the accent. How the grounding allow you to communicate better. Samba, Brazilian zouk, and kizomba have their roots in Africa. Because of their similar origin, drums and musical structure, applying these concepts to “cruzados and balancos”, will help to improve not just in Samba, but Zouk and Kizomba as well. Exploring the accumulation of energy and its dissipation will allow your dance to flow, and advance to another level of understanding. Class four: Samba II: Learning more about weight transfer with Puladinho. (Gui) 5 Pm Samba de Gafieira is the Brazilian partner dance that allows you to develop footwork and speed. Most importantly, it teaches you to consciously and wisely use your weight transfer in combination with upper body torsions to create circles, impulses and momentums that are hard to see in other dance styles. This dance has not as many fundamentals as Brazilian Zouk for example, but from those few ones, everything else comes to life and Puladinho is one of them. This pattern teaches you how to use partial or full weight transfer in combination with the relaxation of the knees to create a back and forward sway that is felt throughout your entire body. Some people are starting to do it in Brazilian Zouk, so that is an amazing opportunity to see the principles behind this fun fundamental. We will have one hour and fifteen minutes to go over all the details and try some variations of this pattern 8:30 Pm Saturday night, Social of Brazilian Dances: Saturday night enjoy a traditional Gafieira. A Social with the best from Rio. Gustavo will be deejaying bringing the best of the best from the Brazilian style of enjoying a dance night. A great selection of Bolero, Zouk, Samba and Forro, to give you a flavor of the best nights from Brazil, and the best chance to practice all the techniques taught during the workshop. SUNDAY: 2:30 Pm (Location 733 Euclid St., NW (WDC)) Class five: Bolero III: Musicality, Creativity and Frame with Chapeu -hat- (Gustavo) Understanding musical phrases. The beauty of the dance is that the artist becomes the art by itself. But this is just possible when there is a connection with the music. Understanding the musical phrasing is the basic step into becoming art. We will use information from both previous classes (Basics and “S”). Chapeu (hat), is the chosen step to apply these fundamentals. Variations of it will be taught, also. Controlling and changing the beat based on the music. Class Six: Samba III: Creativity and foot works with balanco variations (Kelly) 3:50 Balanco is a basic step from samba, one of the first steps that changes the beat. After 5 classes of Brazilian dances, we will learn how to enjoy the freedom and styling using balanco as foundation for all these changes. All Brazilian dancers are cross trained. They learn different styles of dance, and most of them -regardless if they will develop a career teaching just one style- start learning Brazilian Partner dances such as Bolero, Samba, and Soltinho. These foundation is present in every pro performance and getting a chance to dive into this wonderful world, improve your comprehension of this magnificent universe. It’s the first time that Nerds do Samba is co-organizing an event in the US, and the very first time that Gui, Gustavo and Kelly will teach together a workshop based on their beliefs and fundamentals. It will be a weekend full of joy and evolution. I’m counting down to see Y’all there! Not enough? Want to dive deeper? Schedule a private with one of the instructors. They have some limited free spots to schedule during the weekend. Join us and fall in love with the Brazilian culture! ***** 6 classes for $84 5 classes for $75... 3 classes for $54... one class for $20 Pre-payment contact @DemeterisMonaeHale Payment at the door PayPal and Cash only. ***No credit card machines at the door - sorry for the inconvenience***