Feet, Flow & the Floor Workshop w Gui & Julissa

We’re excited to present a new workshop with Gui & Julissa in their home base DC! Throughout the pandemic, they danced together quite often, which led to discoveries that they are really looking forward to share with the community. Gui & Julissa enjoy being creative and having fun with footwork- a lot! They like to consciously and intentionally use their legs and lower body to create layers of musicality, enjoyment, stability, and to explore use of the space. One fundamental can diverge to several different patterns by just changing one element of the legs. Come and join as they are eager to share with you how to get there! Many people tend to associate Brazilian Zouk with fancy and intricate head movements. While head movement is indeed an integral part of Brazilian Zouk, it is common to see it dangerously rushed into at socials. Safe and comfortable upper body movements are built on top of a steady structure of weight transfers and footwork. We hope that we can inspire you to dance with more intentional focus on your lower body. It’s fun, we promise! In this workshop, we want to provide you with a few tools that might help you discover pleasure, beauty, versatility, and most importantly, awareness of your weight transfers, footwork, and floor craft. We want to offer you opportunities that we’ve found helpful in making us become more well versed dancers - with the goal to master movement from the ground up. We’ll study for a total of 4 hours, participating in workshops that will invite you to explore, and share your discoveries with one another. Here is what we will talk about: Workshop 1 (1.5 hours) - The art of shifting weight and stacking yourself - This is where we will we begin our studies. We will explore conscious weight transfers and the idea of stacking our bones at each step. This will ensure that we are fully aware of where our weight and center of balance is at all times. Workshop 2 (1 hour) - Creating shapes - Here we will explore what we can create with our legs with the knowledge acquired in the previous hour. Gui & Julissa will separate leaders and follows and share some ideas and references to get the creative juices flowing. Workshop 3 (1.5 hour) - Practice and the art of floorcraft - We will combine everything we’ve studied and incorporate it in a sequence of fundamental patterns. The idea is for you to explore different routes of movement that you can choose from, and to adapt your body to situations that feel the best for you, and to help prepare you for various scenarios you might encounter on dance floor. WHEN Sunday, August 1 1:00-5:30pm For information on the other activities during the weekend, see the Back to Zouk Weekender event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1409716079408365 WHERE Glen Echo Park Spanish Ballroom Back Room 7300 Macarthur Blvd Glen Echo, MD 20812 REGISTRATION - $65 Lot 1 (limited tickets available) - $75 Lot 2 - Workshop combo tickets available for $110 for Saturday and Sunday (limited quantity, so get yours before they sell out!) - Get your tickets at: https://www.danceplace.com/index/no/9693/Back+to+Zouk+Weekender--Washington_+DC-United+States-Brazilian+Zouk+Dance+event HOW WILL IT WORK - No partner required. We will rotate partners during the class. - If you prefer not to rotate during the class, you can join with a partner and stay with them throughout. PREREQUISITES This workshop is designed for those who have at least 6 months of Brazilian Zouk experience and that have an awareness of the fundamentals all the way to Bonus, as per the list below: - Basics (in place, and Linear) - Lateral - Viradinha - Lunge and Simple Turn - Cuddle - Yo-yo - Traveling Turns - Bonus SAFETY PROTOCOLS - Proof of vaccination required (must be two weeks from last shot). If you haven’t already verified your vaccination status at one of our events, we’ll ask you to show your vaccine card or a photo at your first class. - Hand sanitizer will be provided. - Short symptom survey via Danceplace: https://www.danceplace.com/covid/screening UPDATE ON MASKS As of Friday, 7/30, masks are required for everyone for all of our events this weekend. We appreciate your cooperation with this for everyone's safety. ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR Gui Prada started dancing in 2004 inspired by the movie "Shall We Dance?". He began to dive deep into dance in 2006 as a work-study trainee of the Jaime Arôxa Dance School in Rio de Janeiro. Jaime Arôxa, one of the creators of Brazilian Zouk, was the head instructor and was a mentor for the most accomplished dancers in Brazil. During his 6 years as a member of the school's team, he learned all Brazilian partner dances (Forró, Samba de Gafieira, Soltinho, Bolero and Zouk) as well as Argentine Tango. After he left the school, he continued dancing and learning from other remarkable instructors, including Fabiano Vivas, Kelly Reis, Érico Rodrigo, Guilherme Pimentel and many others. Since then he has focused his training and research on taking the best of each of these dances and applying it to the close embrace, with the purpose of conveying a sense of well-being and relaxation to dance partners. In 2016 he attended the first Zouk Retreat in Valencia, led by Xandy Liberato, Brenda Carvalho and Anderson Mendes. After that, his research on partner dancing took a new direction, as he continued working with Brenda and Anderson to seek for the application of the concepts explored at the retreat in different ways by using the references of the other Brazilian partner dances and Argentinian Tango. As a result, the importance of the basic steps and concepts became evident, since it is through them that all dances reach another level. Gui is looking forward to sharing his technique and training with students here in Washington DC to help them improve their basics, comfort and confidence on the dance floor.