London Zouk Fest - a happy meeting of zouk styles!

Back-to-back festival weekends take a toll on any dancer. But I'm not any dancer, I told myself - I can take it! :D So just a couple days after Tallinn Salsa Festival I repacked my bags for London Zouk Fest. I had been looking forward to this lambada-zouk & Vero zouk weekend for quite a while - both my favourite zouk styles under the same roof!

Park Inn hotel close to the Heathrow airport was our home for the past five days. The event itself took place on Fri-Sun, with the artist line-up including such zouk stars as Solange Dias & Joe Koniak (the organisers), Renato & Babi, Alisson & Audrey, Xandy & Evelyn, Daniel & Leticia, Braz & Josy, Carlos & Fernanda, Jakub & Lucia, Ludek & Pavla, Yuval and many more. So not only was there lambada-zouk and Vero zouk, but also Rio style zouk, Mzouk and new fusion styles. A number of London-based teachers were also giving workshops and performing at the event, including Arthur & Aieste, Pedrinho & Linda, Davi & Sara and Gary & Marisa, to name a few.

Dancing away in London - last stop on my big trip!

It was the middle of June and I was reaching the end of my big trip! Actually I was also getting back to square one, to London, where this adventure started over six months earlier. I was dying to be done with the trip, I was missing my friends and family, my own bed.. my clothes :D So this was the next best thing, just one final step away from returning home! Even on the Tokyo airport (from where I flew back to London) they had a flight leaving to my home town, almost the same time as my flight to London, it was killing me!! But it wasn't all that bad - I was going to see & stay with friends in London too and dance dance dance zouk like no tomorrow!

I had to get up early in Tokyo to get to my flight and I wasn't too thrilled. Somehow I managed to fit all my stuff in my two bags and got the airport early - ready to "enjoy" another 12 hour flight. I thought I'd get some sleep but I guess I was too excited to relax enough so I just kicked back and watched a bunch of movies instead. I closed my eyes towards the end of the flight and suddenly I was in London! London, baby!

It was a Friday afternoon and I waddled with my stuff to my friend's place, changed gear and was off - determined to stay awake through the evening and kill any jetlag that was heading my way. So I went to see a zouk class at the famous Pineapple Studios. I had just flown across nine time zones and been up & traveling for about 20 hours so I didn't really feel like taking part in the class. But went to watch just out of curiosity.

Zouking the UK and some London sightseeing

My big trip started with a 2-day stop in London since that’s where my RTW flight ticket begins and ends. I arrived to London rather early on a Monday morning. I had a generous two hours of sleep before the early morning flight (last minute packing took surprisingly long - ok, really not surprising). Jumped on a train from Heathrow and headed to my local zouk friend Anthony's place. He was very welcoming and my big trip was off to a smooth start! Did some sightseeing and tried to do some shopping but after a while it was impossible with the sleep deprivation.

Sleep or no sleep I was ready for some zouk that night! Anthony took me to the Lambazouk night - the "main" event of the weekly zouk nights in the city. And the actual purpose of why I took some days to stop in London! :D I took the two hours of classes (the ones with Joe Koniak and Solange Dias - there are other classes too) followed by three hours of lambazouking my ass off. Anthony and the lovely zouk & lambada guys did a good job of keeping me burning the dance floor: and I had a fantastic time!!

Fuzzy zoukers