Zouktime! Czech, check!

I took part in a great congress in Brno, the 2nd Zouktime congress - an international zouk and lambada event. Excellent teachers, good venues, great parties, fantastic shows... :) There were six of us FinZoukers and about 15 other nationalites, altogether over 250 people. The organisers had clearly made an effort to make the event interesting and each feel welcome.

It was great to see the development in myself since the last (and my first) congress three months ago in Sweden! And was surprised I'm starting to get more into the lambazouk style with its faster tempo and snappier movements. But I still have a firm hold on the slower and more creative Rio zouk as well.

I really enjoyed taking all the workshops even despite beign completely sleep deprived after the "no end time" parties :D I'm always amazed how open, happy and down to earth all the zouk dancers and teachers are. My hat really goes off to the teachers: was excited to see how well they performed, especially those that got coupled with partners that have a different dance style, in a surprise Jack & Jill one minute dance-off. I also got to be one of the judges! Adilio Porto & Natasha Terekhina won and Renato Veronezi & Solage Dias came in second place.

Looking forward to the next congress (yes, I have something already planned)! Some video and pictures from the Brno congress weekend below.

My favourite show of the Brno weekend by Leonardo and Layssa:

Sunny September (Sun)days

This particularly sunny September Sunday we discovered Seurasaari, an open-air museum of traditional Finnish cottages, farmsteads and manors from the past centuries. Other than seeing interesting and cute old cottages it's a nice island to go for a walk/run, enjoy the nature and spot birds & squirrels if that's your thing. There's also a cafe and place to make a barbeque. And a big stage for some dancing (have to remember that ;)).

Flea market weekend (but where were the fleas?)

My 'cleaning the closets' project was a great success - got five big bags of clothes, houseware, books, CDs and random knick-knacks to get rid of. That meaning, to sell and recycle! I booked a table in one of the biggest local flea markets and the day went better than I had expected. Was at the market from 7 am (!!?!) to almost 3 pm and managed to sell half of my things, all for a reasonable price. One big bag of unsold clothes I donated to the clothes collection box.

It was great to see people  finding something interesting from the things that I no longer needed. I even sold one cardigan I had knitted about 10 years ago and had never liked or used. The best part was that the girl who bought it got more excited when she realised I had made it myself - the cardigan had a story - and was even delighted to pay more for it than for the brand name knits. So, one cardigan has a happy home now :D

Luckily I had no time to go around the market to make any "great" finds for myself. I might need to visit the flea market again later this year :) Can recommend this to everybody, both for selling and making finds!

Last of the summer salsa

It's the final days for outdoor dance parties & socials in Helsinki. Salsa Borealis - the Helsinki salsa lovers' organisation - finished their summer season yesteday. As the sun was setting in the park behind the Opera House the salsa dancers filled the dance floor one last time this year. I ventured with a couple salsas too and I'm getting a bit more comfortable with it! Thoroughly enjoyed the zouks and bachatas they played too - my favourites.

The sun is starting to set earlier and earlier every day and it's a bit depressing to sit at home in the evening when the rain is beating down the window (like tonight). Last night we had a stroke of luck and got just two drops of rain and the skies cleared. Thanks to the power the organisers got from the Opera House we had some nice lighting too.

Goodbye summer... thankfully the dancing never stops!

Summer favourites

Summer is almost over in Finland and it was another enjoyable weekend - maybe the last summer weekend. Sad... Bur it has been another good summer! Summer city life and leaving the city are - for me - equally fun. Here's some of my this summer's favourite things.

Cold drinks * Ice cream * Sunsets * Clouds * Picnics * BBQs * Nature * Enjoying the sun * Boats * Picking berries * Cycling * Dancing *  Participating in all kinds of summer events * Having fun for no apparent reason.... :)

Goals for the winter

After losing some motivation with weight training, probably due to going all dance-crazy this spring, I'm now getting back to the gym. And since a month or so of taking a proper break it's now fun! It's strangely satisfying to have sore muscles. It's also easier to get motivated with real-life goals: I genuinely want to have stronger arms and core so that we can do even crazier lifts on the dance floor!

Week of a dancing girl in Helsinki

Monday: Great way to start the week is by trying out the new gym's latin dance class. The one I tried included some chachacha and salsa choreography - and was suprisingly interesting and fun! Have to do that again!

Tuesday: Normal zouk social and technique & acrobatics practica -day. Ok, acrobatics is not normal in zouk, just normal to our "let's see how high we can get the ladies" zouk people!

Lahti Samba Carnaval - more Finnish samba!

The Lahti samba school Maracaña - the oldest samba school in Finland - celebrated its 30th birthday at the end of July with a carnival in the hometown Lahti. This was the third samba carnival in the small Southern Finland city and a rare treat for the locals. All the Finnish samba schools were present at the parade and we had around 200 performers, both dancing and playing in the bateria! And the samba continued well into the night...

I love sunsets

Be it home or travelling, sunsets really draw me (and my camera) in... The past couple weeks we've had some really nice ones! During the summer holiday there's plenty of time to sit by the lake or the sea and watch the sun go down and enjoy the view.

More islands.. Suomenlinna!

Summer in Helsinki = picnics everywhere! It's also the best time to visit the many islands along the Helsinki shore. Suomenlinna sea fortress is our regular spot! Great place for enjoying the sun with a nice sea breeze, boat spotting, exploring old fortresses, hugging big cannons, having a snack, having a drink... :) Also met one local resident, an orange kitty!

There's lots more to see - cafés, submarine, summer theater... Also places that the regular people are not welcome such as the prison!

Island Salsa

Last weekend Salsa Borealis (Helsinki Salsa Association) organised a 24h salsa party in the Pihlajasaari island, a popular sunbathing and camping spot five minutes' boat ride south of the mainland Helsinki. The party started at noon on Saturday and ended some time Sunday afternoon and attracted I'd say at least a hundred salseros and salseras there! The weather was really hot with practically no wind, luckily the sea was still pretty cold so the steaming dancers could cool themselves down!

Salsa in Pihlajasaari - super rueda and lots of colourful dancers!

Zouk to salsa - crossing styles

Yesterday was a pre-opening night for one dance bar/restaurant in Helsinki and we got to open the Cuban styled bar's dance floor with zouking to salsa music! A crime to a salsero maybe but normal to us dance floor - dance partner stealing zoukers ;)

We recently had a discussion about crossing and combining music and dance styles - this started about Papetchulo's Ta Bater, a kizomba song which I fell in love with in one zouk party. For me it's perfect for zouk but excellent obviously for kizomba as well and it's great that a song can be used in many dance styles. I've also come across with some bachata type zouk and salsa songs, and I'm sure there's plenty of other more or less fluent combinations around.

Sometimes we cross styles more deliberately... I've noticed that if you're really dying to zouk, you can zouk to almost anything that has some kind of beat. Often we zouk to reggaeton and sure I could zouk to salsa or even to heavy metal if I really wanted to (and have done that!). I've heard that this is seen in other dance circles as well, mixing the dance and music styles - and I would welcome even more of this! But beware - this is not for everyone, just for us dance-mad people ;)

Dance parties and bars are great venues for this! In Helsinki downtown the list is not very long if you're into salsa, bachata, kizomba, zouk or reggaeton type of jamming but there's something at least a couple nights of the week. In general the places to go to are Cafe Caisa, Coronita, Cuba, Havanna and Pacifico. In addition to them many dance organisations have social dancing at various venues, it helps if you follow groups such as Salsa Borealis, Alppila Latin Dance Social and of course Brazilian Zouk in Finland.