Vappu!

Vappu is a fun time of the year to be in Finland - especially in Helsinki. If you're ever around on the first of May here's what you need to do:
1) Pack your picnic brunch
2) Pray for decent weather
3) Head to the nearest park

The most popular park for Vappu brunch is Kaivopuisto, on the south tip of Helsinki (bottom pictures). It can get a little crazy there!

Prague zouk congress lives up to the hype!

The Prague zouk congress came to its 4th year in 2013. Boldly dubbed by the organisers as "the most anticipated zouk congress of the year" I certainly booked my ticket early, back in last November(!!). This year the congress took place during the Easter holidays and the Prague - as pretty much all of Europe - was experiencing unseasonably cold weathers. But even the cold & grey Prague was as beautiful as ever with festive Easter decorations and people were enjoying the cheap but tasty food & drinks!

But we weren't feeling the cold as the temperatures climb in the zouk congress atmosphere. Right in the center of Prague Old Town – next to shopping center Palladium on the top floor of department store Kotva was the location of the Prague zouk congress.

View from the top floor of the congress site

24 hours in Rio

Before returning home from Brazil last January I stopped for one day in Rio. Now you could say "what sense  does it make to stay only one day in Rio?". Well almost no sense at all, but since I had spent there 2 weeks one year ago I thought I could spare the few extra non-dancing-tourist days visiting some new place (=Paraty).

But I got surprisingly much done in 24 hours in Rio. I went back to Ipanema and Copacabana, did some shopping in Botafogo, walked around in Lapa and Santa Teresa, and had my last açaí and other local treats. After another long, lovely trip to Brazil is was ready to come back home.

The picturesque Paraty

Paraty (or Parati) is an old Portuguese colonial town on the Costa Verde (Green Coast) of Brazil. One of the beach towns between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, it's a great place to stop if you're traveling on the coastline. Just arriving to the coast over the mountains is quite stunning! I really fell in love with Paraty... The old town is a sight in itself with the rough cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings. It's easy to spend a day just walking around and exploring, shopping and sitting in cafés and enjoy the laid back atmosphere.

Street view from Paraty - one pretty white house after another

Can't stay away from São Paulo!

In January I went back to São Paulo - for zouk, obviously! I wrote a more comprehensive report last year but below are some updates on where to find zouk in São Paulo. Some new clubs have surfaced and teachers have new schedules...

Burn the floor in São Paulo

First about the zouk nights. There's a massive zouk scene in São Paulo and you will find many big parties every week. People like to dress up, go dance & socialize and new-comers are always most welcome! on a usual week night there can be easily 200 people dancing zouk in one club - on special nights 1000.... You'll feel like going to a congress party! The zouk club's prices may vary depending on special visitors (artists such a Paulo Mac and Kaysha are no strangers to São Paulo clubs) or promotions (often free nights for ladies) but the entry is generally around R$20. The parties usually start around 9-10pm and go on to 2-4am with a free zouk class at the start of the night with local teachers such as Philip Miha, Dadinho, Renato Veronezi, Ricardo Ferrari etc.

One of those zouk-filled nights in Capital Bar

Videos from Berg's Congress 2013 - you have to see it to believe it

I compiled some lists for videos of the 5th Berg's Congress - you can find the links to the videos below! The lists are in no way complete as there were about 80 workshops and about the same number of show and competition performances. But I've tried to make sure I've looked up the most interesting and popular ones!

Below is the playlist of videos of the workshops and demos. The first one on the list, Ricardo's & Graziella's demo with guest star Braz was perhaps my favourite as it shows the wonderful, fun spirit that lives in the lambazouk community. There's also lots of collaboration among the various zouk styles that you find in São Paulo, which you can also see in this Renato & Babi's demo!

Berg's Congress - every zoukers dream holiday

I'm so behind on my blog that it's not even funny. Or is 2-3 months' lag funny? Well, I've decided not to care and just go with it, write when I have the time. So here goes!

Porto Seguro. A little piece of paradise located in the tropics, in the sunny state of Bahia approximately in the middle of the Brazilian coast line. It was the place first seen by the European settlers over 500 years ago when one Portuguese guy called Pedro Álvares Cabral touched shore at what is now Porto Seguro city in 1500. In addition to its history, the place is mostly known for its beaches, coconuts, açaí and massive axé parties. But for zoukers Porto Seguro is especially known as the birth place of lambada - and for Berg's Congress, most likely the biggest zouk & lambada congress in the world at the moment. Last year when I was dancing around the world I kept hearing so much about it I decided I wasn't going to miss the next one!! I made my flight bookings already way before I had even come back home, actually last March when I was on my way to hike to Machu Picchu :D

Porto Seguro - Praia Taperapuan around New Year

The soundtrack of a lambazouker - early 2013 edition

Before I get into my report on the Berg's Congress 2013 I'd like to share my Porto Seguro playlist. I've been collecting the most memorable and most played songs of the past January's Berg's Congress and also music from São Paulo zouk dance floors during that time. Here's the link to the playlist on Youtube!

Zouk designs: Z**k me!!

It's been a long & cold winter in Finland and I've been taking a break from blogging. The weeks have been busy training, working - and cozying up under a warm blanket at home. There have been some beautiful days with lots of snow and it's been great to go skiing and skating. But surely there's always time for zouk (a great way to stay warm as well!) and I managed to fit a 4-week trip to Brazil for the legendary Berg's Congress among others to escape from the cold & darkness. More about that in the next posts!

6 months down the road... Thoughts about completing my big trip and FAQ

Today it's been six months from the day I returned from my first round-the-world trip! It feels like a small eternity but still all the memories of the places, the people and the experiences are so vivid...199 days traveling around the world,  about a 100 cities or towns, in 12 countries on five continents - all of them (besides London) that I had never visited before. All by myself. That may seem a lot to someone and not much to some other more hardened world explorers... But it meant the world to me.

People have asked many questions about the trip, no surprise there. So I decided to put together a "little" FAQ list:

Helsinki Zouk Festival - 2012

Mid November + Helsinki... Not the best combination. But a great way to get your mind off of the cold rain and darkness is to dance your toes sore! The zouk festivals in Helsinki have been quite small but this November we had the biggest one - the 4th Helsinki Zouk Festival Nov 16-18 gathered lots of international dancers to our windy city!

There were two days of workshops with visiting teachers from Brazil, Leonardo Neves & Layssa Liebscher, and from Spain, Daniel & Leticia Estevez Lopez, as well as our resident teachers Freddy Marinho & Andressa Castelhano (BRA) and Soile Vedenpää (FIN). The workshops were pretty packed but the mood was great and I think the teachers succeeded well in accommodating the various levels of students attending the classes. Restaurant La Bamba and Etnofitness dance studio in Sörnäinen served as the workshop spaces - and the festival full pass included a hearty lunch and snacks!

The intermediate workshops were packed

Roda time!

In the past weeks there have been many things to celebrate and in the zouk community we love to party -especially we love birthdays! One reason for that is because we get a special birthday dance, roda (Portuguese for 'circle'). In this case it's not quite like the salsa rueda (also Spanish for 'circle') you may first think, where there is an even amount of guys and girls in a circle dancing a set of various moves which one person shouts out. On birthdays we do a roda where people gather in a circle around the person who is celebrating. So if it's a girl that's celebrating then the guys or the leaders circle around the girl; and vice versa. The objective is for the birthday girl or guy to have the most fun while the others in the circle try to "steal" that girl/guy one after another for one song.

This is a known tradition in other latin dance communities as well but it seems to be particularly strong in zouk! I've taken part in many zouk rodas around the world and in Brazil, especially in the big parties like they have for example in São Paulo it gets quite crazy when there are six or even more rodas going on at once - there people make sure they show up to the parties on their birthdays! Everybody dreams about having their birthday during a congress just for the roda, to get surrounded by all the amazing dancers from around the world!

I wanted to take this chance to post some videos of the rodas we've had in the past month here in Helsinki!

Here is one for my birthday. We took over the main floor of the weekly salsa party, "Salsa at the Cellar", at the Helsinki Salsa Academy. So in a sense it was also a little zouk demo too :) The salsa people in the audience (especially the girls, as you can imagine) were quite amazed and delighted to say the least - and I was quite the happy girl too!