Sun Bailante

Shelsy Shantel & Nelson Freitas (make over of Vanessa da Mata’s) Bao Sorte

Last month we went to visit the African dance congress of Sabor Latino at San Pedro de Moel in Portugal. This was a funky event with great music, friendly people and excellent location by the beach.

We arrived in Porto on the Thursday and Jerome visited this lovely city with some beautiful monuments and many Port wine warehouses.

The city has a good feel to it and the people are welcoming. In the evening we went to visit the bar Tradicion where we met the DJ Pablo Moreno in charge of the music.

We had our first lesson of Kizomba, the West African dance which has for origin the Caribbean Zouk love.

This music sung in Portuguese was created in Cap Verde and Angola. It’s now spreading very fast and Portugal is the country you should go to if you want to experience it in Europe. If you can’t travel that far, you will easily find Marie Doyen and her team who organise the Kizomba UK night in London. Marie was the organiser of our little trip.

The next day we drove to San Pedro for the congress. We went straight to learn some more steps of Kizomba.

Here we would like to give more details to help you decide if this congress is for you or not:

If you go for a bit of an adventure, meet some down to earth people, don’t mind to learn in Portuguese how to dance even if you don’t speak the language and don’t expect everything to be spotless then the congress is ideal for you.

So for Mr Shakira and Jerome this was the place to be.

Then if you are looking for the most organised thing with only the top dancers, a bit of pretension and some talc to put on the floor before you start dancing… it might not be ideal…

Matias Damasio – Porque

Anyway, after the third lesson we started to understand the basics of Kizomba and with our top experience of Zouk we managed to dance the night away.

 The congress used to be a salsa congress also they play salsa a good part of the night.

The next day we learnt, the funkiest dance ever called Funana (an accent missing), this music with a repetitive accordion sounds can get you moving even if you are dead!

We love the rhythm similar to fast meringue, honestly this is the next thing we will be looking for our Fiesta Sun Bailante.

 Ferro Gaita – E si Propi

We also listened to some Kuduro which is the Angolan equivalent of the Brazilian Baile Funk, hard core music from the ghetto some metallic sounds.

What’s also cool with this congress is that you can learn a lot of other dances from hip-hop to belly dancing.

The workshops that should not be missed are the ones from Kwenda Lima, especially the traditional dances from Cap Verde.

Kwenda’s workshops make you forget who you are, where you come from, but will give you a clue on where you go!

You will feel in the middle of the universe, in the deeper abysses or grounded in a desert where the wind never stops.

This is a very special experience!

Mindelo Impressions

Anyway our trip there terminated on a worshop of Coladeira, another dance from Cap Verde. Coladeira is to the old Zouk when Kizomba is to the Zouk love.

The rhythms are the same but the names and languages are different…consequently, you can dance them the same way you just need your partner to follow.

We finally came back and Mr Shakira almost had too much sun tan.

Viva Portugal, Cabo Verde and Angola!