Zouk Nation - "Zouk is the dance of the 21st Century"

The following is a complete list of activities that will take place in New York City during the Dance Parade Weekend, from Friday, May 21st – Sunday, May 22nd. Hope to see you at some, if not all, of these events.

Friday

10:30 pm- 2:30 am: Meet and Greet Party at the Bubble Lounge, New York’s premiere champagne bar. The party will be downstairs in the Krug Room. We will also be celebrating Makihala Casseus’ birthday, so don’t forget to wish the birthday girl a happy birthday.
Location: 228 West Broadway, #1, New York, NY 10013
Phone: (212) 431-3433
Website: bubblelounge.com
Directions: Take the 1 or the 2 train to the Franklin Street Station

Have you ever dreamed of dancing in a music video? Well, now’s your chance. Street Smart Entertainment and Zouk Nation present the “Don’t Keep Me Waitin’” video contest!

Popular Zouk/Hip-Hop artist D. Lopes created the song, “Don’t Keep Me Waitin’”, which has since gone on to become a popular hit in the Brazilian Zouk dance community.

In honor of the song’s eighth anniversary, D. Lopes has gone and remixed the song and is currently planning to create a new music video. This will be the official video for the song which will be submitted to MTV and other music channels.

On Saturday, May 21st, Zouk Nation will be participating for the third straight year in Dance Parade in New York City. This year’s event will attract an estimated 10,000 dancers, 118 groups representing more than 75 different styles of dance.

The parade route will begin on 21st Street and proceed down Broadway to the East Village where it finally ends up in Thompkins Square Park, where for the rest of the afternoon groups perform and offer free dance classes. Later in the evening the festivities will continue with dance parties at various venues around town.

Brazilian Dance World is proud to present the first annual “Brazilian Beat: Canada Dance Congress,” April 29th, 30th & May 1st

Featuring Kadu Pires & Larissa Thayanne (Brisbane, Australia), Forro Cabrueira (Bahia,Brazil), Bamberg Dance Company (Salvador, Brazil) and Samba Quebec (Quebec City,QC).

Breathtaking performances, 13 hours of workshops (Zouk, Samba de Gafieira, Forro and Samba no Pe), two dance parties and a Samba Solo (Samba no Pe) competition! Three days of event that you will never forget! Space is limited. For more information go to www.brazilianbeatcongress.com

When you purchase your ticket, let them know you read about it on the Zouk Nation website.

On Tuesday, February 8th at Drom in the East Village, Zouk Nation hosted a special dance panel for the annual Social Media Week Conference in New York City. The panel focused on the ways the world of dance has been been impacted by changea in technology and how different dance groups are using social media to help market and promote dance.

The panelists for this event included some of the best minds in the New York dance scene including Greg Miller, founder and director of Dance Parade, Dawn Paap, founder and director of Video Dance TV, Richard Knipel, President of Wikimedia Foundation New York City,and Amber Henrie, public relations strategist.

Alen MacWeeney is a world renown photographer who’s photos hang in the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.

Since the summer of 2009, Alen has been photographing Zouk dancers and instructors in the U.S.  In the winter of 2010 a selection of his photos were shown at the Brazilian Zouk Photo Exhibition held at the Lava Gina World Music Lounge in the East Village. The exhibition was such a success that he and I have talked about creating a much larger version of the exhibition and the possibility of sending it on a world tour.

“How Social Media is Impacting the Arts, hosted by Zouk Nation”
At Drom, 85 Avenue A (btwn 5th & 6th Street), New York City
Tues, Feb 8th, 7pm – 9pm

Come in out of the cold for one of the hottest panels of the Social Media Week conference at Drom in the East Village, as Zouk Nation presents, “How Social Media is Impacting the Arts.” A look at how social media is shaping and fueling the international Brazilian Zouk dance phenomenon and other aspects of the dance world including Dance Parade, the largest dance event in North America, and DancePedia, an online encyclopedia dedicated to the subject of dance.

It’s hard to sum up an entire year, but looking back one thing is clear about 2010 is that it was a year of big numbers for Zouk and Zouk Nation in general. The following is a list of some of the more interesting figures.

During 2010, the Zouk Nation website was accessed by 143 different countries. Throughout the year the average number of visitors continued to grow to where by the end of the year the site was averaging between 1,700 to 1,800 visitors per month for a grand total of 15,300 visitors and 40,226 page views in 2010.

Recently it was brought to the attention of the office of Zouk Nation that the organizers of the Berlin 2nd International Zouk Congress have chosen to use a quote from the Zouk Nation website on the the poster for next year’s Congress. The quote that appears on the poster reads,  “If Tango and Salsa were the dances of the 20th Century, as it has often been referred, Zouk is the dance of the 21st Century.” I was curious what Nicholas Bambo, the Creative Director of Zouk Nation, and the person who is credited with originally having made  that statement had to say about it.

In order for the Brazilian Zouk scene to grow here in the U.S. it is clear that both the dance and the music need a great deal more exposure. Unlike overseas, the music is very hard to come by in the States, while most of the general public has never heard the word “zouk” before.

That being said, every year throughout the summer in New York City SummerStage hosts live musical events in Central Park. This summer will be their 25^th Anniversary and for the first time they are allowing people to send them suggestions as to which musical artist they would like to see perform.