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

Enjoying a sixteen year career Larissa began dancing jazz at the tender age of eight, expanding into classical ballet within two years. After competing in numerous high profile festivals of contemporary and classical dance – including the CBDD Rio de Janeiro Dance Festival, Curitiba Dance Festival, Joinville Dance Festival and Belo Horizonte Dance Festival – she was recognised as a professional classical dancer by Escola de Danças Classicas do Teatro Guaira (the School of Classic and Contemporary Dance of the Guaira Theatre) in Curitiba, Parana at only seventeen years of age.

Exposed to samba by his parents and family, Latin dance has been part of Kadu’s life from infancy. With formal dance training in samba rock and pagode (extremely popular Brazilian styles) beginning at the age of fifteen, Kadu’s appetite for professional tuition saw him quickly expand into zouk-lambada, samba no pé, hip hop and even ballet. In no time Kadu was dancing with the three largest and most popular dance centres in São Paulo; Bar Avenida, Lambar and Carioca Club.

Claudio and Monica are the pioneers of Zouk Lambada in Sydney. In 2005, long before the term Zouk became known in the dance community, they introduced this style while teaching at LDA. Since then, they have trained not just students but also dance professionals from different backgrounds and levels of expertise.

In the early 1990’s Claudio Gomes & Monica Leite started their training at different styles of Brazilian dance, such as Samba de Gafieira, Forro, Bolero and Soltinho at Jaime Arouxa’s well known studio in Rio de Janeiro. A couple of years later they fell in love with Zouk Lambada and it became their major passion ever since.

Freddy and Andressa are from Rio de Janeiro-Brazil and started dancing at a very young. Due to their having worked a long time with Renata Pecanha, they have became highly respected Zouk Instructors.

The have taught and performed at many international congresses and workshops
and have won several festivals in Rio de Janeiro.

Today, they have their own school in Moscow-Russia, where they teach Brazilian Zouk and Samba de Gafieira.

Wakko Oliviér, born in Rio de Janeiro, started dancing in 1993 when he was first introduced to  urban dances, such as, Hip Hop, Funk Carioca etc.

Since 1998 he has been studying dance professionally and has managed to add the following dances to his resumé: Jazz, African(Afro),Contemporary, Hip Hop, Samba de Gafieira, Bolero, Zouk, Salsa, Bachata, Frevo, Maculêlê, Argentine Tango, Forró.

Wakko began his professional career as a dancer in 1999, when he was only 17 years old and had to perform in front of the  Carnaval Parade Commission. He has since gone on to perform with such Brazilian stars as Kelly Key, Latino, SNZ, Elza Soares, Xuxa, to name a few.

Hailing from Malaysia, Johan was exposed to dance at an early age. Since taking up salsa in 2002 he developed a passion for all things latin. Since then he has taught, performed and choreographed routines that have been debuted on the national and international stage. With a passion for Bachata, he became South Australian Bachata Champion with his partner Kari Bowling in 2009.

Kari began dancing Latin Ballroom at a young age. However, it wasn’t until she was introduced to salsa in 2004 that her passion for dance was reignited. She then spent 5 months living and travelling in Latin America and immersed in the roots of salsa with classes in son and rumba, later living in the Dominican Republic and falling in love with bachata with endless nights of dancing beach-side with the locals.

Since returning to Adelaide at the end of 2008, Kari began free-lance teaching at several dance studios as well as having private students. She further developed her love of dance by going on to complete internal training to become an instructor with Latin Dance Nation in 2008/9.

Sam Olah, co founder of Latin Dance Nation, helped introduce zouk to South Australia in early 2009 with the help of Gaspar Ribeiro and her partner Sarantos Zaloumis. She began dancing at the age of 7 and has immersed herself in the passion ever since. As co founder and senior dance instructor at Latin Dance Nation her approach and philosophy in teaching zouk is that of a holistic nature, encompassing the mind, body and spirit, in an attempt to master a dance that must, by its very nature, encompass all three.

Driven by Latin Dance Nation’s vast background in Latin dance styles, Co founder Sarantos Zaloumis helped introduce zouk to South Australia in early 2009 with his partner Sam Olah. Since then the style has gained vast popularity amongst the South Australian dance circuit.

Learning the fundamentals of Brazilian Zouk from some of its pioneers he continues to study Zouk closely with artists such as Kadu Pires and Larissa Thayane from Rio Rhythmics dancing academy in Brisbane Australia – two of the most renowned Zouk dancers in the world, as well as Gaspar Ribeiro and Edelemar Pieternelle.

Glenio de Oliveira has been teaching Brazilian ballroom dancing for 15 years. He started dancing at the age of 12 with ballet classes in Brazil and in a short time he was giving performances. Over the years he has studied with many famous Brazilian professional dancers including Jaime Aroxa, Carlos de Jesus, Carlinhos de Jesus, Juliano Andrade, Vinicios Da Costa.

Glenio now resides in Boston, where for the last 6 years he has been taught at a number of different studios including the Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge, MAPS (Massachusetts Association of Portuguese Speakers), MIT University, and Brookline Community Adult Education Center. He specializes mainly in the Brazilian ballroom dancing such as samba de gafieira, forro, but he also been teaching samba no pe (carnival samba), bolero, salsa, zouk, merengue, bachata, cha-cha, swing, and even tango.