Last weekend was amazing! Four days’ worth of parties, two days’ worth of workshops… the dancers certainly set the town on fire!
The World Bachata Dance Festival kicked off with a pre-festival pool party at Hugo’s by Modestos in Qliq Hotel, where aqua bachata was part of the specialities.
The World Bachata Festival showcased three nights’ worth of performances, and I was there for all three nights – and every night saw different performers doing different dances. We saw students as well as instructors perform, and they weren’t limited only to salsa, bachata and kizoumba – they also had hiphop banghra, African dance and many more. And every day there was a different theme to get everyone in the right party mood!
I was also so excited that many of my dance students were able watch the performances – and they absolutely loved it!
In fact, Saturday and Sunday nights were really fun, because after the finale of the night, Nestor took over the microphone and got the audience to participate. He had all the performers onstage, and the audience to stand up, and then he got everyone to do a simple little dance on the spot to a really catchy song. It got everyone energized enough to leave the hall on a high.
Well… leaving the floor for 10-15 minutes while the chairs were cleared away, and then re-entering the hall for the social dancing!
Last year I didn’t stay for the social dancing because I was tired, but this time I didn’t want to miss out. Plus, I was with my friend who was more than happy to go social dancing with me. And after dancing all night, I was wondering why I stopped social dancing, because it’s so fun! Everyone was really nice and patient (especially with little ol’ me who has not socially danced for more than 2 years). I was fortunate that I am still able to follow, hehehe.
As for the workshops – well, the dance festival had two full days of workshops, with two workshops running concurrently every hour. I think the biggest regret a lot of participants have was that they didn’t get to join every single workshop in the dance festival. Everything was simply amazing!
And one of the highlighted workshops – which is not included in the workshop fee, and have to be paid for separately – was Nestor’s Performance Bootcamp, which trained the participants for just a few hours to prepare them for a performance on Sunday night. I must say that takes guts, especially since some of them were performing for the first time. I think that it provides people with the fantastic opportunity to live one of their secret dreams of dancing onstage, with the security of being in a group and the luxury of being trained by an incredible dance master.
All in all, this has been a fantastic dance festival, and probably its best year so far! There is no stopping World Bachata Festival from rolling on year after year. Don’t miss out next year!
More detailed write-ups coming soon! I have loads of videos taken during these three nights that are pending upload….
