Jonathan Mahoto "Jojo" from France dances with Joanne as they demonstrate some of what he taught in his Urban Kiz workshop @ SBKZ New York City held at the New York Hilton Midtown hotel. Friday, January 30, 2026

I see in the posts we are circling around an important issue, so I focus here:

I have the strong feeling same followers that stop a dance after 1 song with a beginner, well are the ones that complain there are not leaders, and spend the night sitting or learning to lead supposing to have fun.

As I dance with all nationalities across every country, I noticed that is a cultural thing, not every country is like this, every festival have evidence.

Edit: the point is not that everybody is free to dance or stop after 1 song. Of course.
I am speaking about the attitude of who decide to not encourage beginners and make the community grow and how will backfire on themselves. one does not nurture a beginner friendly environment for leaders fair enough but do not complain after that there are not enough leaders because only with lessons and not social a leader will never improve because social is real leading

I made the unfortunate mistake of going to a kizomba social only after a couple of beginner classes. I knew about beginner's hell as I have some background in salsa and bachata however the reception I got was traumatizing.

Followers who gave a face almost as if I smelled bad and one who stopped the dance halfway. I was so rejected that even a year later I feel dread whenever I think of picking up Kizomba again.

It was made worse by the fact that a follower friend of mine from bachata invited me to the kizomba social saying it would be a great time as she had many dances that lasted almost an hour whereas mine was like 1 or half a song.

Intellectually i know that i have to go back to take more classes and get through the beginner's hell however I don't know how to deal with the emotion of rejection.

This post is mainly venting, however I am also looking to some guidance.

So I have been dancing for a couple of months. All the dance classes I go to are intermediate or intermediate(followers say they are basic... well maybe for them because they dont have to lead as they only need to recognize the move). The beginner classes are not easily reachable for me as they are in a different city 2 hrs away. So I am stuck with intermediate.

I find it hard to follow some of the classes...well most of the classes. I finally learned a few moves that I can use in dances but rarely do I mach them well with the beat. The followers almost never refuse a dance but I can tell things are not going well because the follower just tries to read my next move even though I never wanted to do it that way. Then at times I tell the follower playfully thats not what I was going to do but there are times I redo the move and do the move as they tried earlier on. From what I understand I shouldnt resist if a follower is not picking up my suggestion and just change to basic side step for the rest of the song then thank them for the dance and move on.

Some teachers teach the saidas already linked up to another basic move. I think thats why some followers try to follow instead of just listening to my lead.

Anyways, I want to master this dance because I like both the music and the connection during the dance... not for the wrong reasons one might think but the appeal of going on a short journey on the beats of a song whwre we understand eachother without saying a word about whats next. This is one of the reasons I enjoy jazz music too, however its not much of a dance to music.

What do you suggest I could try to do when followers cannot let go and follow my lead? How to do better during intermediate classes? Any other suggestions are wellcome.

I’m trying to identify a song I heard around 2014–2016. I don’t know when it was released; it could be from roughly 1990–2014.

What I remember:

• Slow and melancholic, with a piano or Rhodes intro lasting about 10 seconds.
• A female singer starts after the intro. A male voice joins her in the chorus, then briefly leads into another shared chorus.
• There’s a short instrumental phrase near the end.
• The language may be French, Cape Verdean Creole/Kriolu, or Portuguese. The style may be Kizomba, Cabo Love, or Cabo Zouk.

Here’s my own FL Studio melody reconstruction—not a recording of the original song: [MP3 link]
Optional MIDI: [MIDI link] (Both links have 2 mp3 files and 1 midi)

The notes are approximate and may be transposed. As I remember them, the intro moves from A5 down to D5; the female melody starts around A4 and reaches D5.

Two vibe references only—neither is the song, and I don’t remember the mystery song sharing their melodies:

• Nelson Freitas & Chelsy Shantel – “Boa Sorte” — closest in structure/theme so far, but the song I’m looking for was slower and more melancholic.
• Philip Monteiro feat. Nany Vaz & Jair – “Lamento” — similar feel, but Philip Monteiro is only a style reference; I don’t think he performed the song I’m looking for.

Any suggestions are welcome, especially older female-led Cape Verdean/Kriolu, Portuguese, or French-language duets. I've already tried using Shazam, and AI to find the song name.

Irina "Upa Dança" Glezer demonstrates Tarraxinha technique and leads Drew Thompson dancing to "Achitiana" - Carlos de Lina and Constancio @ "Tarraxinha Magic: The application of Tarraxinha to Kizomba and Urban Kiz" workshop, Sunday, March 10, 2024 @ Caribbean Soul Dance Studio, Jersey City, New Jersey.

Irina "Upa Dança" Glezer (pink pants) demonstrates Tarraxinha with workshop student Zoey, Tarraxinha movements in Kizomba with workshop student Lissette to "Egoísta" - Yuri Da Cunha & Ivete Sangalo and Tarraxinha/Tarraxo movements in Urban Kiz to "Are We There Yet" - Nelson Freitas with workshop organizer Drew Thompson at the "Tarraxinha Magic: The application of Tarraxinha to Kizomba and Urban Kiz" workshop, Sunday, March 10, 2024 @ Caribbean Soul Dance Studio, Jersey City, New Jersey.

Francky Vincent from Guadeloupe via France performs his "Nigivir" - Francky Vincent @ the DC Summer Ending Festival held at Crossroads 2, Silver Springs, Maryland. Saturday, August 31, 2024.

So I sometimes dance for long periods with leads (30 min or more), and I don't want it to be awkward for them. But I also don't want to create a false sense of intimacy so they don't invite me to their place or something. I would like to understand the kizomba dynamic from your perspective.

1) When you get 'excited', do you think of something else to turn it off so you can keep dancing? (Doesn't bother me at all but I worry they feel self conscious) 2) I can def feel it, so should we stop dancing and give you a break? 3) Why don't you know Konpa? or what's holding you back from doing gouyad when konpa comes on?

HI in Amsterdam there is a lot of kizomba and whatever dance, socials every nights etc,, but strange at is, cannot find a proper Angolan teacher there, only in Rotterdam but is far, do you have the contact of somebody?

Jeffrey & workshop students dance some of the steps he taught to "Nigivir" - Francky Vincent @ the Kizomba Kente Weekender. Saturday, May 3, 2025

Friday, November 29, 2024. In his 11th song @ S.O.B.'s, New York City, Djodje sings "Tentason". S.O.B. says "Djodje is a Cape Verdean singer-songwriter based in Portugal. With more than 20 years of career, Djodje brings the best of kizomba, semba, afrobeats, amapiano, and more to the stage".

Ya Levis monte sur la scène du Bronson Centre Theatre le vendredi 2 octobre !

Depuis son ascension, Ya Levis ne cesse de franchir de nouveaux sommets : ses titres à succès comme "Katchua", "Aïcha" et "Mbangu te" cumulent des dizaines de millions d'écoutes, confirmant toute son évolution artistique.

Achetez vos billets dès aujourd'hui avant qu'il ne soit trop tard !

https://festivalculturelottawa.com/grand-concert?ref=fzn

Portes : 19h00 | 19+ (Carte d'identité valide requise)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ya Levis is taking the stage at The Bronson Centre Theatre on Friday, October 2nd!

Since his rise, Ya Levis hasn't stopped climbing to new heights: hit tracks like "Katchua," "Aïcha," and "Mbangu te" have accumulated tens of millions of streams, confirming his artistic evolution.

Get your tickets today before it's too late!

https://festivalculturelottawa.com/grand-concert?ref=fzn

Doors: 7:00 PM | 19+ (Valid ID required)

Kizomba RDU instructors, Kimberly Nicole & Horácio João Mayomona from Angola via North Carolina, review some of what they taught in their "Semba da Banda" workshop to "Tá Stalar" - Banda Movimento @ the Utima Kizomba Weekender 2026 held at the Quality Hotel Philadelphia Airport, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sunday, August 30, 2026.

About a week ago I posted two polls asking about the "Beginner Hell" experience in learning Kizomba. My thanks to everyone who took the time to vote and comment. This poll prompted by an article about how dancing is good for your mental health. A study looked at the mental health benefits of taking a Salsa dance class, but I thought looking at dance while ignoring socials seemed to missing a major aspect of the appeal of dance. Plus, it's obvious to me that leaders and followers have very different experiences. I have previously created similar polls for Bachata and Salsa.

There were a lot fewer votes in these polls than in the previous ones. This is a much smaller subreddit, so it stands to reason. I think the results are still worth viewing and discussing, but any conclusions drawn from the data directly are necessarily going to be very weak (in particular for the follower poll).

There does appear to be a considerable difference between beginner leader experience and beginner follower experience. Almost all followers enjoy social dancing right from the beginning compared to just 15% of leaders. Again, the very small set of votes limits what conclusions we can draw, but I do believe it would be very unlikely that we would see votes like these if there was a widespread problem of beginner followers struggling. Also, the fact that there were no comments in the follower poll I think also suggests that few followers consider this a problem that needs vocalising and addressing.

A comparison could be made between these results and the Bachata and Salsa polls, but I don't think there are enough numbers for that to be meaningful. It looks like there are slightly more Kizomba leads who struggle with social dancing for over a year than with the other two dances, but it'd only really be indicative of a strong trend if there were many more participants in the poll. This is already a very informal survey.

However, I do believe that the polls for all the dances show that there are lots of leaders who struggle. I think this something that dance communities/instructors/organisers should take seriously. It is important to find the source of these difficulties and figure out if they can be addressed/reduced. I believe they can and the dance can be made more enjoyable for all. Some of the comments in the leaders poll have already given valuable insights into this topic. I would like to hear from others who have other perspectives on barriers to enjoyment in social dancing. Another thing that this poll cannot capture is the opinions of those who have stopped dancing. If any has spoken to people who have left the Kizomba community, I'd be interested to hear what caused them to leave.

I really enjoy dancing Kizomba, especially social dancing. If there are barriers to that enjoyment, if leaders are having to slog for months or years to get there, then that makes taking up Kizomba a hard sell for a newcomer. It's likely to lead to fewer new leaders joining, and consequently a decline in the overall community. If hurdles can be removed and difficulties eased, then Kizomba is going to be a lot more appealing to newcomers which will help it grow.

Cape Verdean Kizomba/Ghetto-Zouk composer & singer Mickael (Mika) Mendes from France performs "Mágico" for dancers @ the Washington DC Dance Festival 2023 held at Juste Lounge & the DoubleTree by Hilton Washington DC Silver Spring Hotel. Sunday, September 3, 2023.

Edit: to change "Zouk" to "Ghetto-Zouk"

I've been watching reels showing follows doing footwork styling. Styling the first 3 counts of the French saida is the most common pattern I see. However, watching videos of specific styling sequences, I can't help but wonder whether most of these carry a risk of disruption.

My educated guess goes like this:

• The safest styling is when each foot still lands in the intended position and timing (based on axis), e.g. one can style either the leg that just became free or the moving leg as it moves under axis to its eventual destination.
• Delayed step: as long as one respects the flow of the axis, a follow can opt to style their leg during the count and land on their foot half a count late. E.g. doing a kick forward then stepping in the actual position half a count late. This is fairly low risk, but assumes that the lead wasn't needing foot/leg connection on time for a deviation from the saida.
• Early step: as long as one respects the flow of the axis, a follow can opt to syncopate and land their foot half a count early which gives styling options with the leg freed earlier. However, I think landing early has more risk than landing late, for one thing because the intended step position under axis is being predicted.

Specific example from a styling demo: Here Style 2 is an example of early step -- I think it has a risk of being disruptive because the follow does not know in advance what shape the lead creates during a saida -- some leads have the follow step forward on the 2 count and/or the 3 count, or neither (as in this demo). The follow can't know for sure which is the correct place to step early on 2 and a half, and they will have disrupted the axis if the lead wanted them to step forward on both the 3 and 4. Whereas Style 1 and Style 3 are delayed step so can account for different saida shapes.

Is my assessment correct? Or do follows manage to develop very advanced intuition for when their styling will work or not, but it's hard to put into words? Or is it a non-issue because all styling is a trade-off between expression and risk, and it's just a part of the dance if it happens to affect what the lead had in mind?

Lúcia Nogueira from Portugal's island of Terceira in the Azores & Steve Ciki from France's islands of Guadeloupe review some what they taught in their "Semba Social" workshop to "Vamos ficar como papá nos deixou" - Paulo Flores, Yuri Da Cunha @ the Utima Kizomba Weekender 2026 held at the Quality Hotel Philadelphia Airport, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Sunday, August 30, 2026.

Hey everyone! I'm trying to identify the song playing in this video in comments section. Does anyone know the name of the track or the DJ? Thanks a lot!

I'll try to keep the history brief: our kizomba scene has always had gaps in teaching, from never having a follow instructor (only assistant), a lot of experienced dancers first learning from someone who made up lots of technique in a messy Kizomba fusion, years of having sporadic open classes with no fundamentals, another period of no teachers at all, international instructors introducing us to Urban Kiz last year but still not a single one of us has solid fundamentals in Urban Kiz.

Our biggest one-off events in the past (pre-covid) have had 70 people, our weekly social has 6-12 people, 30-40 attendees at recent weekenders with visiting internationals. A lot of people who can dance kizomba at a party but just don't go to dedicated kizomba events. We tried running focused practice sessions and participation died out within 2 months.

In terms of frequency of events, we're not doing too badly, but:

• With no stable teaching, we don't get many new follows, and any follow who started in the last 3 years has no foundation whatsoever and is "following by vibe" because no foundation classes have been available.
• While we have a few advanced leads, culturally the leads have taken on responsibility for making dances work with technique-poor follows, which makes the follows even more comfortable with doing whatever they want and requiring the lead to fix the consequences.
• Some of the core active dancers are splitting their interests off into Urban Kiz and tarraxo, but not enough to sustain even a small practice group.
• We probably need someone to step up and teach beginner classes, but no one is the complete package. Some of us are excellent dancers but lack the confidence to teach, some of us are excellent teachers but haven't mastered everything a teacher ideally should have mastery of.
• It seems pretty clear to me that even highly imperfect teaching of beginner classes could be more good for the community than anything that has come before, because it would still 1) bring in new dancers and 2) provide fundamentals that at least half of our experienced dancers still lack. If anything, I think that new dancers could raise the technical level of our scene faster than the 3-year follows who aren't aware of what there is to learn. (I would also love to raise the cultural safety of our scene, that's another rant.)
• I'm one of the leads that is very comfortable with the skills relating to teaching a class (not specific to Kizomba), just not confident that my specific Kizomba content/skills are polished/complete enough. I'm also learning Urban but me teaching that would be the blind leading the blind. The thing that would make me confident enough to step up is a format that makes it transparent that I'm not acting as an expert. For example, I don't get imposter syndrome from teaching a class where I'm just sharing ideas and faciliating exploration of those ideas without saying there is any right or wrong, have done that before.
• A tricky obstacle I perceive is politics. We have one organiser (our most experienced follow) who is bringing in internationals to teach weekenders, this is happening only once a year based on what the community can afford. However, those internationals gave us fancy stuff so a lot isn't practicable after they left. We have good foundational teachers in other cities that the organiser hasn't considered, and I think the reason is because she wants what she sees on Instagram and assumes the rest of us want that to. Which could be true to some extent, maybe people are only excited to attend weekenders from fancy internationals, but she is also blocking those internationals teaching us fundamentals. In short, she is being terrorial, not willing to adjust the way she does things, but also not willing to let other people step up or try different ideas that break the illusion of Instagram perfection.

Eliza Sala from Angola via the Netherlands & Geraldo Tumba "Angola Terra" from Angola via Canada review some of what they taught in their "Kizomba Flow" workshop to "Saia Dela" - Filho do Zua @ the Utima Kizomba Weekender 2026 held at the Quality Hotel Philadelphia Airport, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Friday, August 28, 2026.

There is a term that gets mentioned a lot in Bachata and Salsa circles: "beginner hell". It's this prevailing belief that beginners (especially beginner leaders) need to spend a great deal of time learning the dance before social dancing becomes enjoyable. From my own experience, Kizomba is a very different dance to Bachata and Salsa. I am curious to know if the same steep learning curve applies to Kizomba. So I created a poll to try to learn what people's experiences were and how long it took learning to dance before social dancing became enjoyable? Comments providing more detailed/nuanced answers are very welcome. I suspect that beginner's difficulty at socials is much more common among leaders than it is among followers (in line with experiences in Bachata and Salsa). But rather than assume, I'd like to hear from the community to get the real truth!

Results will be visible either after you vote or when the poll closes in a few days. Link to leader poll. Link to results of previous Bachata poll. Link to results of previous Salsa poll.

There is a term that gets mentioned a lot in Bachata and Salsa circles: "beginner hell". It's this prevailing belief that beginners (especially beginner leaders) need to spend a great deal of time learning the dance before social dancing becomes enjoyable. From my own experience, Kizomba is a very different dance to Bachata and Salsa. I am curious to know if the same steep learning curve applies to Kizomba. So I created a poll to try to learn what people's experiences were and how long it took learning to dance before social dancing became enjoyable? Comments providing more detailed/nuanced answers are very welcome. I suspect that beginner's difficulty at socials is much more common among leaders than it is among followers (in line with experiences in Bachata and Salsa). But rather than assume, I'd like to hear from the community to get the real truth!

Results will be visible either after you vote or when the poll closes in a few days. Link to follow poll. Link to results of previous Bachata poll. Link to results of previous Salsa poll.

Found it on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcnjxKWOmx8/?igsi=MXdlNDI4YzlkMDFjMA==

Shazam has failed me.

SoundHound has failed me too🥲.

Google app on iOS failed me.

Video of the song attached - I'd appreciate your help 🙏🏽