Out of the trio Kizomba is the odd one. It’s not latin and somehow it sneaked its way into Salsa & Bachata parties. It’s an African dance from Angola and you dance while hugging your partner. Just like Bachata it had multiple transformations and people are arguing if the new forms can still be considered Kizomba. As a supporter of innovation I was quite interested in the new stuff. Urbankiz and Tarraxo really caught my eye and I spent some time on focusing on these.

Despite them being so cool, the community is somewhat toxic. People are really hostile towards beginners and it’s really hard to find any fun in it. But once you survive all of that, it’s really captivating. The dance is really fun. It depends on the community though. Fun fact: Melvin (That Bachata Influence guy) is an Urbankiz dancer and many concepts from that dance can be found in Influence. Very interesting.

The biggest influence (Ha! Influence! From Bachata Influence! Funny? Not funny? Fine.) in my opinion lies in the approach to how one should lead and follow. Leading has to be super precise and each step is led. On the following side you have to catch every detail in leading impulse and only move as far as that impulse allows you to. Not easy.

Currently, I’m trying to teach people Urbankiz and maybe we have a nice community soon.