Pat Géa and Gabs Sena, both from Brazil, are pioneers in developing a co-creative dance, where both partners play an active role while maintaining Zouk structure: A truly partnered dance, without role reversals or interruptions, but with great fluidity and creativity.
Pat is a professional dancer, choreographer and teacher who has taught in over 30 cities all over Europe and Brazil, while Gabs has a background in Urban Dance, Samba de Gafiera, Bolero, Forrò, cementing his reputation as one of the emerging leaders in creativity and style in Zouk.
Beyond fundamentals and technique, they encourage students to think about and truly understand dance rather than just reproduce patterns.
Claudio Dias, known as China, developed SoulZouk in Rio de Janeiro in the late 90s and has been influencing Brazilian Zouk with his approach ever since. He now lives and teaches in Honk Kong.
China's trademarks: Soft leading; using biomechanics & body leading to make well-known moves more intuitive and comfortable; micro movements; and a greater emphasis on connection, presence and co-creation than in most other Zouk styles.
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Simone Becker is a dance teacher from Bonn, Germany. After two decades as a competitive Contemporary dancer trained in Modern, Ballet, R’n’B, Salsa and Tango Argentino, she's been teaching Zouk internationally for almost a decade.
For her, the key to enjoying dance lies in getting intimately familiar with our own bodies: From body alignment to a more deliberate use of muscles, her classes emphasize quality of movement, body awareness, and finding ease in the most challenging of moves.
As a teacher, her goal is to help her students unite solid technical skills with authentic expression, connection, and finding their own flow.
Michel Mens is a dance teacher, certified SoulZouk instructor, and DJ from Amsterdam.
Known for his smooth, follower-centric style of dancing that makes him an exceptionally popular social dancer, Michel specializes in fluid, precise, and comfortable leading methods which use biomechanics, improved connection, and body leading as a main source of communication between leader and follower.
Rebekah Maher is a movement teacher and somatic practitioner based in London and Lanzarote.
She sees dance and movement as a full-body experience that integrates the physical, the emotional, the mental, and the spiritual. In her classes, Rebekah draws from her background in movement meditation, qigong, Pilates & eutony to create a holistic approach to movement.
Martin Konrad, based in Bonn, has been a SoulZouk teacher since 2019.
Integrating his experiences from other partner dances and Contact Improvisation, Martin puts a special focus on the idea of dance as a deeper conversation: His classes center around the joy of movement within each individual, the touch and connection that supports interaction as well as the quality of deeper listening for both partners.
He encourages students to invite a creative, connected and mutually created dance through soft, precise leading and conscious following.
Meet Klaudia Potoniec, a Brazilian Zouk dancer and instructor from Poland. She teaches Zouk regularly to her local community in Cracow and gives workshops internationally.
When teaching, Klaudia focuses on technical aspects of the movement and body posture, combined with self-expression, feeling and flow. Her goal as a teacher: helping students to find pleasure in every moment and focusing on presence, connection and trust in your partner.
After training with China in Brazil for multiple years, Kris Leczek brought SoulZouk from Rio to Europe. As the first European SoulZouk teacher, he’s been teaching it for well over a decade.
Known for always bringing his full presence into the dance, Kris is an expert on soft and comfortable leading methods such as skin leading that are based around the follower's movements as well as the abilities and limitations of the follower’s body.
François de Vieilleville is a French dancer and dance teacher from Toulouse.
A Latin dancer since 2013, François has been focusing on Brazilian Zouk exclusively since 2020.
Trained extensively in Rio Style and gifted with an analytical, down-to-earth teaching style, he loves to combine a connection-based approach with strong, solid foundations and clean technique.
Holger Weber is a German Zouk teacher and DJ also known as DJ Phonon. Trained and certified in a wide range of Zouk styles, Holger draws from an unusually broad knowledge of contemporary Zouk, including Neozouk, MZouk, and SoulZouk.
As a life-long martial arts practitioner with a black belt in Kung Fu who also trains in Capoeira and Baguazhang, Holger is an expert in human physiology and body mechanics. He uses this knowledge to make even complex movements accessible to his students and help them carry out well-known moves in more effective and enjoyable ways.
He also runs Zoukernatural in Bonn alongside Simone and Martin.
Maria Pantc is Hungarian-Russian professional dancer and graduate from Moscow state academy of Classical choreography and folk dance. She worked as a principal dancer in a theatre, in Switzerland, and in UAE as a performer and choreographer, and has additional certifications for street jazz and contemporary.
Maria, who has been dancing Brazilian Zouk since 2009, has been teaching Zouk since 2011 and encountered SoulZouk in 2016.
Currently, she runs the dance school “SoulBeats” together with her partner Oleg.