Babs you are a well known player in the Montreal kizomba scene and a new kid on the block in Toronto, gaining popularity. What is your background, and how did your kizomba adventure start?
I was born in Senegal, West Africa, and I came to Canada 22 years ago, at the age of 11. I grew up in Montreal where I played American football till university. I played for 18 years, I coached for 5 years, and I was lucky to win 10 championships. Playing football shaped who I am now, I learned a lot about character, teamwork, goal orientation and leadership. During high school, I was part of a hip-hop and dancehall team, and we performed choreographies at school events until football practice took up so much of my time that I couldn’t continue. After high school I completed my Bachelor Degree in International Business and Entrepreneurship.
In 2010 I went to Senegal to visit my family. My cousin is a dance teacher of passada and cabo-love dance and I went out dancing with them every day. I have a lot of family from Cape Verde and they dance passada, cabo-love and kizomba. At the beginning I wasn’t really interested in dancing but after a while my cousin started teaching me, so I trained intensively for three months. During this time I became familiar with many dance styles, including kizomba and semba and I developed a passion for dancing.
When did you start teaching and how did Kizolove start?
When I returned to Montreal, Kizomba Canada was the only kizomba dance school in the city. I attended their socials, and since my style of dancing was different, a lot of dancers asked me if I taught dancing. After giving it some thought, I drafted a business plan, and I decided to open a dance school. This is how Kizolove started. The name reflects my passion for dancing. At the beginning I taught at a studio called Air de Tango, and I hosted socials there as well. I wasn’t money oriented, I just wanted to share my love of dancing. For the first six months I taught for free, and the Sunday social was free as well. This became the SunKizzNight, which has been running for 6 years now. After six months I added more classes and I started a promotion, to grow the school in Montreal. After one year our student base grew so much that I needed help. At the time I was doing everything by myself, from teaching to hosting socials and administration. That is when I asked Offia to join the Kizolove team. At first he said he wasn’t interested, but after frequenting my socials, he decided to join us. We started a partnership and we’ve been working together for 6 years. The following year we added DJ Sink to the team, and later the last two members Samy and Laura.
Original article written by and syndicated from: Kizomba Voices of Toronto
We now host two weekly socials in Montreal, Tuesdays, and Sundays, and an annual festival: Kizo Fest Montreal. I also manage DJ Sink who is now an internationally known DJ. He collaborates often with DJ ZAY’X, DJ SNAKES, DJ LEVIS and others.
Who were your teachers and what curriculum do you use?
In the first year I started Kizolove, I hosted Master Petchu and Vanessa, and I trained with them privately, learning the terminologies and the structure of dancing. I also trained with 25 other instructors, when I invited them to do workshops for my school, among them with Puto Chinez and Effy, Morenasso and Anais, Enah Lebon and Isabel to name just a few. I learned the different styles from them, so we are able to distinguish and teach different dances, such as kizomba, semba, urban kiz, afrohouse and tarraxinha.
We follow our own curriculum, separate ones for beginner, intermediate and some advanced levels and I developed my own syllabus based on what I have learned. I am now a full time instructor, and I travel a lot worldwide. I manage my team in Montreal from Toronto, and the rest of my time is taken up by my dance shoe line “Mia Designs” and Kizo Fest Montreal.
What is your focus in teaching and what is your teaching philosophy?
I like to keep my classes structured, it helps me plan ahead and also to grow as a teacher. Before each class I prepare the steps, try them out, time them, and I make sure that the students actually learn them during the class. I pick the music carefully because I think it’s very important to work with the right music, to control the vibe in the class. A lot of my students say they’ve learned more in an hour with me than in three months at other places. My teaching philosophy is to spread the love of dance. I think dancing is meant to bring people together and I want people to feel the love through my classes.
People are raving about how good the Montreal scene is, and how proficient the dancers are. How do you see the Toronto kizomba scene compared to Montreal?
I see quite a few differences between the two dance scenes. One of them is in the attitude of the leaders. I have noticed that a lot of the intermediate leaders in Toronto tend to stop taking classes. Although I can understand that some classes may seem repetitive, I feel strongly that the reason Montreal leaders are at a higher level is due to their consistency in improving their dance.
For example, Montreal has four schools that have each 5-8 taxi dancers. They are not teachers but they are excellent dancers, they become part of the studio team, and they keep taking classes. Followers take lady styling classes regularly so they learn to express themselves, not just to follow, and this keeps advanced leaders motivated to dance with them. When you put those taxi dancers and advanced followers together, there is fire. There is a very high level of enjoyment of the dance at socials as a result, sometimes people just sit and watch and scream because the dance floor is on fire. It is quite exciting and challenging.
Finally, and this is a difference that I am excited to change, there is the relationship between schools and instructors. I feel a little hostility between schools here in Toronto which I find unfortunate. In Montreal we communicate regularly with other schools when it comes to planning events, socials, classes, etc. It is mostly out of respect for each other and in an effort not to undermine any school. We try to collaborate and invite other instructors and schools to our events, and having so many amazing dancers under one roof makes the events amazing!
Having said that the dance scene in Montreal is not perfect, we can always work on it to improve, because everyone benefits if the focus is on growing the community rather than growing individuals or individual schools. Kizomba Diversity in Toronto is a great example of how we are trying to bridge this difference. Ultimately people just want to dance and that is made difficult when politics are involved.
What do you think the Toronto Kizomba dance scene needs most? What needs to change, improve?
One of the things I would love to see is more diversity of the DJs. We love our Toronto DJs of course, and DJ NS is a pioneer, but I think healthy competition when it comes to music will boost the community to the next level. As an instructor I am always looking to improve myself because there are always new things to learn, the scene is constantly evolving and also, there is always another instructor close by. I think having more DJs in the dance scene will push them to do the same. People are motivated by music, it is on the top of the list to attract more dancers. I would like to bring DJ SINK more often to Toronto to encourage this movement.
Original article written by and syndicated from: Kizomba Voices of Toronto
Do you specialize in any specific dance?
I’m an all-around player, and in our schools we make a point of making sure that our students are familiar with all the styles we teach: kizomba, semba, urban, tarraxinha, tarraxo and afro-house. Even though I am seen as a predominantly urban dancer, my favorite style is semba.
What are your plans and goals in Toronto?
Right now I teach privately or I collaborate with other Toronto teachers but I am working on launching my own weekly class and a weekly social soon. I am hoping to start in February, but I’ve been very busy traveling and teaching. I would like to recreate what we did in Montreal: developing a team of strong leaders, followers, and taxi dancers to represent Toronto.
How do you see the ongoing kizomba vs urban kiz issue? What do you think the problem is, and what is the solution?
I don’t think there is an issue. I personally love all styles. Kizomba is a mix of semba and zouk, and urban is a different dance that evolved from kizomba with additional technical elements. If you want to dance urban you need to have a strong kizomba foundation. For some reason urban dancers are more engaged with the dance, they do more promotion, they are more serious about their technique. Of course there is a difference between urban and kizomba but in my opinion you should be able to dance both. A social should play all the styles, in order for people to learn to dance and understand all of them. I find that often times events are advertised as kizomba but really the event is urban kiz.
I have seen this happen in Europe as well. I understand that organizers want to make everyone happy at their events, but as an organizer myself I believe it is critical to advertise events correctly to avoid disappointment. If an event is predominantly urban, it should be advertised as such, and have two rooms, one for kizomba and one for urban. Urban dancing is becoming more accepted, as an example Eddy Vents’ event, the Xeee Kizomba Festival Las Vegas, now has an urban room to accommodate the demand.
What do you think a dancer needs to do before becoming an instructor?
Before starting to teach you should be an excellent dancer and be able to dance kizomba, semba and urban kiz at a high level. If you want to specialize in one of those, you should still be an excellent dancer in all those styles, to be able to explain the difference to students.As an excellent dancer, you need to dance with everybody, not only with the best dancers, but with beginners as well. That is how you know a good instructor, who is able to execute basic steps with someone who has never danced kizomba before.You need to continuously learn and train locally and internationally, and challenge yourself .
You need to invest in your dancing. You can’t stick to one instructor and one city. You need to be competition-ready. You need to constantly evolve, stagnation is your worst enemy, when you repeat the same moves over and over again. You need to get out of your comfort zone!In your opinion who are the best kizomba dancers and teachers internationally.My favourite kizomba dancers are Rico and Adda, semba dancers Mario Jordao and Laury, in terms of urban I like Curtis and Carola. In terms of teachers I would say Ricardo and Paula for kizomba and semba, Paolo and Lana for semba/afro-house, Ronnie Saleh for urban/fusion. You travel a lot to teach and to promote your line of dance shoes.
What are some of your favourite international dance scenes and why?
Spain is one of my favourite dance scenes. Barcelona and Madrid are quite heavy on urban, but they have a dedicated kizomba and semba room. Sweden is amazing as well. The dancing is at another level, it seems like everyone is in competition mode and people are really dedicated to learning. Europe is at a different level compared to North America. Europe is like an immersion into dancing, and every time I return I feel that I have so much more to share.
Any shoutouts to the dance community, to fellow teachers, dance studios, DJs or organizers?
Of course! I’d like to send a shoutout to all the organizers: keep working hard to promote the dance; to everyone who is interested in learning: keep taking classes, don’t give up!Special shoutout to my Kizolove team in Montreal doing a fantastic job hosting two socials a week with DJ Sink!And finally a shoutout to everyone who reads this: I’m waiting for you at Kizo Fest in June 2019, to get a first hand experience of all I said here.
Babacar Seye, founder and teacher at Kizo-Love Kizomba school in Montreal, has brought to Montreal several international kizomba, semba and urban artists, including Jeffrey Kizomba, Enah & Isabelle, Vanessa & Petchu, Anais Millon, Puto Chinez & Effy, Azzedine, Iron Mams, Chris & Marlie, Audi MPK, and Djs: Dj Zay’X, Dj Paparazzi, Dj Express, Dj Paraiso, Dj Campos, Dj Vasco, Dj Proteck, Dj Levis, Dj Willy G, Dj Colt’s and Dj Mojo.Well-known in the North American and International Kizomba scene, Babacar has taught in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Regina, Quebec City, Boston, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Buffalo, New York, Miami , Spain, Sweden and China.Together with his Kizolove team, their mission is to share their passion for dance and promote the richness of African culture in North America.
EDITORIAL NOTES:
Who is this newsletter for?
This newsletter is intended for kizomba and semba dancers who would like to learn about the dance.
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Original Article Written by and Syndicated from KIZOMBA VOICES OF TORONTO·THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 2019
This newsletter is created and managed by a small and anonymous team of dancers who donate their time for the improvement of the dance community. The team does not express any opinions and does not take sides. I would like to say thanks.
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