Nice job but PLEASE CHANGE THE TITLE OF YOUR VIDEO. Your video is not using any original Zouk music, neither original Zouk dance style. So, please, if you want to remain accurate to your subscribers, make sure you use the accurate title and replace '' Zouk'' by '' Brazilian zouk'' as it is very different. First off, zouk music is absolutely not from Brazil. It was born in the 1970s in the French-speaking Caribbean island named Guadeloupe. It became a musical craze that swept around the world in the 1980s, thanks in large part to innovative bands like KASSAV' that played concerts internationally. Artists in several other countries were soon imitating and borrowing from the sounds of zouk. Zouk is also a Caribbean dance style that is, quite logically, danced to zouk music. It is not a performance dance but a purely social one. Zouk has also been used to label an entirely separate dance family that does come from Brazil, derived from their traditional dance of lambada but danced to original zouk music. Further confusion has arisen as new artists have been making all sorts of fusion with zouk, so dancers are often not dancing to true Caribbean zouk music at all, but R&B, hip-hop, electronica, and even acoustic contemporary. As this form has gained popularity internationally, huge numbers of people worldwide have come to associate this word “Zouk” solely with the Brazilian dancing. Thank you again for your understanding. :)
@Dana Najem why so confrontational? Olivia asked very politely for the title of a video to be changed and provided some historical background of which many probably haven’t been aware. There are others who bomb Brazilian Zouk videos with unlikes and demand the name of the dance to be changed. It's unfortunate that two dances are today known by the same name as one is always going to live in the shadow of the other. It likely can't be completely undone but at least we can try to be more specific. It makes me sad to see two scenes that share the love for music and dance fighting over a *name*. :-( I love to dance and teach Brazilian Zouk and I used to call it just "Zouk" as well, because I didn't know any better. Today I always call it "Brazilian Zouk". It's really not that big an inconvenience and it actually has the benefit of providing some additional context to the unknowing reader/listener. Have a look at the website of the Brazilian Zouk Council where they state (translated from Portuguese): „Because this dance evolved from the Brazilian dance Lambada it is a Brazilian dance. Just because the name isn’t Brazilian, doesn’t mean the dance is not from Brazil. So all the professionals of Zouk decided to call this dance „Brazilian Zouk“ with the objective to protect our cultural property and also to not interfere with other cultures’ interpretations of Zouk.“
@Dana Najem As someone who loves this dance as much as you claim you do and as someone who dedicates his time to spreading this love and running a local scene, let me make one thing clear: Having an ongoing flame war in our RU-vid comment sections is POISON for our scene. These videos are what the world sees of us. People might like what they see in the videos and want to give it a try and learn the dance. But then they see us fighting about which Zouk is the True one and hesitate to become part of a community which they perceive as toxic. There are two possibilities: 1. Keep fighting and alienate potential new students. 2. Try and settle for peace. Let's remember that the Caribbean Zouk existed first, so their claim doesn't come out of thin air. Just try to put yourself in their situation and imagine searching for "Zouk" on RU-vid and only find videos where people dance, say, Kizomba. Wouldn't you be disappointed and wouldn't you want your dance to be represented as well? Now, the harm is already done, but let's just try to mitigate it in the future. Sure, you could argue that, because Brazilian Zouk is more popular today, the "other Zouk" should change it's name. That's what happened to Tango, where, in many parts of the world, the name is mostly associated with the Europeanized version of the dance while the original dance settled with "Tango Argentino". So you'd have a point. But I propose that we *all* try to be more specific with our names. We call our dance "Brazilian Zouk" and they call theirs "Caribbean Zouk" (or whatever adjective they like) and then we can coexist peacefully and have both dances represented on the Internet. Doesn't that sound great? :-) Also, many Brazilian teachers advocate for the name "Brazilian Zouk" because the dance is danced more and more to international music and modified in different places of the world, so the original Brazilian heritage sometimes can be overlooked.
@Dana Najem You do realize that Olivia and I are not the same person, do you? I didn't comment on the video, I only replied to your rude comment. You also realize that videos 1,2 and 4 were not uploaded by the Brazilian teachers themselves but by other people? (Eg. the German organizer of the event). And you do realize that the only video of your selection that was actually uploaded by the Brazilian dancers themselves (Anderson & Brenda) does not use the term "Zouk" at all, neither in the title nor in the description? Want to know why? Because A&B in turn get attacked by Brazilian Zouk purists who claim that what A&B dance has nothing to do with Zouk. So they decided not to say they dance Zouk anymore *because* *they* *don't* *want* *to* *fight* *over* *names.* They want it to be about enjoying the dance, nothing more. I get that you are new to the scene and excited and that you want to defend what you've fallen in love with. And that's fine. I wish you all the best for your journey into the depths of this beautiful world of movement and sensuality, really! And the better you get to know the scene, the more you'll realize how highly it values openness, compassion and sensibility. Of course, there are Brazilian people who call the dance just "Zouk". But just because they do that, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. I do not count that as a quotable source on how it *should* be. If you want to quote an instance on this matter, that would be the Brazilian Zouk Dance Coucil which consists of some of the first inventors of the dance and some of the most famous teachers in the world. ( www.brazilianzoukcouncil.com/board-of-directors ) Please, tell me: Why does it offend you so much to call the dance "Brazilian Zouk"?
@Dana Najem I'm a bit disappointed that you don't really reply to my messages. I must assume you either don't read or don't understand what I'm saying. I get that you're not very fluent in English. I don't mean that as an offense, it's nothing to be ashamed of. However, it makes this whole conversation quite difficult. So let's stop here, I think we both made our points clear. Maybe some day we see each other on a dance event and have a chat :)
Btw. I get that those copy&paste comments are annoying. They annoy me, too. But that is my whole point! We could easily stop this if we all would just call two different dances by distinct names.
