A ZoukDanceCamp Series by Domi&Hoi Team
Welcome, Zoukers! You’ve landed in the right place if you love Anderson & Brenda and want to unravel the secrets behind their magical dance.
It’s more than just connection alone, not only about dance techniques or dance moves, not just filling your head with knowledge & understanding of body mechanics, and it takes much more than just emotional energies. It’s ALL of these ingredients and much more combined, intertwined in a flow that creates the magic in Anderson & Brenda‘s dance! Building on each other, brick-by-brick, layers-upon-layers laid on top of a strong foundation that supports their creation.
Our fully optimised learning programme with the world-renown Anderson & Brenda are 5 Chapters journey, with each chapter being 8 days & 7 nights long. That’s a total of 40 days learning all the in’s and out’s of #BrendersonTechnique!
To complete the entire A&B series would take 2-4 years. Please read more to understand why; What is a ‘Dance Programme Series’? and How long does it take to complete a Dance Programme Series?.
This whole page is dedicated to explain our co-created 5 Chapter ZoukDanceCamp Series with Anderson & Brenda, ‘Retrace Your Dance Journey’… Keep reading!
Table of Contents
Get ready to unlock your full potential!
Introducing Anderson & Brenda
Anderson & Brenda… Do they even need an introduction? One of the world’s top international Brazilian Zouk artists from São Paulo, Brazil. Many of us watch in awe how these two wonderful people can be so connected by body, mind & soul through the flow of music. Behind their beautiful movements & expressions lies layer-upon-layer of dance technicality that allows their deep connection philosophy to flow like blood through the body. Be part of this rare opportunity as Anderson & Brenda unveils the secrets behind their dance.
Anderson & Brenda’s Vision for this ZoukDanceCamp Series
“After teaching for over 11 years in and out of Brazil, we saw that there are very big differences in how people use the ground… We understand there are cultural aspects that influence this and our proposal is to bring more consciousness to this into the technical aspects of dancing… An example is we understand the more light we feel, the more we use the ground, so this is something we’re really excited about and is the first aspect we’d love to share with you.
Before diving deep into emotional and spiritual aspects of connection, we were big “nerds” of measuring and equalizing pressure points of contact in couple dance, since we worked with Samba De Gafieira. The second technical aspect we’d be sharing is how to bring this contact information to your legs… This made such a huge difference in how we feel together which is one of the secrets to keep the “spiritual” or “present state of mind” when we are dancing traditional steps…
The third technical aspect we’d be sharing is the understanding of energy that movement generates, and how to open ourselves to listen to our own bodies and our partner… At our most current journey of our lives, dance became a tool of self-knowledge and we are very excited to bring this to you because it was the latest life-changing lesson we’ve learned during our studies in the past 6 years.
Lastly, we’re going to integrate these technicality and mindfulness tools to create a dance that speaks through your soul… Well, this is our goal, and our dreams, so, we hope to see you in Poland for this unique programme we’ve put together with Domi&Hoi Team! Again, we’re so excited to be part of your dance journey!”
— Anderson & Brenda x
Are you ready to retrace your dance journey?
Anderson & Brenda Has Something To Say! *Listen Up!*
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The Programme
This is not going to be like any other Anderson & Brenda weekenders or immersion courses you have ever been to!
You need to be serious in taking your dance to a whole new level in every aspect. Only 16 Couples (32 people) per chapter can participate in this rare custom-made programme series built to our unique learning environment.
With 50 days, split into 5 chapters (each 8 day 7 night) to deep dive into dance technicalities, tools & methodologies, connections & energies. Uncover the full story of how Anderson & Brenda formed their dance foundation and experience the journey they took to become the dancers they are now.
For clarity, this is not about their connection philosophy only. You will spend a lot of time developing & honing your dance skills with the help of Anderson & Brenda, and how to apply this layer-upon-layer of techniques to create a dance that belongs to you.
In this ZDC series ‘Retrace Your Dance Journey with Anderson & Brenda‘, it consists of 5 chapters;
Chapter ∞ Infinity [The Essentials] – Brazilian Zouk Foundation & Brenderson Basics is perfect for those wanting to learn Brazilian Zouk or to brush up on their basic foundation. Having a strong Brazilian Zouk foundation is essential if you want to progress to our other chapters. We’ll also be using Brenderson basics to further sculpt your dance. We all begin here, no exception. The Chapter ∞ Infinity is not lesser or greater than Chapters 1-4, this is the common mistake many dancers make and it impedes their growth and potential. This chapter is numbered “Infinity” and called “The Essentials” because it is where we all start but it never ends because for us to continue growing, we have to revisit the Chapter ∞ Infinity again, and again, and again, forever… Please make no mistake in this misconception.
Chapters 1-4 are best for proficient dancers who have a good technical understanding and competence in the fundamentals of Brazilian Zouk. There are 4 main topics: (1) Grounding, (2) Flow, (3) Lead & Follow, and (4) Building Your Dance. All 4 topics will be covered but each chapter will focus on one as the main topic. This means you will learn the main topic in detail and train for 3 whole days. There will be enough time to practice and master the main topic and still learn how it works with other topics. Each of the other topics will have one day dedicated to it. This will let everyone get a full overview of the #BrendersonTechnique.
Highly recommended for anyone who is looking to take their dance to the next level! Learn to be in touch with yourself and your partner, physically and emotionally using Brazilian Zouk dance as the communication tool.
You will get the most benefit and enhanced knowledge if you attend all of the chapters. But having all 4 topics covered in each chapter 1-4 lets you also choose the main topic you are most interested in. This means you can join Chapter 2 even if you didn’t attend Chapter 1.
Anderson & Brenda will share with you all of their secrets in which they apply to Brazilian Zouk movements. Prepare your body, mind & soul as Anderson & Brenda dissect the layers on each dance fundamental building blocks to reveal the technicality knowhow that connects their soul to create their breathtaking dances.
For Chapter ∞ Infinity [The Essentials], you are not required to have a fixed partner unless you want to.
For Chapters 1-4, we highly recommend signing up with a partner.
Each chapter was written by Anderson & Brenda. In their own words, they will tell about the journey that awaits you…
Chapter ∞ Infinity - The Essentials (Brazilian Zouk Foundation & Brenderson Basics) *NEW*
This essential Chapter ∞ Infinity will cover;
1) Brazilian Zouk Foundation [BZF]
• Basic (Passo Basico)
• Viradinha -> 90 degrees and 180 degrees
• Simple Turn
• Elástico “Raul”
• Lateral
• Soltinho (Turn of the Follower, turn of the Leader)
• Abertura (Opening)
• Lunge
• Yo Yo
• Chicote
• Boneca (head movement on the spot)
• Snake
• Ondinha ou Cobrinha (Body Roll)2) Brenderson Basics [BB]
• Secret
This is where we all begin and a never-ending cycle, no exception. Do not mistake structure and discipline as a constraint on freedom.
This is a very special, yet essential chapter for both beginners and highly experienced dancers. If you want to excel in Brazilian Zouk, then you have to keep coming back to this Chapter ∞ Infinity: The Essentials.
We will repeat this important message again:
“The Chapter ∞ Infinity is not lesser or greater than Chapters 1-4, this is the common mistake many dancers make and it impedes their growth and potential. This chapter is numbered “Infinity” and called “The Essentials” because it is where we all start but it never ends because for us to continue growing, we have to revisit the Chapter ∞ Infinity again, and again, and again, forever… Please make no mistake in this misconception.”
This is where you continuously spread and strengthen your foundation so you can keep building on top of it. A weak foundation is like building a house on sand, it will topple. That’s guaranteed.
*** Everyone will learn both roles; to Lead and to Follow. ***
“You need to know the basics, the foundations, and techniques to be able to forget them and become creative and free.” – Brenda
Here’s a short story of a little tree that wants to grow big enough to dance with the wind, the birds, and the sun. From the moment the seed is sowed, the little seed is dreaming about that day when it will be strong enough to swing with the wind, high enough to be closer to the sun, and big enough to connect with the bird.
The little tree is growing and growing year in and year out. After a dark stormy night, the little tree was very sad. The wind had wrenched off some of his branches and the rain took some of the leaves along with him. As the little tree looked sad, a very old and wise mammoth tree approached it and told the secret of becoming the biggest and most powerful tree.
The mammoth tree explained that from time to time he casts some of his leaves and branches to bring his energy to the ground to make his roots grow more deep, solid, and strong so no rain, storm, and wind would ever be able to harm him.
From that moment, the little tree realised how important it is to grow its roots deep and strong into the ground. Years passed by and the little tree focused his time and energy into growing his roots and slowly he grew even bigger, wider, and taller than all the trees around him.
Whether you are a little tree or an old tree, deeper roots can always be grown.
Come! Improve or recondition your roots with Anderson & Brenda.
Anderson & Brenda will go deep into explaining the basic fundamentals and foundation techniques which are essential tools used to build their dance.
Important Note: Once you have completed this essential Chapter ∞ Infinity and have approximately 6 months of frequent practise, you should be ready to move on to chapters 1-4.
History: "Chapter ∞ Infinity" used to be called "Chapter 0". This was rebranded because we realised that it added to the misconception where students thought Chapter 0 was below 1-4 when it isn't. Students kept thinking Chapter 0 was for beginners only, when it is actually essential for all level of dancers. We're correcting this misconception and continiously trying to re-educate the dance community that "The Essentials" of basics and dance foundation needs to be continiously honed from the very beginning, and at every milestone along your dance journey...
Chapter 1 - Grounding
Upcoming Dates
- TBC || Chapter 1 [Grounding] || You MUST have Fixed Partner ||
“Brazilian Zouk, when we started to learn in Brazil, was a dance with a lot of African and ground characteristics. The movement came from the ground, boil on the hips and explode in the head in Lambada… After traveling the world, Brazilian Zouk changed a lot, and this is an aspect that we miss the most when we remember the roots of this dance. Today, this is the aspect that we feel people need the most since Brazilian Zouk can have a very airy and water flow, it’s very common that people feel unbalanced with the lack of grounding.
In the way we teach, we like to build the dance from toe-to-head, so grounding is where everything will start. Not only about the understanding of the skeleton and the stacking bones, posture, muscle tone, and how to step in a way that feels more balanced, efficient, and pleasurable, but also about grounding yourself with confidence, self-power, decision and pleasure to live in your own body.
Samba de Gafieira, Bolero, and Tango helped us so much in building our connection from the ground to frame. So, we will use them to practice exercises applying our technique into it and connect it to Brazilian Zouk.
We will use Eutonia (a mind-body discipline created by Gerda Alexander based on the experience of one’s own body) to increase sensitivity on feet, ankles, knees, hips, and posture to use gravity for a relaxed balance. Another big influence of hips and enjoyment of lower body in Brazil was Axe, a local popular solo dance that helps to have ground, fun, and flow on hips movements, so we will also bring that to help your grounding.
Lots of lateral, traveling steps, hip movements, turns, and lead and follow challenges will be used to apply grounding in your Zouk. And we hope that with this development, we will be able to also challenge you with changing dynamics and speed being fast & slow together with your partner with the least tension you can.
Remember all the series will through all 4 basic principles: Grounding, Lead and Follow, Flow, and Building Your Dance. But this one will be the base for all of them.”
— Anderson & Brenda x
Chapter 2 - Flow
“Exciting… Now that we have freedom coming from the steps, with a wide base on our hips and all the stacking bones from ‘Grounding’. The refined language that we use to communicate and send the energy of the movement up and down from the center of the body in different dynamics. It’s now time to release more tension of our balanced bodies and experience the flow of letting the dance happen freely and consciously.
In this chapter, we will keep using concepts of ‘Grounding’, and some of ‘Lead and Follow’ to reach the next level. This is where movement becomes energy that flows inside of leader’s & follower’s bodies and through space.
In this dance, there is a strong feeling of sending, receiving, and redirecting energy that the leader applies to the follower’s body. The follower’s body becomes an open channel ready to receive the energy sent from the leader which then is sent to the ground and from the ground back to the leader.
Two sub-topics of flow we will be covering are internal flow and external flow.
The internal flow will be the application of the ‘Grounding’, posture, Eutony techniques applied to body isolations, and compensations that create circles, infinities, and waves…
The external flow will use the ‘Lead & Follow’ techniques to generate traveling patterns and play with the feeling of “giving, receiving, and redirecting” through space creating this beautiful feeling of flying freely…”
— Anderson & Brenda x
Chapter 3 - Lead & Follow
Upcoming Dates
- TBA 2023-2024 || Chapter 3 [Lead & Follow] || Planning Not Started
“Who never got impressed with the crazy dynamics, going from super-fast turns to super slow pauses in the middle of the movement that Anderson & Brenda show in their demos? Oh well, the relaxed aspect of it comes a lot from the way they use the ground, but the speed is basically communicated by their technique of lead and follow.
If grounding is the base of the dance in terms of movement, lead and follow is the base of what will make this movement to be communicated. And this is one of the most important aspects to make our dance “social”… The possibility of communicating with anybody, from wherever part of the world, by understanding the language that intelligent and fluid bodies use to incorporate a leader role or a follower role, in this case, through Brazilian Zouk.
Anderson & Brenda got very nerdy in this aspect of dancing. That was how they got so much into connection… It was not from breathing or spirituality, that was actually a consequence of studying so much the elements of lead and follow.
So in this chapter, they are very excited to share some of the secrets behind their connection:
The Ruler of Intensity (Leader & Follower)
It’s a measuring tool that will help you to develop one of the most important skills on a social dancer: The ability of understanding and adapting to different leaders or followers by matching the speed, frame, tension, and pressure in many different ways.
From The Center (Leader & Follower)
The technique of locating the center of energy by the base of the spine that helps the information to go easily to the center up to create fluid head movements, or to the center down to create refined traveling steps. This will also be deeply addressed in the Grounding chapter.
The Power of a Sensitive Waiting (Follower)
That’s one of the most difficult skills to develop as a follower. The relaxed state of attention. Where they don’t anticipate the movement. Where they need to be very connected with their bodies, to not do a movement because they understand it but because they feel it. We are going to practice this with exercises to increase sensitivity, awareness, and perception.
Organisation and Structure (Leader)
This is the base of what makes leaders clear and precise. Their ability to organise what they want, with what they have and what they can do with it. How to use their body to create movement and to maintain flow and how to be creative and efficient with the frame or the points of contact.
The Power of Fluid Decision (Leader)
That’s one of the most important skills to develop as a leader. Being clear and precise with what they want without being demanding and controlling. For that, we gonna go through 2 big aspects of leading: The attitude/action and the listening.
The Power of Touch (Leader & Follower)
After having the technical-mechanical aspects of connection, we are going to go through the technical-sensitive aspects of it. Of course, when we think about Anderson and Brenda, we also think about yummy dances, and by studying this element, this is a very easy consequence. Touch is the main channel that we communicate in the dance. We will understand some of the layers of the skin that create different kinds of quality in the movement, so we can make the close embrace AND the crazy drills all very yummy!”
— Anderson & Brenda x
Chapter 4 - Building Your Dance
Upcoming Dates
- TBA 2023-2024 || Chapter 4 [Building Your Dance] || Planning Not Started
“Oh nice, you’ve made it this far! This is the part where dance becomes really advance. It’s where the technique needs to be forgotten. Why? Because it is already there… Now it’s time to build the dance, and each one is different. Building this kind of dance requires a lot of perception and presence, to notice which kinds of movement, touch, speed, and quality this body needs to be able to flow.
In this chapter, we will go through some of the secrets we use to prepare our bodies to be ready to flow. Which kind of movements help the energy to flow better on the lower body. How to help leaders be calmer during a dance. How to help followers relax more of her upper body for pleasant and safe head movements.
We build our dance from ‘Grounding’, posture stacking bones and stability, mixing with different dynamics to warm up the ‘Lead and Follow’ so we can ‘Flow’ into what the bodies are ready for in that specific day and moment.
So this is all about using the techniques to create a dance with a presence which is the most important part of it. In this chapter, we will go deeper into the mindfulness state to create the dance which makes sense at that moment, with that partner, in the now.
Empathy, embracing the multidimensional beings we are, respect, meeting people where they are, perception and connection will connect all the work we did so far. This is the part of our journey that transformed dance into magic. I wouldn’t miss this!”
— Anderson & Brenda x
Client Success & Testimonials
Never been to any of Anderson & Brenda‘s classes, workshops, or ZoukDancecamp? Here are testimonials from students who previously attended our first 7 days programme in July 2019 of “Retrace Your Dance Journey”! They will tell you how they felt when they experienced our unique format and technicality dance programme!
Hoi and Domi know how to create a very inviting atmosphere and they were very open to new suggestions. The food was good and they were aware of the importance of the floor which means a lot to me. It is not the last time I will go to one of their events."
I remember you telling me it is one whole week, 30 hours of training and with only 15 couples. I had started jumping on my seat already at that moment.
It is unbelievable how fast the time went and that it is already over... I need to thank you Hoi and Domi for the millionth time because you created an amazing event! A beautiful location, amazing rooms for the classes and the parties and amazing food! This was the first time I joined one of your events and now, I know that anything you guys organize will be just fantastic!!
It was an intense week full of learning. Every day we had another topic to focus on starting from feet and going up until the head. We had to work really hard, training 5 hours a day with A&B and then continuing to dance and practice at the night at the social for 6 consecutive days!! That is crazy... They kept challenging us to the limits and made us aware of how precise their technique is.
It was a lot of walking and trying to figure out how the skeleton works. A lot of work on the hips to remember what was Zouk all about before. A lot of work on the leading and following; focusing on the contact point, the pressure and the concept of receiving. A lot of breathing to use the space between the joints instead of tension and muscle power. Lots of focus on the flow of the dance and the energy to dance as creamy. And last but not least; letting the dance be created in us by the music.
Such an eye-opening week... We had so many different exercises to work on all these topics one by one. They were so passionate about sharing all of their secrets and how they built their technique. We got one on one feedback and had the opportunity to train directly with them when we just didn't get it.
We had such an amazing group sharing the same goal and the same excitement about studying this beautiful and also hard technique. We helped each other for hours to release the hips and remember how to walk again. We didn't just study together; we ate together, drank together, joked together, danced together, sang together, enjoyed the jacuzzi together... My little ZDC Family, I already miss you all so much!!
I cannot imagine a better atmosphere to learn. We are extremely motivated to create a Brenderson army in Europe with the help of Hoi, Domi and the lovely Anderson & Brenda.
See you guys in the next one!!"
*** Neslişah fell in love with our vision in changing the world and lives through Brazilian Zouk dance that after joining our dance camp, she became a member of Domi&Hoi Team! ***
The floor inside the hotel was perfect (with aircon) and for one outside night, they even built up their own dance floor!
Altogether it was an amazing week with the best people in a group, you could hope for. We bonded quickly and became friends ❤️ so much laughter, shared stories and funny evenings!
The Anderson and Brenda week was simply incredible. I've learned so much and changed my way of dancing from the first day on. What we did, was not only for dancing but very much for ourselves. We learned how to relax and let go of the tension in our body and mind. We focused on different topics every day and put them all together in the end. This was so much more than just a dance class! I love the way how A&B teach and gave their best, to make our mind and our body understand.
I swear, I was never as relaxed in my entire life as during this week and I wanted to stay there forever. I came back home, absolutely relaxed and with a very happy mind 😊
I can't wait for the next one! ❤️"
*** Nadine fell in love with our vision in changing the world and lives through Brazilian Zouk dance that after joining our dance camp, she became a member of Domi&Hoi Team! ***
