This April, Zouk Dance Academy is excited to have Gui Prada back in Singapore. Gui, who is affectionately known as "The Huggy Master", is one of the top favourites leaders, amongst many renowned follower artistes (including Nina Darbello). In a sea of leaders with flashy moves, Gui's subtlety is not to be under-estimated. He is a very popular lead and you'll see a long line of followers for him at congresses.

Gui's style is very unique - he's able to put followers at ease, and create a comfortable yet fun experience for followers of all levels. He has a lot of intricacies in the way he leads, and his traveling moves are so playful and effective.

Check out his philosophy of close embrace in this interview.

Gui had such a great time in Singapore during his last trip that he wants to share more with the Zouk community here. He will be covering techniques for leaders AND followers. This is a great opportunity for us to "level up" and be able to dance so wonderfully, with Zoukers of all levels. During his time here, we will have 8 hours of workshops and 3 parties.

Here's what we can look forward to:

Zouk Fit - a long follow along warm-up that has been a hit in other events where we practice all the foundations, drill and challenge ourselves

- For the leaders and the followers - Drill, exercise and play with the basics and all their possible variations and direction changes. Here leaders and followers are on their own working equally in their own dance and technique.

Traveling comfortably in Close and Open Embrace

- For the leaders and the followers - we’ll play with the techniques behind traveling comfortably, which are universally and equally applied to leaders and followers. Our main objective here is to maintain equidistance, which is mainly done through active and clever use of footwork.

- For the leader - working on the assertiveness and lead through the displacement of their entire axis to invite the followers

- For the follower - using footwork to manage distance with the leader, being attentive to their direction and using the crossing footwork to change direction.

Viradinhas unlocked - 5-8 variations of viradinha that will add dynamics, footwork flow, fun and play to the dance

- For the leader and the follower - we’ll get to play and work on the footwork of different ways of doing viradinha. We’ll take a look in body positioning, amount of displacement, and step size modulation which must be understood and perceived by both leaders and followers.

Musicality - change in the music, change the movement, change the dynamics.

- For the leaders - we’ll get different perspectives in musicality, using the music as a guideline to build the dance with the follower. We’ll also learn different ways of stepping to the rhythm, creating layers in our footwork and conveying different moments in the song with different ways of stepping.

- For the followers - we’ll work on the different possibilities in terms of footwork dynamics outside of the regular timing. That way, the changes proposed by the leaders can be perceived by the followers, who will also gain access to this way of listening to the music. As a matter of fact, the follower will also get the tools to influence the leader in their listening of the music they are dancing to.

Ss and Head Movements combined (more experience in Zouk required)

- For the leader and follower - we’ll go over S technique (the Brazilian Zouk/Samba/Bolero version of "ocho" in Tango), which involve the leading and following of it (how to and ways of leading AND ways of executing the S). We’ll then experiment with different positions and amounts of pivoting until getting to the positions where we will include the head movements. Here leaders and followers will learn how to differentiate the preparation for head movements vs a simple S, without a tilt.

- For the leader - when we combine the S with the head movement, leaders will develop the mechanics to comfortably lead this combination, while providing enough momentum and support to the followers.

- For the follower - in this moment, followers will develop their balance and find the sweet spot where they can stay inclined, executing the head movement, while pivoting in one leg with the support of the leader. The more the follower achieves their balance the easier the movement gets and less effort is required.

Traveling with Head Movements in Close Embrace (more experience in Zouk required)

- For the leaders and the followers - in this workshop, both will train equally in terms of executing the movements. Although the follower will be the one off axis/tilted, the leaders will also experience it during our solo explorations.

- For the leader - during the partner portion of the workshop, leaders will learn more about the mechanics of leading the preps, the travel and the exits of traveling in close embrace, using the principles of Minimum Effort. Leaders will also develop their leading of such movements while giving full support to the followers, who are tilted and traveling (not an easy feat).

- For the follower - during the partner portion of the workshop, followers will exercise prepping, traveling and exiting using upper body momentum, also under the principles of minimum effort. Followers will also play with the principles of traveling while in a tilt as balanced as possible.