Save the date and join us with another marathon weekend of dancing with inspiring workshops, epic parties, fun and friends!
This year’s Cloud 9 Zouk Mid Year Ball weekend will be taking place over 4 nights, from Thur 29th June - Sun 2nd July 2023. 🤩 So we have added an extra night to warm everyone up for the weekend, as well as bringing on a new concept to add some more spice to our event!
Ticket sales will be open next week and we will be bringing 3 earlybird tiers for those who’d like to take advantage and book earlier & save $$$
Here are some details about our new and exciting additions & a bit about what to expect for this year at our Cloud9 Mid Year Ball…. and … Zouk Championship! :
Yes, that’s right! We are bringing a new Zouk Championship element to our Australian & NZ Zouk scene ✨🤩👏 (read more below)
Our Mid Year Ball weekend is this year extending to 4 marathon nights of dancing (Thur-Sun), as well as an extra day of workshops on Friday. 😍
We are again excited to bring a unique International Artist couple to add to our longstanding & wonderful line up of National Artists 💖
Intensive Courses opportunities are still a part of our weekend and will be taking place on the Sunday 🌟
We are making sure this event is still a relaxed and super sociable one, with many opportunities to hang out with friends and enjoy Brisbane. 🤗
🏆🏆🏆 More about the Zouk Championships in June 🏆🏆🏆
Cloud9 Zouk is excited to bring in a new idea to our Mid Year Ball weekend, which is designed with the intention of helping to take our scene to the next level, in an exciting and fun & encouraging way. ✨🥳💃🕺🔝
We recognise that we already have so many committed dancers, who just keep growing and evolving in their dance from year to year, and this is just another way to incentivise and encourage more of the dancers in our beautiful Zouk scene to keep growing, to practice more, to focus on their technique and creativity, and just to maybe get that little bit extra motivated to push beyond their comfort zones into showcasing their efforts to their fellow dancers in a positive and encouraging environment.
We would like to introduce this to our wonderful scene here in Aus & NZ as a dual format, including a Strictly/Freestyle Competition segment as well as a Choreography segment. We have been inspired by this idea by talking with some of our international artists and hearing about how it can be so beneficial to grow our wonderful scene further.
So, we are currently working hard to design something that is suitable for our dance community and that helps our dancers to take their Zouk to the next level!✨
Stay tuned, and know that this is a new idea and we’re sure it will improve over time 🙂
✨What we hope & our aim:
We are hoping this creates a positive & encouraging environment that inspires dancers from different levels to partner up and work on their skills, movements & techniques that they have been learning in regular dance classes or festivals.
Positive environment means that we are working on our own skills and abilities to be better than before (in other words, you compare yourself to your ‘old self’ rather than against others).
It means we are super supportive of other competitors and our friends and are happy to see their improvements and achievements. 🤗
🕺💃How it works?!
Well, there are so many ways that a Strictly competition can be run but the main idea is that you choose a partner before the event, and then you social dance with your chosen partner, along with the other couples, to ‘randomly’ selected songs. Ideally you would start training with your partner well in advance before the competition to develop your skills and refine your dancing.
👉 How is our Zouk Championship different from other strictly's?
Often competitors will just see finalist details or rankings following their participation, with or without knowing their scores or how they went in particular areas of their dance. For our Cloud 9 Zouk Championship, we will allow scores to be distributed to all competitors, and are further inviting our wonderful judges to provide a short feedback for Open Category competitors' scores and/or suggestions on areas of improvement for the finalists.
How this competition runs will also have different formats such as heat elimination, scoring criteria,... TBC. We will release an information sheet soon.
👉Scoring: (More info to come)
There will be judges from the community who will then score you based on many elements such as, musicality, technique, partnership, execution ... etc. More info to come
👉 Levels: (More info to come)
We are thinking to start this idea with 2 competition formats as below, with 2 levels for the Freestyle Only division, and 1 level/category only for the Freestyle/Showcase (choreo) Championship: further details TBC, with brief summary below
COMPETITION DIVISIONS/FORMATS:
🕺💃 Freestyle Only & Freestyle/Showcase Championship
* Freestyle Only, with 2 levels:
> Novice category: Dancers with less than 3 years Brazilian Zouk classroom learning and dancing experience
> Open category (not including Professionals): Any dancers from all levels, particularly those with more than 3 years Brazilian Zouk classroom learning and dancing experience
* Showcase & Freestyle Championship (including Professionals) - 1 level/category
> Open category: aimed at Upper levels dancers, including Professionals, to showcase a duet Choreography and Freestyle dance
* Competitors will only be able to participate in one of the divisionsformats, not in both. So will need to choose whether they compete in the Freestyle Only comp, or for more experienced and advanced level dancers, to train and showcase a duet Choreography along with their Freestyle..
Competitors also may not compete more than once, nor with different partners, so will need to choose 1 partner only to compete with in 1 division..
👉 Competition Entry Fees:
💰Novice Freestyle Only … $50 per Couple online, $60 on the day (Must have full event pass)
💰Open Freestyle Only (not including Professional) … $60 per Couple, $70 on the day (Must have full event pass)
💰Open Showcase & Freestyle Championship (including Advanced/Professional)… $80 per Couple (registrations closing date TBC), Must have full event pass
👉 Prizes: (details TBC)
Novice Freestyle Only:
1st Place … Trophy & Festival Pass
2nd Place, 3rd Place …. Trophy
Open Freestyle Only (not including Professionals):
1st Place … Trophy & Festival Pass
2nd Place, 3rd Place …. Trophy
Open Showcase & Freestyle Championship (including Professionals):
1st Place …. $500 cash & BZF full Pass + Trophy
2nd Place … Festival Pass + Trophy
3rd Place … Festival Pass + Trophy
👉 Requirements for the competitions to go ahead:
We need a minimum number of competitors to proceed.
> Novice Freestyle Only : 10 Couples min requirement
> Open Freestyle Only (not including Professionals): 10 Couples min requirement
> Open (Advanced & Professional) Freestyle & Championship: 10 Couples min requirement
Stay tuned for more information & registration.
Warmest hugs,
Behrouz & Sibell from Cloud 9 Zouk