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Dev & Ana

@dev.and.ana

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🌄 Joy + growth through dance
🫶 Sydney dance classes: @zouklifesydney
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For anyone who has a case of Brazilian soul 🇧🇷 … and whoever has always wanted to learn to dance!

🌱Beginner dance classes
📆 Mondays | 7.30pm
📍@lafiesta_dancefactory | Annandale
🔗 Link in bio taken in La Fiesta Dance Factory by @dev.and.ana

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7 months ago

I used to think a lot of advanced followers were boring to watch.

As an improver, I was often most impressed by followers who seemed to have an endless catalogue of stylings. The more trends they knew, the more advanced they must be.

At least, that’s what I thought.

I’d watch certain advanced followers and wonder why they weren’t doing all the latest stylings. Why weren’t they adding more attitude? More tricks?

I assumed that if they weren’t doing those things, it was because they couldn’t.

Over time, I realised I had it wrong.

What makes advanced followers exceptional isn’t their ability to accumulate more and more influences. It’s their ability to refine their dancing until it becomes unmistakably theirs.

When I watch these dancers now, I notice something different.

Freeze-frame them at any moment and they are exactly where they need to be. Every line is intentional. Every movement is clean. Every transition feels considered. There is a depth and quality to their movement that can only come from years of refinement.

What once looked simple now looks incredibly sophisticated.

And perhaps most impressive of all is the confidence it takes to say:

“This isn’t me.”

“This styling doesn’t fit my artistic concept.”

Even when everyone else is doing it.

Even when it might get more views, more likes, more followers, more bookings.

To know yourself well enough to stay the course anyway.

As I’ve progressed in my own dancing, I’ve become less interested in how much someone can add and more interested in how deeply they’ve developed what is already theirs.

Because eventually there comes a point where artistic maturity isn’t about collecting more ideas. It’s about becoming more selective, more intentional, more authentic.

Not creating a patchwork of borrowed influences, but uncovering what exists underneath all of them.

And that’s what makes these followers true artists.

Not their ability to follow trends, but their willingness to reject the trends that don’t belong to them.

To trust that their job isn’t to chase what’s popular, but to speak with their own voice. taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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4 months ago

So much of our energy these days goes into growing the Brazilian Zouk scene in Sydney - practising, teaching, evolving.

But this dance was different.

Completely improvised and full of emotion … just us, like it was in the beginning, when we first fell in love 💞

Huge thanks to @sydneydancemedia for creating a space where we could capture this memory - a piece of our dance journey and our love story.

We’re so grateful for the beautiful community you nurture through Show Your Style, where bachata and zouk dancers connect, cross-pollinate, and inspire each other. We always love being part of it! ✨

📹 @sydneydancemedia
🎞️ edits by @callthisguy
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#brazilianzouk #sydney #zouk #partnerdance #socialdance #dance #dancing #hobby #weekend #danceart #art #bachata #bachazouk #love #dancecouple #couple #romance #sydneydancers #dancersofsydney #showyourstyle taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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a year ago

Who else actually knew who they were before age 10 but then society got in the way? 👀

We were dancing as kids, and for the next 25 years, we kept dancing 💃🏻🕺🏽

#dancer #growth #journey #selfdevelopment taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

1️⃣ Draw from what you already know. If you have a background in other dance styles, use it. We draw from the concepts and energy of salsa, bachata, ballroom, bhangra, ballet.

2️⃣ Follow your interests. We take solo dance classes that spark joy for us: contemporary, street jazz, house.

3️⃣ Master the fundamentals. To break and bend the rules, you have to know them first, inside out.

4️⃣ Look to other genres. We enjoy watching a variety of styles online, even if we don’t dance them e.g. locking and popping.

5️⃣ Solo dance to get to know how your body wants to move.

6️⃣ Explore how fashion impacts your dance. Fashion can bring out different energies and flavours in your dancing.

7️⃣ Lean into the weird and ugly. Everyone wants to look pretty straight away. As a result, people end up copying what already looks good, and fail to create something unique. Find the weird and ugly to collect unique movements that you can refine into something more aesthetic.

8️⃣ Shift from copying to creating.

9️⃣ Let go of what you believe you should be doing. For example, it’s trendy in Brazilian Zouk to do heaps of crazy head movement combinations. We love head movements, but as an occasional accent rather than as the body of the dance. We explore complexity through musicality and solo expression within partner dance. We had to be comfortable letting go of the belief that “doing heaps of head movement” makes you a good Zouk dancer to be able to develop in the direction that was right for us.

🔟 Refine. Think about what you like/dislike the feeling of in your body. Watch videos and do more of what you like the look of, and less of what you don’t like the look of. taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

Every Wednesday night, I would grab my favourite drinks and snacks, put on the music I loved, and dance by myself.

It was part of my weekly routine that I looked forward to with excitement.

Little did I know that my mid-week solo dance parties would have a massive impact on my dancing years later.

Dancing by myself, I worked on my basics, developed my balance, and became capable of doing spins and head movements - traditionally follower movements.

As a social dance teacher, I now realise why followers love to dance with leaders who can do the movements in their own bodies first.

Not only are these leaders more balanced and controlled (so they don’t push and pull followers off balance, turning what should be a comfortable social dance into an elegant tug of war), but if they can do some head movement, they better understand how to lead it comfortably and with more empathy.

All it took was 15 minutes, every Wednesday night 🥳 by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

#zouk #sydney #dance #growth #self taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

#growth #consistency #zouk #sydney #dancer taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

There are so many reasons dancers don’t post, we know, because we’ve felt them all.

“I’m not good enough”

“The more advanced dancers in my community will judge me and gossip about me”

“I don’t have a perfect shot”

“I don’t know what I’m doing”

“People will think I’m arrogant”

“Who do I think I am?”

“There are far better dancers out there than me. What can I possibly offer people?”

We had to painfully and slowly dismantle every one of these beliefs to start posting with more confidence.

✨ We don’t have to be perfect (no one is by the way - even the best dancers make mistakes)

✨ People can judge and gossip, but we’re not going to live according to other people’s opinions about what we should be doing.

✨ We have a lot of valuable information we can share.

✨ We are people who are passionate about spreading the love of dance - AND we’re capable of doing it because we’re brave enough to post.

✨ We’ll gain more knowledge about how to spread the love of dance on social media by taking action and posting: we’ll learn along the way.

Here’s the thing: artists don’t have a choice but to be extremely proactive.

There aren’t any real or well-paying jobs we can apply for.

People usually aren’t falling all over themselves to give us opportunities.

No one is coming to save us or to help.

To be a dance artist, a dance business owner, even to spread the love of dance far and wide: you must take a LOT of action, be willing to look stupid, fail publicly, and act despite being full of doubt.

You don’t have to believe in yourself.

Most of the time we don’t.

Weekly emotional crises are common in our household.

But you DO have to take action despite all that if you want to spread the love of dance.

Let’s see your posts 😍🤌 taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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2 months ago

#dancer #growth #dance #zouk #art taken in Kasauli Hills by @dev.and.ana

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3 months ago

Your daily reminder that head movements are a f*kn weird movement for the body, we’re still refining our movements to achieve the look and feeling we want, we still lose our balance, and the work is never done 💪 taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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3 months ago

#dance #dancer #danceclass #growth #magic taken in Sydney, Australia by @dev.and.ana

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3 months ago