Laury Esmeralda shows the World Kizomba

Laury Esmeralda is originally from the Antilles and lives in Paris. In 2009, she took her first Kizomba class and immediately fell in love with it. Today she tours the world and teaches the two national Angolan dances Semba and Kizomba. She came by the Angolan Pavilion, where she merged in our traditional dancing group for two of their shows.

We seized the opportunity to talk to her about the different kind of dance styles, the international hype around them and how they enchanted Laury.

How did you get into Kizomba and Semba?

I actually wanted to take a Salsa class, but at the time the school just offered a Kizomba beginner’s class, so I took it. After that, they asked me to go on with an advanced class, because I was good. This was in 2009. The next year the partner of Tony Pirata got pregnant. Pirata is a famous Cape Verdean Kizomba teacher and he asked me to assist him with his classes around Europe. This was the beginning, after that I partnered up with others and toured through the US. In 2013 with a French partner, I participated in a dance competition and we landed 3^rd. During my tours, I met Bernadeth Mabungo, a professional dancer and first winner of the Africadançar chambionship in Lisbon, who invited me to visit her in Angola. I finally went and got to know the culture Kizomba is part of.

Yesterday you danced with the Kina Ku Moxi on our stage. It was obvious that you are a dancer. Was Kizomba your introduction into dancing in general?

No, I took classes of classical dancing from a very young age, with several competitions and everything. Hence, I am schooled in controlling my movements and I am very precise, knowing how to work on my posture and so on. Hence, I actually went back to my affinity and love for dancing, after a stopover – so to speek – as a bank clerk.

  

There has been a big demand for Kizomba classes internationally for a few years now. One could almost say that you represent this perfectly.

Yes, I believe to have a different approach than many. To preserve the Angolan dances is important to me as such. Many nowadays benefit from the hype, they do not care, that they are transforming Kizomba. They don’t even know, because they never took the time to learn it in depth. They add R’n’B or Hip Hop moves to make it interesting. To me this kind of dancing seems “robotized”. They have reduced Kizomba to a sequence of different steps, when there is more to it. For instance the whole part of “rebolar” is essential, the way you move your bodies, how you interact and how you improvise – and not least it is part of a specific party culture.

The demand for Kizomba internationally started within the Salsa scene, have there also been influences from it?

Yes, Salsa definitely helped the dissemination of Kizomba a lot. Surely, it can be interesting to mix things, but again I believe it is also important to know the different dances in depth, you have to allow for them. This is what makes me special amongst many other teachers, and why my students like me. I have been giving classes in different dancing schools around Paris and people enjoy the way I move and the cultural I show them, the “festa”. 

With your origins in the Antilles, I assume, you also have an affinity with Semba and Kizomba. Zouk, the musical style of the Antilles is not just similar, but also very popular in Angola.

Yes of course. Moreover it is important to acknowledge this closeness and to know that they are a mix of different styles and influences. At the moment, I try to bring some Kizomba classes to the Antilles. It is known of course, but in this other way, I explained to you. I want my philosophy to be recognizable by the way I dance, it is the only way to convince people.

In April this year I took part in a Kizomba festival in Los Angeles, it’s called “Ladies take the lead”. It was wonderful. We had all the big names of female Kizomba teachers and only female DJs. Of course the man also benefited from this, because women could show and teach them how and what they sense dancing kizomba. As it is a couple dance, it was important for the men to know, how women want to be lead.


For more information on Laury Esmeralda and her classes, follow her on facebook: Laury Esmeralda Officiel