The most exclusive Bachata Sensual event of the year

August 29th to September 4th

Sensual week Cadiz… a unique event where you cannot simply appear with a full pass at the door. First of all, you need to submit a form talking about your dance situation(are you a teacher?) and send a video so they can assign you to a level. You pay 320€ for a week from monday to saturday full of small group classes and VIP parties with Pablo & Raquel, Korke & Judith, Kike& Nahir, Berra & Laura and Truji & Gloria. So… Is it worth it? Absolutely. But! this event is not for everyone… 

My name is César and this is my dance advisor review of the Sensual Week Cadiz 2022.

My take on the festival

In March 2022, we fulfilled the aforementioned form with hopes and fears,at the end, you send a video so they can put you on a level and what if I am sent to a lower level than I belong? even worse, what happens if I do belong there and I need a reality check? Anyway, two months after, we received an e-mail communicating the level we were going to take in case we proceeded with the payment. There are 5 dance levels distributed in different colours and according to my experience, these were, in order from : red, orange, yellow, blue and green. I was assigned to the orange track. According to the organization, this was not a level assignment but each track was focused on different fundamentals. But…Of course there were levels! and I really think they should be more transparent about it because two reasons: first of all, we need to own it, own our current dance level and keep improving from there. Secondly, mistakes are made and for example one of my friends coming to the event, was assigned to yellow and after checking with others from the group she decided to talk about it and got reassigned to red, which would not have been possible if she didn’t know enough people to compare.

On my first edition of this festival, I wanted to make the most out of it but without getting burned, so I took on 3 out of 4 possible courses to take: 10 hours of partnerwork classes with the 5 big couples, 4 hours of men style and 10 hours of the show team. In total, 24 hours of classes over 5 days from Monday to Friday. Add to this the  4-5 hour parties at night and you know it’s gonna be a busy week.

Oh, and I forgot, of course you cannot miss the pre-party on sunday!! The vibes around the beach are impossible to match in my book. To those who work from home, It’s probably impossible to handle the parties, the classes and working a day job so my recommendation is save holidays for this event! 

Classes

Men style was really hit or miss. It was open level so take this with a grain of salt. Pablo & Berra were amazing. Pablo for me is the most complete dancer in the roster and Berra has an unmatched footwork and musicality and both of them translated their thoughts into good teachings. Kike did a good choreo and Truji was underwhelming, at the end we did a workshop focused on the basics but people were super happy after the workshop so I think this is about a problem of different expectations in an open level course.

Couples: best were Pablo & Raquel, Korke & Judith and surprisingly Kike & Nahir. I say surprisingly because they never struck me as particularly focused on technique but in their workshop, technique was key and I left with a totally changed opinion. I have to say that even if the workshops were good, I was expecting something else. Like anyone can learn a new combo if you have the right technique and I thought the workshops were going to be more special. The only ones who did something different were Berra & Laura as they make their classes fun and interesting and they did amazing exercises for creating connection and wonder about your stance in dancing(have you ever asked yourself the question what dancing means to you?)

Show Team was a really nice experience and Ariella and Ouzin are prime teachers for shows. A must-take for everyone thinking of teaching a choreo or be part of one and give insights. They made it light, entertaining and the methodology for me was one of the best. Even if people like me cannot go on time…

Show the image of me jumping out of time

Price

So let’s tackle the biggest drawback on this week-long bootcamp, the price tag of the event. 320€ is a lot of money. Let’s put it in context, a full pass for Benidorm salsa festival the whole week even bought late is worth 160€. How is this double the price? There are 3 main advantages to the high price tag:

• The classes are small groups(less profitable for organizers) and the teachers can micro-manage the group, so these are much more productive than just a workshop in a usual festival. You are assigned to a level according to the video you sent so you will get the most out of this, instead of an open level in a workshop in an old-fashioned festival
• The parties are more exclusive and not as big.
• The price tag deters people who are not really invested into dancing, into becoming better and are focused on other aspects surrounding dancing and this is for me the key reason and we will be coming back to again and again during this review.

DJs

Dj Tony was amazing from start to finish. He is one of the best Djs we have in Spain but we don’t hear of him often and I’m really glad they invited him. As a note,  I would only change that he always puts a dominican as the last song and the vibe you leave the party with is different from the last 8 songs so it’s kind of a weird dissonance.

Location

The location is Cadiz City. Cádiz is not an easy city to access so take that into account. You can arrive at Jerez airport, Sevilla airport or Sevilla train station. In all of those cases you will need a ride of around 1 hour to get to Cádiz, whether it be a train, a blablacar or a bus. Besides that, is Cádiz! Usually too hot but this year the weather was a little bit cloudy and temperature not as high, but perfect to go sunbathing and lay down(if you are not the whole day in the classes as I was anyway)

Venues

The hotel had a nice feeling and felt classy but only half of the classes were executed there, the other half was done in a quite underwhelming school which seemed like a 70s school prison, with everything under construction or decaying and no air conditioner in some of the rooms and this took its toll on the overall experience and immersion. The night parties were 20/25 min away so you had little flexibility because if you missed the bus, getting there would be really hard. One venue was a really fancy place but maybe not the most adequate for dancing as the first time there we were sweating after 5 min of dancing. On the other hand Diwali is a nice place for dancing but it was not quite as fancy. In general, I preferred Diwali .

Organization

The organization was incredibly good, I was impressed by the overall punctuality in buses, check-in and classes. I really liked that they wanted to add value and had a facebook group to help each other out and the gifts they gave us when doing the check-in. Let’s put it this way, you can take a liking of someone by the overall sum of its parts but falling in love with someone is about the small details. For festivals, it is the same! When you have nothing else to say here is that you did a great job!

Anecdotes

So it’s like the third night, and this beautiful woman that dances very well and with who I already danced once comes to me and says(English):

– Hey, we need to dance Kizomba later.

– Sure, but for now, let’s dance bachata!

After dancing we keep talking, all in English about the event and such things.

– What’s your name?

– Carolina, yours?

– César. How do you like the festival?

And so on and so on, after some minutes, one friend comes by, hear me and jumps into the conversation:

– What are you doing talking in English with Carolina?

– Me: Wait a moment… are you THAT Carolina?

Yes. That Carolina. Needless to say, now I am one of the 227k followers

Not happy with that, in the same night, I danced with another really nice follower.

(Spanish)

– What’s your name?

– Laura.

– César, nice to meet you

Later that night, at the end, I met her with a friend of mine and she was talking like:

– Yeah, and tomorrow I have the class at 10:00

– But at least after that you have nothing else to do…(only two hours each day)

– I am teaching the class and after that we have 6 more hours.

– Ouch, so wait, you are THAT Laura??

Yes. That Laura. I don’t follow them though, it was not that bad… right? right???

Finally, I danced with for me the best dancer of the event, she was called Pamela and she danced everything at top level and sooo soft and nice connection, anyway, only after talking with her for 10 minutes i discovered she is one of the closest couples to Korke & Judith and part of their school there in Barcelona.

Long story short, i met lot of people, 3 of them I didn’t know them but they were international teachers and found it in the most irreverent way possible, hopefully without hurting any ego.

Vibes

This is the main reason that the price tag is worth it. Not only the small groups make easier to connect with others, also you are in class with the same people all the time as no one is skipping classes and the few people there belong to that level so you are together the whole week. On the other hand, the bus travels add to this experience, in short, the best of the best international dancers of the sensual school meet in Cádiz for the best kind of workshops with the best teachers. If you like sensual even a little bit, this is a must, if you are able to spend the whole week in sunny Spain end of August(yeah, it’s as amazing as it sounds in your head).

Conclusion

So you may be wondering… is this festival for you? And well, to answer that you should ask yourself these questions: 

Do I have 600/700 € and a week of holidays to spare?

Do I pursue a fast improvement or becoming a dance teacher?

And most important Do I love dancing for what it is and want to be part of a very particular cult or is dancing just a commodity for doing other things like travelling, partying and meeting people?

Overall if the answer is yes I love dancing, this is the festival for you, because even if it has small details to improve, the most important thing is that everyone feels like you, everyone wants to get better, everyone is open to dance and there is no almost no ego, it’s hard to convey in words how this feel so… you should just experience it. But if you like to enjoy festivals alongside visiting, getting to know the city and everything else, this festival won’t let you have that , it will have you absorbed all the time between classes and parties and all so you’ve been warned!

This has been the review for the Sensual week Cadiz 2022, if you were there and think i missed on something or you are curious about going next year, feel free to leave me a comment in the post or my social media.

Until next time, thanks for reading and remember…

Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.

– Samuel Beckett