A small festival with big ideas

Almost every festival I have reviewed is a big festival, this is because I think there is a bigger interest surrounding them for the readers. Starting in 2025, you can expect a review for every festival I attend, doesn’t matter big or small. So why review this festival then?

This festival was so good, I was in shock for a week. Met some of the most beautiful people here and their values and mindset alligns with Felipe & Tiago, the organizers and kings of role rotation.

For those who were living under a rock and don’t know what rolerotation is, I invite them to check the official website and their creators Felipe & Tiago. Basically they created a way of dancing where instead of keeping the role of leader/follower in the same song for the full duration, you can switch the role within the same dance.

Having said that, let’s jump right into it! My name is César and this is my dance advisor review of the Bachaturo 2024 festival.

Don’t like reading too much? click here to skip to the conclusions.

My take on the festival

To know what are the scoring criteria for a festival and what’s my particular take when I go to festivals, click here.

So Role Rotation in Madrid, sometimes it feels like it’s a exclusive club, mainly because it attracts LGTB people due to the dual nature of Role Rotation. And I will admit this is something that deterred me from going to local parties in Madrid because they were more local gatherings for meeting other LGTB people than to dance, and I’m not LGTB(yet). But let’s get this out of the way, this festival is not like that. Of course like in any other festival there is attraction and connection to be created and enjoyed but the focus of Felipe & Tiago is about the freedom in dance as a leader or a follower and people going to this festival understand this.

Some people will think this festival is not for them because they don’t enjoy role rotation. I’m not a huge advocate for role rotating, I feel it’s another path that takes you to the same place but I do it because I like it. In any case, I understand not doing it and I am not a role rotator crusader. In Terra Livre, you don’t need to rotate at all. You can be a leader or a follower all night and that will not be an issue in this festival.

So my questions coming to the festival were: are there good role rotators besides felipe & tiago and fiorella & Linda? Am I going to enjoy the festival as much as a normal one? Will I finally get some styling to add to my follower role?

Djs & Lineup

Workshops

The lineup for me is quite interesting because it’s role rotation but it’s clear the size of this festival is much smaller than what I’m used to. No big names on the flyer besides Ofir & Ofri and Felipe & Tiago and arguably we could say they are not «Tier 1 artists» yet, so the lineup really was filled with local talent. This is not a bad thing as I strongly believe you will learn a lot more in small classes with dedicated teacher than in huge workshops where the best teacher won’t see you once. I took some role rotation class with F&T and Fiorella&Linda which I strongly recommend to get the basics of how to role rotate and start this journey if you are interested. I also took a spicy workshop with Natalie Walls of what people usually call «Lady styling». It was very feminine and totally outside of my comfort zone but I think it was very useful in starting my styling journey and on how i want to look dancing. Her energy and vibe were so good, they inspired me to not drop the class in the middle, and a long time since I had that much fun in a workshop. Must go if you see her in your local event!

DJs

As far as I remember, I think there was only one DJ the whole night, Dj Dennis from Germany which was quite amazing, all songs were on point and the stamina to cover 6+ hours of music is crazy! Also, here comes one of the main differences of this festival. It is not ONLY bachata. It is a SBK festival and this is really important to me because I dance SBKz, so I prefer a SBK night over a bachata night always. It lets me change my energy and vibe every few songs and not get bored with the same movements so if you just dance bachata, you will rest around 40% of the time. If you dance all 3 you are going to have a blast!

8/10

Location

The location is probably the worst part of this festival for a foreign person but in Madrid it’s what you have to do to get a good venue.

The venue is one hour and a half away at least from the airport by car. It’s a huge trip and probably the best would be to get into the whatsapp and organize a cab or something similar because I don’t know how to get there in public transport, nor google Maps know about it:

So your best bet is renting a car or carpooling to get over there, using the whatsapp group of the event should be easy to find people to go but it is a hassle. Update: I was told there is a train to go to madrid, then go to the airport, still it should be one the 2 hours and a half side so prepare for that. The location is a big village but with no real turistic value that I know of. Just enjoy the festival.

If you happen to live in Madrid and have a car, the location would be 8/10 but for everyone else…

6/10

Venue

On one hand the location is terrible, but on the other hand, the venue makes it totally worth it. I have been to hundreds of festival, this is the first time, the main parties of the festival are celebrated in an open-air area. There is a chiringuito in the middle of the resort with good floor and no walls, so in June it’s just a pleasure to dance the whole night and have a cool natural breeze to stop any sweating consequence of non-stop dancing.

In my opinion, this venue is a big part of creating what we are going to talk about next, a cozy, tropical and fun vibe that makes everyone come closer and connect.

It is not a very big venue so I don’t see Terra Livre becoming much bigger anytime soon but it is a lovely location that i hope they won’t change!

9.5/10

Vibes

Felipe & Tiago are hard workers, and have always fought against the stigma of being two male dancers dancing together. Unfortunately, even today and even if we are living in a world where gender equality is taking over every aspect on our life, in dancing it’s been a little bit slower. This activism and staying truth to their values and being opinionated about who they are and who they support, has brought together an amazing community around them. I always say this. A festival will be a reflection of its organizers. The organizers decide which artists to bring and the artists bring people who like them. The reflection of Felipe & Tiago is: «Dancing is fun and dancing is for everyone to enjoy with anyone they want to». This reflection translates onto the dancefloor in something really hard to convey in words. People are engaged, present in the dance and having fun while dancing with you. Role rotating i think also takes a lot of pressure off of so dancers, as they don’t feel so compelled to «be a good dancer» which is something i see a lot of people struggle with. A mindset of «I’m not a good enough dancer to dance with this person» affects how you present yourself in the dance. As role rotation is quite young, a vast majority only masters one role so when they see me follow like a beginner I see all this pressure people put on themselves dissipating.

10/10

Organization

The organization of the festival is good. I’m missing a lot the day socials, dunno why they don’t do it yet. The Jack & Jill was not for open participation and I think that’s a huge miss as well. Anyone should be able to join in(amateur category at least). I’m missing also more support for people to get to the event and exploiting even further the fact they are such a close community but Felipe & Tiago are doing their best, running everywhere to get everything done but also dancing until the end of the night. I’m sure it will get better over time.

8/10

Price

I paid 70€ for a full pass. This is a really good deal but run for the hotel rooms as they are the most convenient and they run out quickly, you could spend a lot of money looking for accomodation and getting to the event.

10/10

Dance level

Not that many people, so the amount of really outstanding dancers is not comparable to say, bachaturo, but some of the best dancers in the world were here. I want to highlight just a few of them from this festival:

Pedro from Filipa y Pedro. Dances everything always with a smile and always happy to share.

Catarina Martins. My dance highlight of the weekend. One of the softest follows around the world, hands down. Salsa, bachata, kizomba, zouk, you name it, she got it.

Avocado. Crazy as leader and follower, and an all-around good person to have around.

Ofri from Ofir and Ofri, she is just the perfect social dancer artist. Present in the dance, makes you feel like you are the last person in the world, happy, creative, she got it all.

The average level was not that high but these dancers among some other made me had a blast on the weekend.

9/10

Conclusion

The best level of Europe and the best venue for a big festival… This is one of the must stop of the year for bachateros. Is the Mecca of Bachata. It is that good. It is not perfect by any means, mainly needs to work on the DJs and the afternoon parties but you need to visit once. It is a huge festival so either you adapt or you wont like it either. A lot of great dancers usually prefer smaller festivals because you don’t get overwhelmed by so many people and stimuli and the vibe usually is cozier and better. It’s like choosing between having a coffee between your 3 best friends with an intimate conversation of go have the same coffe but with 25 people. Both plans could be great but maybe you are not in the mood for one of them. If you enjoy big festivals, you need to go to this one, though.

My advice if you seek one, is that you go with no expectations. Don’t think that you are going to dance with Gero(artist) or your favorite social dancer that you know of previous events. If you really wanna do that you probably will need to send them a DM to schedule a place and time to meet. Otherwise, just enjoy whatever comes through you. The level is crazy, you will have a good dance 95% of the time so just enjoy the night and see you in the afterparty!!

The final score for this festival is 9/10.

This has been the review for Bachaturo 2024, 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,

César.