What is zouk? Origins, music and what makes the dance

When someone says "zouk", they can mean two things: music from the French Antilles or a partner dance from Brazil. At dance schools it is usually Brazilian zouk. In this article I put them side by side and answer the questions people ask most often.

What is zouk?

Zouk is first of all a music style from the French Antilles, mainly Guadeloupe and Martinique. Brazilian zouk is a partner dance that started out in Brazil to that music. The word "Brazilian" belongs to the dance, not the music: it makes the difference between the two clear.

Where does Antillean zouk come from?

From Guadeloupe and Martinique, in the late 1970s or early 1980s. There, the word zouk originally meant a dance party that went on all night. The band Kassav', founded in 1979 by musicians from Guadeloupe, is regarded as the founder of zouk as a genre. With a hit in 1984, zouk became an established music style. Sources differ on when it started: the French audiovisual archive INA gives 1974, other sources place the start with Kassav' around 1980.

Early zouk was fast, with lots of percussion and a powerful horn section. It blended Antillean styles such as gwo ka and Haitian konpa (compas) with funk and rock, in a studio sound with synthesisers and drum machines. Later the slower zouk love emerged. Zouk was also one of the styles from which kizomba developed in Angola.

Where does Brazilian zouk come from?

From lambada. Lambada music is associated with the state of Pará in northern Brazil. The dance took shape in Porto Seguro in Bahia, where the first lambaterias, dance halls for lambada, opened around 1988.

In 1989 the song "Lambada" by the group Kaoma became an international hit. It turned out to be an unauthorised adaptation of "Llorando se fue" by the Bolivian group Los Kjarkas, who won a court case over it. When lambada music went out of fashion, dancers carried on dancing to zouk from the French Antilles. Brazilian zouk grew out of that. Sources differ on the timing: the Brazilian Zouk Dance Council, a Brazilian zouk council, gives the early 1990s, while other sources say lambada music only disappeared after 1994.

There are also different stories about the place. The council names Rio de Janeiro as the birthplace; other accounts put more emphasis on Porto Seguro, where the dance stayed closer to lambada. A historical overview from 2023 by researchers at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro shows that the origins of the rhythm and the dance are still a matter of debate. According to the same council, the name Brazilian zouk was chosen by majority vote at a zouk congress in Belo Horizonte in 2006, and from 2007 Brazilian teachers started teaching abroad.

What music do you dance Brazilian zouk to?

Originally to Antillean zouk, now to much more: R&B, pop, hip-hop and other contemporary music. That the dance is not tied to one music style is one of the things that makes it distinctive.

What makes Brazilian zouk zouk?

The most recognisable element is the follow's upper-body movement, which is led outside their own axis. It comes with isolations, turns in which the body tilts and, in recent years, counterbalance techniques. The basics consist of small weight shifts, steps forward and back, and turns.

Precisely because the head and upper body are so involved, technique is not a side issue here. A good teacher builds up these movements step by step. Don't force anything, and say so if something doesn't feel right.

In zouk, too, what I call the contract between dance partners applies: you stick to the basic shape of music and dance, and within that shape there is room for whatever you want to do with the music. Step too far outside it, and it doesn't work. Leading and following are roles, not genders (see Lead, follow or switch).

What zouk styles are there?

Several styles exist side by side, and opinions differ on where the boundaries between them lie.

• Traditional or Rio style: linear or circular.
• Lambazouk (Porto Seguro style): closest to lambada, with continuous movement.
• Soulzouk: from Rio de Janeiro, in a closed embrace, with lead and follow creating the dance together.
• Zouk flow: from Rio de Janeiro, with influences from hip-hop.
• Neozouk: based on circular movements.
• Mzouk: created in Mallorca, which makes it one of the few styles from outside Brazil.

Is zouk hard to learn?

The first steps are manageable, but it takes time to make the body movements safe and smooth. As a beginner you mainly notice that you have to learn to let go and feel, especially as a follow. Choose a school that builds up the technique gradually. The first classes are also about getting used to rotating partners and to the closeness, and that closeness is never a free pass to cross boundaries.

Where do you dance zouk in the Netherlands?

In classes at dance schools that teach zouk, at zouk nights and at festivals and congresses with workshops. Go to a social first to see how people dance.

Find a school through the zouk schools on Discover. If it is your first time, read Your first dance class or What is a social?.

Sources

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Zouk: https://www.britannica.com/art/zouk
• INA (Institut national de l'audiovisuel), Danses sans visa: Seeing blue in the overseas territories, zouk and its history (FR3, 1987): https://fresques.ina.fr/danses-sans-visa-en/fiche-media/Dasavi00603/seeing-blue-in-the-overseas-territories-zouk-and-its-history.html
• Brazilian Zouk Dance Council, History of Brazilian Zouk Dance (origins, naming in 2006, spread from 2007): https://www.brazilianzoukcouncil.com/educational/history/origin-bzdc
• Ana Carolina Navarro, Isabela Buarque and Luciano Menegaldo, Tensions of the Historiographic Traces of Brazilian Zouk, Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença 13 (4), 2023: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/presenca/article/view/134784
• Wikipedia, Zouk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zouk
• Wikipedia, Kassav': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassav%27
• Wikipedia, Lambada (dance): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambada_(dance)
• Wikipedia, Llorando se fue (Kaoma and the Los Kjarkas court case): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llorando_se_fue
• Wikipedia, Brazilian Zouk (styles): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Zouk