We spent last weekend in Freiburg near the french border in southern Germany. After a long wait it was finally time for: BACHAROYALE! We had bought our party pass quite a few months ago and signed up for the Social Dance competition which was to take place in a complete new format. There was no jury. Everyone with a ticket was the jury and could vote for those who has signed up as a contestant. We arrived at my (Sarahs) Best friends place in Freiburg quite late, had some delicious food and some deep, long overdue chats. By the time we got ready, but our contestant badges on and arrived at the ..read more

Wow. Wow. Wow!! We were speechless after last weekends Bachata Congress in Vienna, Austria. It's taken a while to digest the event to be able to share our experience there with you :) Going to this Festival was my (Sarah) birthday present from Phil :) After finding out we were going and seeing that there was a Jack & Jill Social Dance Competition planned, we decided to sign up. Our first competition! An international one! After signing up we got the Email back, that Phil had been admitted as the last leader and that I was added to the waiting list, since the follower registrations were co ..read more

Dear Social Dancers, today I write to you with a plea. A plea to be kind to your fellow leaders and follows. A plea to respect your partners limits and to always treat your partner as if they were a truly valuable, precious and fragile artifact. Social Dancing is, for all of us, a chance to show what we've got going on. It's a possiblility to put our hard work on trial, to test, to try out and to see what we are truly capable of, when we don't know our partner inside out. However - it is sometimes forgotten, that social dance is an offering of trust. And in any life situation, offering trust c ..read more

If you weren't there last year and you weren't there this year... that's something you DEFINITELY need to change for next year!! Why? Because Pablo and Tiago are the most caring, sweet, lovable organisers and they go above and beyond, to fulfil their vision. We had never experienced this kind of hospitality before visiting Geneva last year and this year our favourite take away was this: it felt like FAMILY. This year was BIGGER, BETTER and simply unforgettable and we cannot wait for it to be topped again next year! (btw. no pressure guys ;) ) After getting up at 4 am to fly to a snowy Geneva o ..read more

The world is a scary place right now, but my goodness, Son Latino: this felt like a holiday in an untouched paradise - thank you!!! Theres always something super special and magical about festivals. Its like diving into a parallel universe, where everything is ok. It's just Music and Movement. Smiling and togetherness. Like-minded people and passion. Bachatation was no exception. In fact, it was probably one of the coolest festivals we've been to! The dancers. The vibe. The location. The inspiration. Insane! We travelled to Karlsruhe on Friday afternoon with a delay. (Its always like that righ ..read more

We were all packed up and ready to go. Excited to finally take classes with Cornel & Rithika from India and to finally take classes again with Luis & Andrea from Spain. I was waiting at home after a long day, waiting for Philipp to get back from work when I got the message: "Bachaakizzz might be cancelled, more information at 5:30 pm". My heart rate picked up, "what ?! why ?!". And so there we were, at 5:30 pm, sitting with one of our friends who was supposed to be carpooling to Stuttgart with us, as we got the message: "BachaaKizzz has been cancelled". We were shocked. Imran, Naida an ..read more

Dear Social Dancers, today I write to you with a plea. A plea to be kind to your fellow leaders and follows. A plea to respect your partners limits and to always treat your partner as if they were a truly valuable, precious and fragile artifact. Social Dancing is, for all of us, a chance to show what we've got going on. It's a possiblility to put our hard work on trial, to test, to try out and to see what we are truly capable of, when we don't know our partner inside out. However - it is sometimes forgotten, that social dance is an offering of trust. And in any life situation, offering trust c ..read more

Wow. There have rarely been weekends during which we have learnt so much as here!! We arrived in Bilbao and took a Taxi to our hotel located 20 mins away in Santurtzi. On arrival there we noticed that our hotel was actually a mini castle - super fun, we felt like in a fairytale! After checking in we went to have lunch in the town center (have you ever tried Iberico Ham with truffle-cheese croquettes?! *still drooling*). We also learnt that in Basque Country the language is quite different to “normal” Spanish or even Catalan. Having arrived back at the hotel, we got ready for our first lesson w ..read more

If you weren't there last year and you weren't there this year... that's something you DEFINITELY need to change for next year!! Why? Because Pablo and Tiago are the most caring, sweet, lovable organisers and they go above and beyond, to fulfil their vision. We had never experienced this kind of hospitality before visiting Geneva last year and this year our favourite take away was this: it felt like FAMILY. This year was BIGGER, BETTER and simply unforgettable and we cannot wait for it to be topped again next year! (btw. no pressure guys ;) ) After getting up at 4 am to fly to a snowy Geneva o ..read more

The world is a scary place right now, but my goodness, Son Latino: this felt like a holiday in an untouched paradise - thank you!!! Theres always something super special and magical about festivals. Its like diving into a parallel universe, where everything is ok. It's just Music and Movement. Smiling and togetherness. Like-minded people and passion. Bachatation was no exception. In fact, it was probably one of the coolest festivals we've been to! The dancers. The vibe. The location. The inspiration. Insane! We travelled to Karlsruhe on Friday afternoon with a delay. (Its always like that righ ..read more