Kizomba and Semba Classes in Toronto

Starting in April 2014, one of Toronto's biggest social dance schools offering kizomba and semba classes, is introducing a restructured kizomba/semba program. Specializing in traditional (Angolan style) kizomba, the new program gradually introduces semba alongside kizomba, in a way of tackling the perception that many new kizombeiros in Toronto have: that semba is too hard to try!

Albena de Assis, a native of Angola and director and creator of the curriculum at AfroLatino Dance Company, explains the rationale behind the new structure. "Over the last year or so, I've noticed how, despite the fact that kizomba dancers in Toronto were achieving higher dance skills, the vast majority of them were too fearful of starting to tackle semba." "I loooove semba, but it's too hard, I'll start learning it in a few years from now" was often expressed in conversations with many notables in the kizomba scene. "So I've decided to start introducing it slowly in the existing kizomba program, as a way of showing to new students that it is an attainable dance".

The new program integrates both styles in the same curriculum, because that's how those dances present themselves in Angola. Kizomba is really the same dance as semba in terms of basic steps, but with different pace, feel, and approach.