I know, it was already a long time ago, but pretty much as there were many things going in my life, I was not able to talk to you about my wereabouts during the SBK Congress where for a third time, I gave a Rueda de Casino workshop and for the first time, I performed as a fire dancer. So, let me get straight into the info:
As I told you in a previous post, from the 24th to the 27th of April, we had another edition of the Salsa, Bachata and Kizomba SBK congress in Puerto Vallarta lead by my friends Chelo and Mau Peya. This time, their idea was to pay tribute to the four elements and mention the fifth element as being the dancer, a very interesting concept. As I have been training fire dance this year, I offered a fire dance show to Chelo for the opening ceremony and they gladly accepted. So this time, I was going to be a Cuban Salsa teacher, a volunteer and moreso, a fire dance performer for the first time.
The opening ceremony was the Thursday the 24th at an eco park called Kawitu. There with my fire dance team: Gaby, Eric, Alondra and Isela, we did a nice fire performance that you can check in this video:
The rest of the night at Kawitu was very cool. I danced with some friends I haven’t seen for a long time.
The next day as I was helping in the check-in process, a Canadian girl called Angela came and waved me. Previously, I was introduced to her one month ago at the Cloud 9 by Victoria, a Portuguese girl I know. At first, I didn’t recognize her but as usual I carried on with the talk. She told me that she was there for the congress, but she might need a place to stay for the last 2 days of the congress and I offered La Maison du Tango. This story will become important in the next blog.
The day turned very exhausting. Besides the workshops, I ended up giving a Zumba class with Violeta for some unrelated guests and I took some cool workshops with famous dancers such as Mystica, a Kizomba dancer and Tiktoker. In the night, the party’s theme was pirates, so I used my old Captain pirate costume and danced with many friends such as Sara, Rachael and this girl Angela.
On the second day, and with the help of my friend and dance teacher Lilly Alcantara, I gave a beginners Rueda de Casino class which was according to many, one of the funniest workshop were they learned a lot. By the way Angela took my workshop and later invited me to partner with her for the advanced dance lifts workshop. So although I was very tired after so many activities, I joined this 2 hour workshop and I prooved not to be that bad. At the end of the night, there was the last social night themed blue and mermaid. (I was not able to get on time a merman t-shirt so I just went in blue.
The last day of the Vallarta SBK was another relaxing day trip to Kawitu but my body was already too tired to go, that an other stories that I might tell you in another blog.
Save May 2026 for another edition of Vallarta SBK.
Israel Andalón 
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