Closing Out the Year — "Bachata Moments of 2022"

It was really just me impulsively sorting out things that had piled up in my head.

At the end of last year, when I wrote my first article on last year's bachata music trends and put up the YouTube video, I never expected I'd end up posting this many articles and videos. It was really just me sorting out things that had piled up in my head — on impulse, as a one-off.

<The very first article, written around this time last year>

The Story of 2021 Bachata Music

But the bachata world kept sending big wave after big wave, and as I kept riding them and shaking things out(;), it all stacked up to this much.

- This year, as living-with-COVID began, events and visiting dancers came one after another

- Following last year, bachata music once again took a huge leap this year, in directions and at speeds nobody predicted

- And Romeo Santos completed Formula Vol 3., the final installment of the Formula series.

Above all, undaunted by the pandemic season, the K-bachateros' bachata heat and level kept hitting new all-time highs day after day (the opposite of the actual stock market;). International dancers' events week after week, weekday socials programmed like clockwork every single day, all the new after-bars opening, dancing till sun-up…

The Latin scene's new normal, contrary to expectations, unfolded as a drama even more intense and vivid than before COVID. With everything from socials to events getting neatly systematized, K-style.

From those scenes, I want to gather up the K-bachata moments that stuck with me most, plus the key currents I heard in 2022's bachata music. Adieu to 2022 — the year we found dance again, and burned all the hotter for it~

K-Bachata's Stellar Moments

Latin Carnival, featuring DJ Khalid, DJ Alejandro + Abdel y Lety and Dario y Sara (June)

The Bachata Marathon — one of the most hyped, best-loved events of the before-COVID days! It came back with DJ Khalid and DJ Alejandro on the decks. Alejandro especially made so many followers smile with his dancing — as good as any pro dancer's — and his bursting-with-cuteness fan service.

An interview with DJ Alejandro

At the same time, though, this event also confirmed just how high-level and rich the bachata music you hear every day at Korean socials has become. Being with them was still lovely, but I didn't find myself losing my mind over their playlists like I used to. Because somewhere along the way, the music we hear at our own bars reached that level too…

The socials with Abdel y Lety and Dario y Sara were wonderful too. First time feeling like this since COVID……it was so good. The first big event after the living-with-COVID announcement. That moment of rediscovering, for the first time, the feeling of everyone gathering and playing late into the night — it was just the best.

Raquel's Solo Workshop (July)

With Pablo suddenly unable to come, Raquel had to carry the whole event alone. And so continued, once again, the curse of Nari-ssaem's events ^^;

But in the end, this turned out to be mega lucky for us — a huge stroke of fortune. It was our chance to enjoy, at full strength, the true depths of Raquel, who had been somewhat overshadowed by Pablo. I still remember the goosebump-inducing teaching from Raquel's very first Dominican class.

And by that point, if Raquel had started selling water purifiers, I would've bought one…. Her lady styling class that weekend — I'd dare to count it among the best classes of my entire life. It was a deep, vivid answer, in both body and words, to the most fundamental questions of how to dance.

<One of the best classes I've ever taken — Way of Dancing>

What I Learned from Raquel in 2022 — Way of Dancing

And the Frio demo that followed — I'd pick it as the best solo demo I saw all year. The unrivaled beauty of a bachata maestra. Next time, I hope she and Pablo come together and hit the very peak of partnerwork and musicality.

Cristian y Gabriella's One-Month-Stay Project (August)

The C&G one-month-stay project, organized by Yoni & Wongung-ssaem — the teachers who've long breathed the most authentically Spanish spirit into Korean bachata — was a gift of a time that properly, fully let us breathe again after the long dark COVID years.

By the end, Cristian seemed almost Koreanized — I can still picture him dancing with Korean followers so naturally, without an ounce of awkwardness. Having spent a good long stretch together, everyone got comfortable dancing with him without that foreign-dancer strangeness or pressure, and it just kept getting better and better. That's the power of time. The power of a one-month stay.

Cristian had filled out a bit, which felt unfamiliar at first — but once you danced with him, it was actually even better. Magic hehe. And that unchanging class of his.

And Gabriella… overwhelming presence, legs for days, flawless body control. She needs no little ornaments or styling. A scorching August spent healing with Gabriella, who embodied the sacred realm of absolute following in itself and left so many leaders breathless.

Honorary K-Bachata Citizen Alex Visits His Second Home (November)

Alex — who played such a big role in creating the inflection point of Korean sensual bachata that people literally say "Before Alex, After Alex" — visited Korea again for the first time since COVID. In a word, he just felt like a Korean teacher. That's how familiar he is hahaha

I'll let the razor-sharp top comments from Toy-ssaem and Gatsu-ssaem sum it up. It was so good to be with that Alex again. And so was relearning the principles of bachata from him.

"Alex took Korea's sensual bachata militia and turned it into an army. The one who properly taught us the principles and structure of bachata — honorary citizen of Korean bachata~~!" (Toy)"Soccer has Hiddink; bachata has Alex." (Gatsu)

Are the Kids Growing Up Okay~ Mom and Dad Come to Visit — Korke y Judith Tour (December)

For us bachata kids-at-heart, a visit from Pa and Ma is pure joy. Korke — the founder of sensual, the man who taught and raised virtually every world-class dancer — mingled and played with us in the most down-to-earth way. In class, though, he was a very strict teacher.

He stressed it again and again: never just copy — learn the principles. Patterns, he said, are simply forgotten by tomorrow…

Korke's fun-filled Saturday night~ 🥳🥳🥳

The lessons Korke y Judith taught me years ago finally seem to have met their moment, so I wrote them up. This is how our time gap keeps closing.

Sergio y Ana's Legendary Performance (December)

A beautiful, moving close to 2022. Sergio y Ana's 'Contra la Tormenta (V2)' — a performance many people count among their top 3 of all time, and for me, easily number one among all the bachata performances I've ever seen with my own eyes.

So many dancers this year came and went with only workshops, bootcamps, and socials — no shows — which made us all the thirstier, and this was the extra-special time that finally quenched that thirst for a proper performance. Here's hoping next year brings even more performances from amazing dancers.

But how do I even explain that the workshop content was just as wonderful? A concentrated barrage of learning, like indiscriminate artillery fire almost too much to handle. It demanded a seriously high level of body readiness, too. I'll write this one up separately later.

The bachata events I'm sad I missed

July's <Seoul Bachata Festival> — Marco y Sara (no explanation needed), Gero y Migle, and the core members of Grupo Esencia, all out in force. I couldn't make it, but I'm sure it was incredible. Getting to see Marco y Sara with your own eyes — game over right there.

And Gero's workshop… just from the demo, you could tell it must have been amazing.

My #1 most-regretted missed workshop of the year!! Gero's private workshop (3 hours), capped at something like 6 couples. Because it's Gero — the best dancer, the best teaching. How much better must the private have been? I'm still bummed, still drooling over it. (The sorrow of the partnerless, sob)

The BSBF Dani J concert I had to cancel entirely after testing positive for COVID the day before. Even just watching the videos, oh how jealous I was. And though it's not bachata — Franklin Diaz is the genre-transcending one & only~

There were also tours by Kiko y Christina (August), Jorge y Aroa (August), Truji y Gloria (October), and Cornel y Rithika (October). Plus Tom and Daniel, who came for the Jeju Festival (June). Every weekend burned hot with wonderful visiting dancers, and it made me happy.

But the overwhelming #1 most memorable moment of the year is… drumroll~~!!

Just the everyday socials, the every-week socials. After that long, suffocating tunnel of a time, midnight at the bar felt like a straight-up miracle. It took some adjusting at first, but without needing any fancy label like "new normal," we just whooshed~ right back to how things were before. The sun-ups and the heat at the after-bars too….

These were the 2022 K-bachata stellar moments — shining brightest together right as the darkness ended. 2023 is going to be even more fun, right?