What made you decide that organising Kizomba festivals was your next step?
My students in Estonia are the main reason and the community we are working on hard to build. Many of them have families or simply can’t travel much so they might never visit a festival and truly experience this unique atmosphere or learn from another teacher, so we brought the festival to them.
How do you determine which artists, performers and DJs you invite?
The goal is to bring someone new, every year, so the community can see a different approach of teaching, dancing, DJing. The choice we make is based on the quality of that persons work which, i of course, first see and experience, personally and also ask other students & organizers who worked with them. Their knowledge, pedagogy, are they social on the parties, how many people i believe they can inspire in the best possible way, all these are important aspect every quality teacher should have.
What are the biggest challenges you face each year?
Like every year it’s the sales of course, as the massive growth of festival numbers have affected the market drastically. Even with that being said, for a small country we still manage to have great number and atmosphere so we are very proud of that.
What would you say has been some of the highlights so far?
For me personally, it’s the last years concert with Grace Evora. It was a dream come true to have such a legend on iKIZ to sing live the songs we usually only hear and dance to through our computers, and the moment where i was looking at him beside me singing and then looking left at a full dance floor and seeing so many people smiling. This moment will stay with me forever.
What does the future hold for IKIZ festival ?
Every year we try to create something new and interesting for our audience, but the core will always remain the same, which is sharing the true essence of the Kizomba culture which is joy, quality workshops, quality music and food, and many friends from around the world to share all this with.
This year we got also Don Kikas live concert, so my “highlights so far” will upgrade very soon….watch this space!! ?