The zouk music, originally from Martinique and Guadeloupe Islands, has also its particular dance called ZOUK DANCE. It has its roots in compas music from Haiti. Zouk means "party" or "festival" in the local creole of French  influences. This dance, born in the 80's, has its origins from the traditionnal dances from Martinique and Guadeloupe: cadence, biguine et mazurka. The Zouk dance is an evolution of those dances.

In the 70's, the word "ZOUK" also designated a dance party where people used to get together to dance various traditionnal dance styles.

 

  

   The zouk dance is a partnering dance based on steps and hips moves, ondulations or circles to turn, to move forward or to move back.

There is 2 different ways to dance Zouk: the rythmic Zouk when the music is more dynamic (like 80's style music:KASSAV) or the Zouk love when the music is on a slow tempo and the moves slower (very popular nowadays with any zouk love musics)

 

  

   The Zouk became popular and many Zouk parties and zouk classes emerged to learn how to move on this beautiful music.

In New-York city,you can learn this style at "Franck's salsa and zouk" parties, where the real traditionnal zouk dance from Martinique and Guadeloupe is presented to you.

This video from those parties will introduce you to the zouk dance feeling: