Meet our instructors

Joanna Zwierzyńska is a dancer, dance instructor, choreographer, and actress. She has taught dance in over 30 countries, and has been teaching, performing, and dancing her heart out at international Braziliain Zouk festivals for over 10 years. She is a certified judge of the Brazilian Zouk Dance Council.

She studied at Iwanson International School of Contemporary Dance in Munich and was certified as a dance instructor by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland. In 2011, she pioneered Brazilian Zouk in Poland. In 2012, she was a finalist of Polish edition of So You Think You Can Dance television show, and this achievement popularised Brazilian Zouk in Poland and significantly expanded the Polish zouk scene.

She has taught zouk together with Pasty, Kamacho, and William dos Santos, and in recent years found success and immense pride in teaching popular solo follower classes at international festivals, attracting zoukers wanting to learn her unique and expressive style of dancing in order to enhance their partner dancing.

Joanna is the Founder of The Empowered Dancers (ted) platform. She was born in Warsaw, Poland, and currently resides in London, United Kingdom.

Alexandra Łabędź has been training various sports and dance for her whole life. Sports-wise, she is a personal trainer and has won many crossfit competitions, and in 2016 achieved World Champion status in Kettlebell Lifting.

Dance-wise, she is the founder of mo.forDancers studio, where her clients are some of Poland’s top professional dancers. In 2018, she coached a local Polish dance troupe, East Side Dance Academy (founded by Magda Zwierzynska), leading them to win local, regional, and world championship at competitions organised by the International Dance Organisation (IDO). Through her own competitive background and working with professional junior and adult dancers, she has developed a tried and tested method to train dancers to bullet-proof their bodies for long and grueling performance schedules, and to dance and train with longevity in mind.

Renato Veronezi is best known as the creator of Urban Zouk is an international icon in both Brazilian Zouk and Brazilian Ballroom communities.

His dance career started when he was 18 years old at the famous Jaime Arôxa Dance Academy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He first rose to international fame in 2009 when he pioneered Urban Zouk, also known as Vero Zouk, a style which fused zouk with urban dance, which was especially popular in the UK, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, and the USA. A year later, he established his own dance company in Sao Paolo, Brazil. As company director, he nurtured and taught over 10 international teachers and dancers who have been performing and teaching world over.

In 2017, he spent one year in London, UK, to create an Urban Zouk community together with Pedrinho and Linda Mattos. He then moved to Warsaw, Poland, where he has been promoting Brazilian Zouk and the Urban Zouk style together with his dance partner and wife Bea Veronezi ever since. The couple travels often and can often be found at international dance events promoting and teaching his style.

William Dos Santos is a dancer, teacher, and choreographer specialising in Contemporary, Hip Hop, Samba de Gafieira, Brazilian Zouk, and various other latin dances. He is also a fire performer, personal trainer, and competitor of MMA and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

His formal dance training started at age 8 at the famous Jaime Arôxa Dance Academy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he graduated at age 18. When he was 20 years old, he moved to Prague in Czech Republic, where he taught various dance styles with Carlos da Silva and Sofie Toris.

In 2011, he moved to St Petersburg in Russia, where he founded the Latina Corpo Carioca school, teaching Contemporary, Samba de Gafieira, Brazilian Zouk and Cuban salsa. He was also an organiser of Brazilian Zouk and Samba de Gafieira international congresses Corpo Carioca Zouk International Congress.

William has been a part of many dance companies that have toured around the world, including Cia Dom in Brazil, the Brasil Show in Czech Republic, and Brazouka which toured in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. Performing and teaching dance has taken him to over 15 countries, as well as appearances on national television in Brazil, Czech Republic, Spain, and Russia. William was dance partners and taught with Natasha Terekhina for two years. He is now dance partners with Joanna Zwierzynska and they teach together at international Zouk festivals and congresses. William currently resides in Salou, Spain.

Piotr Franczak is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, and member of Warsaw Funk Association. He’s been teaching beginner to advanced level Hip Hop to teenagers and adults since 2014. When not teaching, he loves to travel around Europe to deepen his dance knowledge by attending workshops taught by world experts in styles such as Lite Feet, House, Popping, Modern, and of course Hip Hop. He also enjoys dance jams and taking part in dance battles and competitions.

His main goal as a teacher is to share his knowledge of movement, breaking technique down into fundamental components which anyone can understand, and then absorbing and adapting those components into our own dance for improvisation and a sense of freedom. To him, building a freestyle dance is like building a house – we just need to understand the building blocks and the tools, and with some creativity, everyone can create unique and extraordinary things.

Gosia Jaroń is a certified yoga teacher, a life-long volunteer, and a passionate activist of social justice. Her yoga classes are Vinyasa’ and Hatha-inspired, with some unusual transitions thrown in to enhance breathing with your movement. She believes that yoga is for everyone and so aspires to make her yoga classes as accessible as possible for everyone.

Freddy and Andressa are famous Brazilian Zouk teachers Worldwide and in Europe. They have studied and taught dance in Rio de Janeiro at Núcleo de Dança which is one of the most respected Zouk schools in the world. It’s founded by Brazilian Zouk creator Renata Peçanha.

They are also trained in other styles like Jazz, Ballet and Contemporary. They worked as ballet dancers for Walt Disney World in Brazil dancing in Disney Parades in cities across Brazil. Their methodology of teaching is very clear and well structured which makes learning from them so enjoyable.

In 2010 they moved to Europe to spread their love for the dance in many European countries. Next, they successfully built a Zouk community in Moscow over 2 years. After that they moved to Finland where they founded the Helsinki Dance Central Academy where they are currently based.

They are organisers of the biggest Zouk festival in Scandinavia – The Helsinki Zouk Festival that gathers hundreds of Zouk dancers each year. They are champions of many Zouk Championships and they are also judges of several Zouk Championships and Jack & Jill Competitions around the world