Claudia Vries

Claudia is a UKA–qualified dance teacher and is qualified to train LambaZouk and Kizomba teachers. She is also a Fitness-, Aerobic and Zumba instructor.

Claudia was born in Surinam, South America and is one of the Brazilian Zouk (in Rio it was called ‘Zouk’ by that time) pioneers (1997), together with Claudio Gomes, in Holland.
In 2005 she also introduced the LambaZouk Porto Seguro style in Holland, together with Braz dos Santos (one of the lead dancers of Kaoma). Nowadays these dance styles (both have their roots in the Lambada dance) have grown to the most popular Brazilian dance styles in the Netherlands and in the world.
Claudia was the first female Brazilian Zouk/LambaZouk teacher/dancer who started leading/dancing this dance as a ‘Leader’ in Holland.

Having one of the biggest Brazilian dancing schools named ‘BRASAZOUK’ in Amsterdam where all the popular Brazilian dances are being taught (like: LambaZouk (Brazilian Zouk), Samba the Gafieira, Samba the Pagode, Samba no pé (Samba solo), Axé, Forró, and also other dances like Kizomba, Reggaeton, and fitness related lessons as the Gladiator-workouts and Zumba), she is also the owner of Brasa Dance Studios, where she rents out dance studios to other dance schools and dancers.

In 2004 Claudia started organizing the first Brazilian Dance Congresses & Brazilian Zouk / Lambada Dance Competitions in Amsterdam, to promote the Brazilian dances in Holland, and continued organizing this very popular event every year until 2010.
As an experienced teacher and dancer she has performed in numerous national and international events (World Salsa Congresses in Puerto Rico, Valencia, New York and Montreal, Dança the Encontro in Rio the Janeiro and the Brazilian Dance Congresses in Porto Seguro, Barcelona, Paramaribo and Bremen). Moreover, she appeared a few times on Television and worked together with famous (Brazilian) musicians like Gil Semedo, Irmãos Verdades and Grupo Revelação.

As a teacher and choreographer, Claudia’s courses and shows are very powerful, stirring and full of energy. Despite all that power she cares insightfully and patiently about every participant during lessons, always having a creative and kind of metaphorical way of teaching, which helps everyone to put the shown movements into practice. The male and female participants also get a lot of recommendations regarding the correct execution of the movements and the easiest way of how to lead and follow a dance partner.

Claudia’s goal is to continue to make the LambaZouk dance bigger in Holland and abroad, by also offering teachers training courses in LambaZouk.