Nestor De La Zerda

Nestor was born in Bolivia, surrounded by music and dance. The best memories of his childhood are when all the family, extended family, and neighbors gather early in the morning to prepare for special celebrations like New Year's Eve.

There was music, singing, dancing, and a lot of cooking in the house. People played adult games in the garden under the apple trees, while kids ran around and played.

The music band would arrive at 7 pm, with more neighbors and family members joining. Then the dancing would start. Late at night, when Nestor's father and mother stepped onto the dance floor, the room fell silent, and people parted to watch this amazing couple do the Tango dance together.

Whenever Nestor dances, he feels closer to his roots, culture, and ancestors. Every time he sees some of his students dancing and smiling, he feels a priceless joy to have shared a piece of his heart and love for dancing with them.

At 18 years of age, he followed his heart and left Bolivia for Rio, Brazil, after being seduced by the Samba beat and a girl. She was the best Samba dancer from the #1 samba school in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He spent lots of time dancing and practicing Samba there. After the carnival celebrations in Rio, he left to travel around the world, visiting South America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, where he entered numerous competitions in many big cities. Eventually, he established himself in Sweden, where he got married and had three beautiful children.

When he was young, Nestor loved to dance. When he danced, he felt like he was possessed by this wild beast from the jungle in his natural habitat. It was useless to try to contain this energy; he felt like a bursting volcano, and all people could do was stand back and watch.

Later in life, he learned about the importance of counting the beats, but he admits that while passionate bursts of energy felt better than those well-rehearsed, clean-lined, choreographed routines of today.

One day, Nestor dreamed that those bursts of passionate energy were burning flames of love, inviting people to burn in his secret fire of love, and that energy would touch people's hearts, like seeds planted in their hearts, which would one day grow and multiply into millions of seeds and fruits.

Nestor is convinced that if the whole world were engaged in any kind of dance, there would be peace on earth! Because dancing inspires love, and love inspires you to dance, so love and peace would flourish.