Saturday Workshops: Kresge A
Always wanted to choreograph a piece, but never felt like you had the time? Had an awesome idea for that one song, but couldn't put the moves to music? Amanda and Chris are here to take your choreo from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds flat! Okay, probably more than 5 seconds, but faster than you think. We'll start from song choice and leave you with a frame for the future. Though this is an All Levels class, we recommend that you've been dancing at least a few months, since blues technique will not be specifically covered.
Please note, this class is 2 class periods
The second half of The Fast and the Curious. See the previous block for a description.
Please see the competition page for further details
Please see the competition page for further details
Chris is known in the Blues and Swing dance community for his musicality, creativity, and fun-loving spirit. A self-proclaimed Lindy Hop addict until he found Blues in 2006, Chris was drawn into dancing by its unique freedom of expression.
Sunday Workshops: Kresge A
Inspired by early slow jazz dancers, we'll add some melt, shape, and drape into your ballroomin' blues. Power into dramatic drags and add some burst to your turns. This style impresses partners and viewers alike.
There’s a lot of blues music out there that was created as dance music, but is difficult for the current community to dance to - specifically piedmont, country, and delta blues. This class will explore mental and physical tools to address particular elements of difficulty in these genres.
Lag is many things--an essential ingredient of blues dancing, a way we interact with the beat as dancers, and a way followers interact with leaders. In this class, we'll explore the technique and artistry behind partnered lag--the lag between leaders and followers--how & why followers can create it and use it in a dance, and ways leaders can react to it and use it to shape their side of the dance.
Sand isn’t a specific dance, but rather a way of moving legs and feet. It’s challenging, but also really damn cool. This class is all about the nitty-gritty technique and mechanics to make it look effortless, plus a few fancy footwork ideas to take home.
Ruth skipped into her first dance class more than 25 years ago, and has since been dancing as many styles as she can get her feet on.
Ruth’s 15+ years as a dance instructor have taken her on teaching adventures across the US, Canada, Europe and Southeast Asia. She has continually developed both her teaching and her dancing skills. Ruth is known for her ability to craft explanations that fit students’ learning styles. She brings a vibrant mixture of deep technical knowledge, passion for movement, and silly fun that students can’t help but connect with.
In addition to training in blues, lindy, Argentine tango, modern, ballet and many other dance forms, Ruth is certified in Franklin Method, an increasingly popular body somatics method. She has a long-standing love affair with close-embrace connection, has sneakily swung out in the Louvre, and is curating a fine collection of fishtail variations.
Mike Grosser is one of the most recognized names in the Blues dance community. Mike is a top level instructor, dancer, choreographer, performer, and mentor. He has not only won respected blues competitions but also thrown down hard in unofficial late night dance-offs. Mike is a founding member and choreographer of the B Sides, which is the first and currently only ongoing professional blues performance group. Students across continents rave about Mike’s insights, personality, and breadth and depth of knowledge.
As an instructor, Mike strives to put himself in his students’ shoes so that he can relate material as intuitively and thoroughly as possible. He loves seeing students’ eyes light up when they understand a concept or feel a movement work naturally in their body for the first time.
Mike lives and breathes dance. He is constantly honing his skills and developing new ideas. If you run into him at grocery store, on public transit, in a museum, or on a mountain top, you’ll probably catch him dancing.
Laney is a blues dance instructor, organizer, and DJ. She has been dancing Lindy Hop and blues for over 10 years, with some dabbling in tango and hip hop. She also loves lifting heavy things – it has given her confidence, better quality of movement, and has completely changed her dancing. She loves shaking her booty to any genre of music that encourages it. As a teacher, her goals are to integrate a little history and a little musicality into every lesson.
Awards:
1st place – Open JnJ at bluesSHOUT! 2015, JnJ at Blues Muse 2015, Strictly at Winter Blues 2014
Finals – JnJ & solo comp at Enter the Blues, Jill & JnJ at Blues Muse, JnJ at Winter Blues, Solo Comp at Nocturne Blues 2014
Julie’s expressive dancing and dynamic connection are known throughout the blues dancing world. With a background in theatre and solo dance, and an undying desire for continued learning, she is best known for her solo movement, choreography, aesthetics, and killer follower expression.
A hard-working competitor, Julie has won many national competitions, including Blues Muse 2017 Follower Invitational, North Star Blues 2017 Invitational Cuttin’, bluesSHOUT! 2017 All Star Jack & Jill, and more.
As a teacher, Julie is clear, thoughtful, and earnest. From advanced Struttin’ variations to beginner-friendly intros to lead-follow dynamics, Julie carefully crafts her classes and tailors her material to fit the crowd at hand. Julie has taught blues dancing in San Francisco, Seoul, Austin, Boston, London, Chicago, Zurich, and many places in between. She also teaches regularly in her home-base of Boston. For dance videos, pictures, and more info, check out https://dancewithjulie.wordpress.com.
Mike's true loves in life are teaching, dancing, following, and music. There's no order, because for her, these things are intrinsically linked. In addition to national events like Lindy Focus and Enter the Blues, Mike has taught at countless regional events in Lindy, Blues, and Balboa, as well as traveling all over the country to teach and perform. She performed in an all-girls Charleston troupe at Camp Jitterbug's Jump Session Show in 2007, and in the all-girl blues troupe, the Hoodoo Ladies, at events from DC to BluesShout in St. Louis. Additionally, she has taught at events ranging from one-month artists residencies to international training camps.
Mike combines an intuitive understanding of connection with an analytical speaking style to give her students technique, but also strives to challenge and inspire her students to push themselves further into the music. She aims to help leaders create artistic compositions that are clearly led; she wants follows to have the ability to be a completely literal follow, and the inspiration and freedom to be an imaginative and dynamic contributor. In the classroom or on the social floor, she seeks a connection that involves active communication from both partners, to make a dance together.
Dan Legenthal lives in Boston, MA, working on as many vernacular jazz and blues dances as he can. His passion extends to both the social floor and competition. When not competing, he teaches at events like Korea Blues Camp (South Korea), Hot Blues In Toulouse (France), and The Blues Experiment (USA).
Drawing from his degree in Classical Guitar, Dan has unique insight into how to practice and develop one’s skills, and uses that knowledge to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment. Since dance is experiential, Dan likes to prioritize doing, and treats learning like a sequence of experiments where you can learn as much from failures as from success. This philosophy is anchored on clear, precise language, and a belief that every student is capable of developing their own skill by patient, intentional practice.
Saturday Workshops: Room 201
Combine fabulous spinal action with diagonal footwork patterns in this challenging and dynamic dance. Warning: this dance is highly addictive - you may find yourself wanting to sway the night away.
Stretch and momentum can easily be oversimplified, but truly advanced dancers know that the timing and precision of great mechanics can be overwhelming sometimes. We’re here to help!
Take your Ballroomin’ Blues game up a notch as we delve into Strut and Stride. These two idiom dances have distinct music and characters. For each dance, we will explore the movement technique, lead and follow dynamics, and personal expression.
We’re going to give you a collection of solo moves, but we’re giving you super-specific (and hopefully super-cool) versions, to challenge you mentally and physically!
Sunday Workshops: Room 201
This choreography will encourage us to embody the suave confidence that Nina expresses in her unapologetically sensual single "Buck".
How do you build and perform a character that is realistic and authentic? How do you act without seeming like you're "acting"? How can your character integrate with your dance, instead of taking away from it? This class will explore those questions, in a blues dance performance context.
If you are choreographing for a group of dancers, how do you play to their strengths and their skill levels? How much do you strive for uniformity vs. differences? When creating a duet, either partnered or solo, how can you give each dancer their own distinct voice within the dance? How do you create polish while embracing individuality? We love this topic and will share our best thoughts and practices with you.
Line Dancing is no longer limited to Country Music but has evolved with dance and technology as a mainstream social dance in its own communities and in the Club scene. Lady B, from New England Soul Line Dance Network, will teach one or more line dances during this class.
Ruth skipped into her first dance class more than 25 years ago, and has since been dancing as many styles as she can get her feet on.
Ruth’s 15+ years as a dance instructor have taken her on teaching adventures across the US, Canada, Europe and Southeast Asia. She has continually developed both her teaching and her dancing skills. Ruth is known for her ability to craft explanations that fit students’ learning styles. She brings a vibrant mixture of deep technical knowledge, passion for movement, and silly fun that students can’t help but connect with.
In addition to training in blues, lindy, Argentine tango, modern, ballet and many other dance forms, Ruth is certified in Franklin Method, an increasingly popular body somatics method. She has a long-standing love affair with close-embrace connection, has sneakily swung out in the Louvre, and is curating a fine collection of fishtail variations.
Julie’s expressive dancing and dynamic connection are known throughout the blues dancing world. With a background in theatre and solo dance, and an undying desire for continued learning, she is best known for her solo movement, choreography, aesthetics, and killer follower expression.
A hard-working competitor, Julie has won many national competitions, including Blues Muse 2017 Follower Invitational, North Star Blues 2017 Invitational Cuttin’, bluesSHOUT! 2017 All Star Jack & Jill, and more.
As a teacher, Julie is clear, thoughtful, and earnest. From advanced Struttin’ variations to beginner-friendly intros to lead-follow dynamics, Julie carefully crafts her classes and tailors her material to fit the crowd at hand. Julie has taught blues dancing in San Francisco, Seoul, Austin, Boston, London, Chicago, Zurich, and many places in between. She also teaches regularly in her home-base of Boston. For dance videos, pictures, and more info, check out https://dancewithjulie.wordpress.com.
New England Soul Line Dancers Class Coordinator. Specialty -Intermediate, Beg Advance, Line Fitness. DJ for INTHEZONE/Soul Sats.
Saturday Workshops: Room 407
You may have wondered, what exactly is blues dance? Well, we’re going to boil it down for you. Expect to come away from this class with a solid understanding (or refresher) of what makes blues dance unique as an art form, and the ability to strip down your dancing to the essentials. We’re headed back to basics, y’all, because we all need more of them.
Close embrace is an essential connection style for many blues dances, but can also be quite challenging. In this class, we’ll work on getting your close embrace feeling comfortable to you and your partner, leading & following clearly here, and exploring the variety that close embrace has to offer.
A whole weekend full of classes often gets us in our heads about the dancing - let’s get out of our heads and into the moment with our partner! We’ve got some surprising techniques to bring your social blues dancing up to level ten.
This class covers different turns and techniques for leading & following turns in blues dancing. After this class, your turns will come out more clear, comfortable, and confident!
Laney is a blues dance instructor, organizer, and DJ. She has been dancing Lindy Hop and blues for over 10 years, with some dabbling in tango and hip hop. She also loves lifting heavy things – it has given her confidence, better quality of movement, and has completely changed her dancing. She loves shaking her booty to any genre of music that encourages it. As a teacher, her goals are to integrate a little history and a little musicality into every lesson.
Awards:
1st place – Open JnJ at bluesSHOUT! 2015, JnJ at Blues Muse 2015, Strictly at Winter Blues 2014
Finals – JnJ & solo comp at Enter the Blues, Jill & JnJ at Blues Muse, JnJ at Winter Blues, Solo Comp at Nocturne Blues 2014
Joey Science has been dancing since they were a small child, partner dancing since 2005, and zooming way, way in on Blues dancing since moving to Chicago in 2009. Their formal education in the learning sciences sneaks up in class formats that emphasize personal exploration and incorporation of the material, and a "try first, questions later" approach.
Julie’s expressive dancing and dynamic connection are known throughout the blues dancing world. With a background in theatre and solo dance, and an undying desire for continued learning, she is best known for her solo movement, choreography, aesthetics, and killer follower expression.
A hard-working competitor, Julie has won many national competitions, including Blues Muse 2017 Follower Invitational, North Star Blues 2017 Invitational Cuttin’, bluesSHOUT! 2017 All Star Jack & Jill, and more.
As a teacher, Julie is clear, thoughtful, and earnest. From advanced Struttin’ variations to beginner-friendly intros to lead-follow dynamics, Julie carefully crafts her classes and tailors her material to fit the crowd at hand. Julie has taught blues dancing in San Francisco, Seoul, Austin, Boston, London, Chicago, Zurich, and many places in between. She also teaches regularly in her home-base of Boston. For dance videos, pictures, and more info, check out https://dancewithjulie.wordpress.com.
Ruth skipped into her first dance class more than 25 years ago, and has since been dancing as many styles as she can get her feet on.
Ruth’s 15+ years as a dance instructor have taken her on teaching adventures across the US, Canada, Europe and Southeast Asia. She has continually developed both her teaching and her dancing skills. Ruth is known for her ability to craft explanations that fit students’ learning styles. She brings a vibrant mixture of deep technical knowledge, passion for movement, and silly fun that students can’t help but connect with.
In addition to training in blues, lindy, Argentine tango, modern, ballet and many other dance forms, Ruth is certified in Franklin Method, an increasingly popular body somatics method. She has a long-standing love affair with close-embrace connection, has sneakily swung out in the Louvre, and is curating a fine collection of fishtail variations.
Sunday Workshops: Room 407
Looking for inspiration? Need a way to narrow down your ideas? Do you do things in classes but never end up using them on the social floor? Mike and Julie will give you some fun and useful games to use while social dancing, to help you with all of these things.
Are you really as precise as you could be in your leading/following of a step? Are you crafting it with all the attention you that you could be? Let’s zoom in and give this fundamental piece of dance the love it deserves!
You may have heard of contrabody, and think, “left leg forward, right shoulder forward.” You’re not wrong, but it’s so much more than that, too! Great contrabody movement is hard to achieve, but is both delightful and practical.
The best dances happen when both partners are inspired together to do things they've never done before. Learn to boost your creativity by limiting yourself, and have fun by listening to the music and each other. Come for the laughs, stay for the new moves!
Julie’s expressive dancing and dynamic connection are known throughout the blues dancing world. With a background in theatre and solo dance, and an undying desire for continued learning, she is best known for her solo movement, choreography, aesthetics, and killer follower expression.
A hard-working competitor, Julie has won many national competitions, including Blues Muse 2017 Follower Invitational, North Star Blues 2017 Invitational Cuttin’, bluesSHOUT! 2017 All Star Jack & Jill, and more.
As a teacher, Julie is clear, thoughtful, and earnest. From advanced Struttin’ variations to beginner-friendly intros to lead-follow dynamics, Julie carefully crafts her classes and tailors her material to fit the crowd at hand. Julie has taught blues dancing in San Francisco, Seoul, Austin, Boston, London, Chicago, Zurich, and many places in between. She also teaches regularly in her home-base of Boston. For dance videos, pictures, and more info, check out https://dancewithjulie.wordpress.com.
Mike's true loves in life are teaching, dancing, following, and music. There's no order, because for her, these things are intrinsically linked. In addition to national events like Lindy Focus and Enter the Blues, Mike has taught at countless regional events in Lindy, Blues, and Balboa, as well as traveling all over the country to teach and perform. She performed in an all-girls Charleston troupe at Camp Jitterbug's Jump Session Show in 2007, and in the all-girl blues troupe, the Hoodoo Ladies, at events from DC to BluesShout in St. Louis. Additionally, she has taught at events ranging from one-month artists residencies to international training camps.
Mike combines an intuitive understanding of connection with an analytical speaking style to give her students technique, but also strives to challenge and inspire her students to push themselves further into the music. She aims to help leaders create artistic compositions that are clearly led; she wants follows to have the ability to be a completely literal follow, and the inspiration and freedom to be an imaginative and dynamic contributor. In the classroom or on the social floor, she seeks a connection that involves active communication from both partners, to make a dance together.
Saturday Workshops: Room 491
Ok, so it’s not actually from Australia, but we did create it there. This is a solo choreography that showcases how we think about composition, musicality, and dynamism. Also, some cool transitions - because we can!
All genders welcome! We’ll be exploring gender expression through movement: what movements feel and look gendered *to you*? What movements feel most true to yourself? How does thinking about movement as gendered change when we’re in a blues context?
In this hour, we will set ground rules for discussion, define appropriation, consider the origins of the Blues, share experiences of race in the Blues scene, and venture into the muddy waters of "right" and "wrong."
Homework, before attending:
- Read "Cultural Appropriation: when 'borrowing' becomes exploitation" (Olufunmilayo Arewa, The Conversation)
- Read "Why It's So Hard to Talk to White People About Racism" (The Good Men Project, Huffington Post)
This hour will focus on the ways the conversation about race in the Blues scene has taken to the internet. Prominent voices in the conversation, their main points, and our reflections on these views will be central to our conversation.
Homework, before attending:
- Watch Dancing White (Guardian Baltimore) from 19m05s to 24m07s (youtube mirror 1, mirror 2)
- Read "Appreciation versus Appropriation" (Damon Stone)
After a long day of hugs, sometimes you just need even more hugs! We’ll get a little adventurous in this last class, with some tricks that can be performed from close embrace.
Laney is a blues dance instructor, organizer, and DJ. She has been dancing Lindy Hop and blues for over 10 years, with some dabbling in tango and hip hop. She also loves lifting heavy things – it has given her confidence, better quality of movement, and has completely changed her dancing. She loves shaking her booty to any genre of music that encourages it. As a teacher, her goals are to integrate a little history and a little musicality into every lesson.
Awards:
1st place – Open JnJ at bluesSHOUT! 2015, JnJ at Blues Muse 2015, Strictly at Winter Blues 2014
Finals – JnJ & solo comp at Enter the Blues, Jill & JnJ at Blues Muse, JnJ at Winter Blues, Solo Comp at Nocturne Blues 2014
Joey Science has been dancing since they were a small child, partner dancing since 2005, and zooming way, way in on Blues dancing since moving to Chicago in 2009. Their formal education in the learning sciences sneaks up in class formats that emphasize personal exploration and incorporation of the material, and a "try first, questions later" approach.
Breai Mason-Campbell is a Baltimore native, community activist, teacher, dancer, and cultural counselor. A Harvard graduate, Breai’s Master’s Thesis explored the role of Hip-Hop as a religious and moral touchstone for African American youth. Since 2001, she has conducted research into the connection between mental health in young women and exposure to the norms espoused by popular culture. With these findings, Breai has written numerous Arts-Integration, kinetic curricula. Her work has been supported by grants from Teaching Tolerance and the Frankie Manning Foundation, which named her a Cultural Ambassador in 2014. Her dance company, Guardian, is committed to practicing, performing and passing on culture. In the confirmation of its’ vision, Guardian trained students who won 2nd place in the International Lindy Hop Juniors Division in 2013, and performed for the opening of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in 2016. She is a wife, and the mother of three.
Joey Science has been dancing since they were a small child, partner dancing since 2005, and zooming way, way in on Blues dancing since moving to Chicago in 2009. Their formal education in the learning sciences sneaks up in class formats that emphasize personal exploration and incorporation of the material, and a "try first, questions later" approach.
Sunday Workshops: Room 491
Ever feel like your dancing takes on a predictable pattern? That you get “stuck” doing the same 3 movements over and over? Playing with character is a powerful way to break free of those ruts that we all get into. This class will probably push your comfort zone and is designed to challenge you to new heights of expression and artistry.
Leave the Blues Scene? Have white people stop dancing? Create "Black Only" Blues communities? Intentionally invite Black teachers? In this hour, we will discuss what has been done to date in an effort to right the ship, and the results thereof.
Homework, before attending:
- Read "A Black Panther lawsuit is testing the cultural exchange between Africans and African-Americans" (Lynsey Chutel, Quartz)
- Read "Why I Stopped Blues Dancing" (Ellie Koepplinger)
This final segment is dedicated to a plenary session. We will focus discuss and outline next steps for individual, local, and scene-wide initiatives.
Homework, before attending:
- Read "Cultural Appropriation and the Blues" (Yvonne Aburrow, Patheos)
- Read "The Question of Cultural Appropriation" (Briahna Joy Gray, Current Affairs)
We will run through the mechanics of isolations, and drilling to make our isolations more efficient and less restricting so that we can dance with isolations as opposed to making the dance about isolations.
What makes you, you? Individuality is an important part of all of the blues dances. Bringing that individuality means being able to express yourself on the dance floor authentically. In this class we will explore ways to dance as yourself.