We’ll start the day with the fundamentals of Blues lead-follow and movement: weight changes, turning steps, traveling steps, musicality, timing, and connection.
Saturday 2:40pm-3:55pm: Get Your Booty Movin’!In this connection and movement class, you’ll learn to move your hips and to connect with your partner’s hips. You’ll discover the essential flow of energy in Blues dancing, which connects you to the music, to the floor, and to your partner.
Saturday 4:10pm-5:25pm: Solo MovementTo be a good Blues dancer, you need to be able to move your own body. In this class we’ll be doing just that: moving on our own, and learning some steps from the idiom of vernacular jazz.
Saturday 5:40pm-6:55pm: Expanding your optionsNow that you’ve got the basics, we’ll work on putting everything together: combining different styles of Blues movement, different embraces, and different rhythms, as we dance to lots of different music!
Sunday 11:10am-12:25pm: Playing With ContrastsUnlock your creativity! There is endless variety in Blues dancing, and that variety doesn’t come from learning a vocabulary of moves. In this class we’ll think of dancing in terms of polar opposites and see what discoveries this way of thinking can lead to.
Sunday 12:40pm-1:55pm: Grapevines and One-Step PatternsWe’ll be playing with the intricacies of mirror-image and parallel lead-follow as we travel across the floor in this class.
Sunday 3:10pm-4:25pm: Advanced Blues DancingThis will be a hard-core technique class. Possible topics may include groundedness and weight transfer, subtleties of lead-follow connection, rhythm and musicality, and more.
Sunday 4:40pm-5:55pm: Music and MusicalityLearn how to listen to jazz and blues music, and get some deeper insights into how to dance to it. Solomon is an accomplished musician as well as a dancer, and he’ll answer all your questions about the music we dance to!