Nouveau Blues

To delve into the heart of the concept of Nouveau Blues, we begin with an entry on Wikipedia, and this portion in particular:

"anyone who has listened to a fair amount of Blues music will have heard songs that are lonely, longing, sad, angry, and joyful, as well as songs that are loving, lustful, and bawdy. Blues music is about common experiences. It is a sharing of human conditions that everyone can access on some level, and a Blues dance can include the entire spectrum of human emotions."

This statement perfectly reflects our approach to partner dancing, which we believe can also encompass the full range of human emotions and can thus help us connect with each other.

Nouveau Blues refers to a style of dance that blends blues dance with other traditional forms such as swing, tango, and even ballroom, but then places them in a more expressive, more emotional, and more responsive context. If the music inspires joy in us, then this is what we use to fuel our dance. Form follows feeling. Not all blues songs are sad, not all swing songs are cheerful, and so our approach changes with the music and our desire to move fully within its layers.

We start with blues because that is what most deeply moves us. Some love tango. Some yearn for waltz. We can't help but laugh, cry, sway, stamp our feet, and truly move when we hear blues. Its tempo is perfectly suited to our desire to explore the fullness of the present, and its improvised sections give us plenty of material to interpret through movement. It is often slow enough to dip a partner nearly to the floor or indulge in the body's full and vibrant undulation, but powerful enough to send us spinning or arching through a series of fast turns or hip-shaking footwork.

Then of course there is the fusion that happens between different genres of music, and this we also love. Almost any time that a song can't be completely pinned down—perhaps a tune sounds like blues with a streak of salsa or a dash of electronica—we feel completely free to respond to the music, to mix together footwork and moves that are usually kept separate. We have no qualms about adding a long dip to waltz, shifting between salsa and swing footwork, or separating momentarily in long sweeping turns that would otherwise be called modern dance. The point here is freedom of movement and expression, and an unwavering devotion to the music and its character.

UPDATE - A Response to Historical Blues

There has been some recent discussion throughout the swing and blues communities about the authenticity of the modern approach to blue dance. Some dancers have even researched "vintage" blues forms in order to practice and teach a more "correct" form of the dance, and others simply dance to blues music and call it blues. Where do we stand?

We agree that there are factors one may use to determine whether a dance can be considered "authentic" or not, and this is perfectly valid in a historical context. We recognize that some of the movement in our own dances may match a historical definition of blues dance, and some may not. We're a bit more interested in the current expression of the form, however, so rather than adhere to a label and definition of the dance and build our understanding from there, we prefer to explore the specific mechanics of partner dance itself: connection, weight shifting, footwork, movement, musicality, and more. These partner dance concepts aren't limited to any one form, but are used across all forms of partner dance no matter its historical origins.

How does it all fit together for us? We use historical definitions of blues dance as a sort of starting point: this is what the dance used to be, and sometimes still is. Then we build on that point by placing our attention on what actually happens when two people dance together, no matter what the form is called. This means that the form will inevitably grow beyond its definition. This is, we believe, the true reason we dance in the first place: to discover, to express, to create a shared moment of deeply human experience. In the end we may simply dance to blues music and call it blues, but what we're actually doing is far beyond the scope of any single, limited defintion of a dance.

Learn to Blues Dance

We offer a group blues class at Forufera Center downtown. Let us know if you have any questions about joining in. We hope to see you there!