Learn to Blues Dance

We teach both private and small group blues dance lessons in our home studio. Each option offers different benefits, and some students take a little of each.

(mini) Blues Dance Class

This is a class for 6 students, offered in our home studio. Registration is for the entire session, usually for three or four weeks at a time, ensuring that students have a sense of progression from start to finish. While we can't cover every aspect of blues dance, we cover as much as possible of the following:

• principles of connection - leading/following in open and closed positions
• rhythm - different rhythmic pattern and variations
• musicality - and what to listen for in the music and how to respond to what you hear
• footwork
• alignment and posture
• the mechanics of:
  • turns
  • weight shifting
  • hip and torso movement
  • dips
  • changes in orientation
  • and more

Schedule

This class is currently offered on Thursday nights (three or four Thursdays a month), from 9-10:30 pm. This isn't the only time we can offer this class, however. Groups of 6 can arrange their own times with us as well.

Blues Dance

Blues dance is partner dancing set primarily to slow and medium tempo blues music. In its current form, it includes elements from swing, salsa, tango and other dance styles, but still remains largely open-ended. This means that blues dancers are free to improvise and follow their own movement ideas. Slow and sultry, raw and feisty, spontaneous and exhuberant, the expression of each blues dance is as varied as the music it responds to.

Some of the elements of blues that set it apart from other dances:

• Wide rhythmic variation - playing with tempo and patterns
• No set footwork - instead lots of footwork exploration
• Using the whole body - body rolls, isolations, pulse, etc
• Responding closely to the music
• Open and closed embrace and many variations in between
• The ability of the follow to insert movement ideas
• Lots of improvisation

As with many things these days, blues dance is described in more depth on Wikipedia.

Long ago, David wrote a short article about something we used to call Nouveau Blues and now are more likely to simply call blues. The name is really less important than the meaning!