Connecting Socially , Learning dance , performance dance , social dancing , sport dancing , teaching dance
I remember teaching a group of teenaged Lindy dancers who were sent to me from another dance teacher. They were advanced dancers who had outgrown their first teacher. When I asked for a follower with whom to demonstrate a new move, one of the boys volunteered. They had all learned to dance both parts and […]
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Intimacy without dance I was at a conference a few weeks ago run by Bill Baron in which I participated in a very interesting process. We split into groups of 5. We each commented on whatever our intuitive hits were about each other. We learned a lot by what we heard each other say as […]
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Dancing in Your Wildest Imagination I can’t stop thinking about the Dance Walk Guru’s story. Can you image how it would feel to be so at peace with yourself that you choose to dance down the street with abandon for the pure joy of it, without a worry about what people might think of the […]
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A Dance Movement After All! Well it seems I spoke too soon when I qualified in my last post that Dance Walking was not really a movement but I hoped it would catch on. Apparently it has indeed become a movement and is gathering momentum all over the world as we speak. What fabulous […]
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How to start a dance craze Well, OK, not exactly a craze yet, but I’d love to see this catch on. The really amazing thing about it is that instead of avoiding a guy doing something weird in public, people are joining in. Lots of them. And it looks like the ones who aren’t are […]
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I’ve often heard it said that in their dance routines Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did except she did it backwards and in heels. It’s a popular comment, except of course she didn’t lead and she didn’t choreograph the dance. She did, however, dance in heels and had the bleeding feet to […]
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I heard this statement and I realized that in my experience it’s true. For 8 years I spent 4 weeks every summer at an international dance camp in Sweden with dancers from over 50 different countries. All we had in common was our love of dance. Most of the other students spoke enough […]
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Of all the fusion dances, Bal/Lindy is probably the most natural. Almost everyone who knows both dances has done them together on occasion if not regularly. Pure balboa is done in a close hold that never breaks, but almost everyone does Bal-swing and calls it Balboa. This isn’t fusion, but rather a street dance that […]
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What’s the most romantic thing you can do on this day of romance? Well, yeah, go dancing of course! And if you don’t know how to dance? Well, if you’re a guy who’s with a woman who loves to dance, then take her out for a romantic dinner and give her a gift certificate for […]
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Switching the Lead and Follow in Partner Dance When both partners know how to lead as well as follow, dancers can switch roles during a dance. This is truly the ideal solution for people who are worried about sexism in the roles of lead and follow, but not everyone wants to learn both parts. Yes, […]
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In my last post I talked about being kind on the dance floor even when you are feeling offended. Today I wanted to give an illustration of how powerful your offhand words can be. When I was regularly attending the Herrang dance camp in Sweden, I used to take a detour during the third […]
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In last week’s post about obnoxious dance partners I neglected to mention that lack of eye contact doesn’t always come from a swelled head. Sometimes it’s a sign of shyness and it’s hard to tell the difference. One year at a dance camp in Sweden I asked a man to dance. I was watching […]
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