Connecting Socially , Dance History , dance videos , leading and following , music for dance , teaching dance
Blues dancing has been around for decades in one form or another. It’s one of my favorite dances because it is so open to interpretation that it can look drastically different from one dancer to another. As long as the character of the dance remains intimate and, well, bluesy, you can trade on pretty much […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , leading and following , same sex dancing
Leading and following are very different skills and most people are either natural leaders or natural followers. Not unlike the rest of life, you have about a 50/50 chance of falling into the category society has assigned to your gender. If you’re heterosexual, you won’t have much opportunity to dance if you choose the non-traditional […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , leading and following , teaching dance
Back leading is a term for the habit of some follows to lead themselves through dance moves the leader has nothing to do with. If the leader has any skill, this is the kind of behavior that causes him to mark that follower off his list for future dances, or hire a dance teacher for […]
Continue readingabout LaurieAnn , Connecting Socially , dance videos , dancing in the streets
If you’ve been to my home page, you know that I have a dance vision of the future that has people dancing spontaneously in public places. Every once in awhile I see people embodying this idea in their own unique and creative way. Few people have more fun with the concept than the wonderful […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , Outdoor Dancing
Last week I blogged about New York’s wonderful Midsummer Night Swing rivaling our own Lindy in the Park in SF. Now I’m writing about Seattle’s Dancing ‘Til Dusk. Like NY, it encompasses many different styles of dance, and takes place over a specific time frame. It’s longer than New York’s event, which is every […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , dancing in the streets
Here in San Francisco we are about to celebrate our 17th year of dancing outdoors in Golden Gate Park on Sunday mornings. New Yorkers have us beat though. They are celebrating 25 years of Midsummer Night Swing, a 3 week annual tradition of nightly dancing to live music on a portable wooden dance floor. Despite […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , dance videos , teaching dance
I teach a lot of freestyle dance because it’s the one kind of dancing you need as a basic social skill. It will never go out of fashion because it requires no skill except the very rare and useful attribute of not caring what other people think of the way you dance. The people who […]
Continue readingAs a teacher of social dance, it’s very exciting for me to see young people getting into the dance scene. Stanford University is one of the best promoters of social dance in college aged people. Stanford’s dance program is so popular that classes fill within minutes of opening registration. Dance historian Richard Powers […]
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