dance performance Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Steps on Toes Dance Lessons

More Thought on Fat Dancers

competitive dance , Connecting Socially , dance videos , inspirational dancing , leading and following , social dancing , west coast swing

A great dancer to watch I’ve written before on the topic of fat dancers, but I realized I left out a glaring omission, especially since I talked about partner dance but used video examples of performance dance. Anyone in the west coast swing community knows the glaring omission is John Lindo. One of the best Swing dancers ever […]

Why Boys Should Dance

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 […]

More Thoughts on How Dance Makes a Better World

competitive dance , dance videos , dancing in the streets , Hip Hop , inspirational dancing

Can Dancing Bridge a Gap Between Police and the Inner City? I live in Oakland where there are neighborhoods the police won’t even go to. To say the least, there is a huge cultural gap between the inner city and the police. Mistrust flies rampant in both directions. Dancing Pigs The police are called pigs […]

Go Viral Learning to Dance in a Year!

dance videos , dancing in the streets , inspirational dancing , Learning dance , performance dance

There is a great video going around about a young woman who learned to dance (really well) in just a year. There is also a website encouraging people to accomplish any dream by focusing on it for 100 days. If you go there, you’ll see lots of people taking a video of their progress on […]

Men Dancing in Heels

Connecting Socially , Dance History , dance videos , inspirational dancing , Lindy Hop , performance dance , same sex dancing , social dancing

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 […]

Nothing New Under the Dance Sun!

Dance History , dance videos , inspirational dancing , Lindy Hop , performance dance , teaching dance

Stealing Dance Moves Creative dance has always been about stealing. Dancers get ideas from each other and make it their own. After you steal the idea, you change it to suit your own style and it no longer belongs to the dancer who inspired you. The First Lindy Hop Air Step Frankie Manning used […]

Dancing When You’re Really Blind

dancing with physical challenges , inspirational dancing , leading and following , performance dance , social dancing

Last week I wrote a post about dancing blind, but it really was about dancing temporarily blind. This one is about dancers who are always blind. I’ve written in the past about deaf dancers, dancers in wheel chairs, and dancers with other physical limitations. I’ve never written about blind dancers but they’re out there! […]

More Fusion Dance: Lindy and Balboa

Connecting Socially , Dance History , dance videos , fusion , Lindy Hop , Miscellaneous , music for dance , social dancing

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 […]

Dancing blind

about LaurieAnn , dance videos , dancing with physical challenges , inspirational dancing , leading and following , performance dance , social dancing , teaching dance , west coast swing

When my dance students are learning the skill of following, I often suggest they close their eyes. Closing your eyes takes away a lot of the urge to back lead, and it brings forward the senses you use to feel the lead. Even when social dancing, I often close my eyes because it’s relaxing and […]

A Brilliant Use of Dance and Technology

dance videos , fusion , inspirational dancing , performance dance

Before I was a dancer, I was an artist. When I was in art school, I took a trip to Hollywood to see the Art and Technology show. Famous artists of the day like Claus Oldenburg and Andy Warhol teamed up with tech companies like Hewlett Packard to create works of art that utilized the […]

Favorite Dance Teachers From My Past

about LaurieAnn , Connecting Socially , cutting in , dance videos , inspirational dancing , leading and following , Lindy Hop , performance dance , same sex dancing , social dancing , teaching dance , west coast swing

The wonderful video at the end of this post from 1995 inspired me to write about these dancers because they were both a huge influence in my early dancing years. Sylvia Sykes was my teacher for the first six years I studied Lindy Hop and she, along with her partner Jonathan Bixby, also introduced […]

How Can You Tell One Swing Dance from Another?

dance videos , Lindy Hop , social dancing , west coast swing

Swing is a broad category that includes many different dances. If you’re a novice, it’s hard enough telling completely different genres apart let alone the variations in one category. And as if that wasn’t confusing enough, there are different styles within the same dance! I’m going to keep it relatively simple in this post, […]

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