Photo Credit to Brad Nathanson Photography

We are delighted to present a weekend of dancing to the Blues with Krystal and Adam Wilkerson. We'll have two days of workshops, a social dance, and the All Ballroomin' social competition!

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SCHEDULE:

Saturday

[Workshop]
1230-1pm: CHECK-IN
- Please arrive at least by 12:50pm so you can start on time with us
- Workshop is in Sodal Hall

1pm-5pm: WORKSHOP
- Please bring a water bottle, snacks if needed, shoes with clean soles

5pm-7pm: BREAK
- Sodal Hall will be OPEN for practicing, eating, napping, hanging out, etc.
- BYODinner or Grubhub/UberEats welcome and encouraged!
- The Avalon has spacious and well maintained bathrooms if you need to freshen up or costume change between the Workshop and Social

[Social Dance]
715pm-8pm: BEGINNER BLUES LESSON
- Taught by Krystal and Adam in Sodal Hall

8pm-1am: SOCIAL DANCING to DJ'd MUSIC

All Ballroomin' Social Competition
915-10pm: Competition Social Prelims (does not interrupt social dancing)
1045-11pm: All Ballroomin' Competition Finals
Find Comp Info and FAQ's HERE

Sunday
[Workshop]
1pm-130pm: CHECK-IN
- Please arrive at least by 1:20pm so you can start on time with us
- Workshop is in The Ballroom

130pm-430pm: WORKSHOP
- Please bring a water bottle, snacks if needed, shoes with clean soles

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Workshop Class Descriptions:
[Saturday]
Ballroomin' Intensive: Walking, Composition, and Partnership Dynamics (4 hrs)

Come dance to some sweet Jazz Blues with us! We'll start from the ground up, literally: we’ll start off learning to walk with confidence by exploring our relationship with the ground and with our partner to step powerfully and confidently every time! Planting ourselves like a tree with every step to clearly resolve balance will concretely center your relationship with the ground and the music! Improving clarity through firmly grounded movement generated via your pulse will allow for increased precision in your movements and improve your own musical representation throughout any dance.

From there, we'll add some flavor to your base line-of-dance ballroomin'! We'll add some vocabulary, and work on transitioning from one figure to another to tell a cohesive story with the music. That's what composition is all about, and we'll work to help you find your flow in Line-of-Dance ballroomin'!

Finally, we'll explore your balance in connection! We’ll focus on the subtle side of weight-sharing, including identifying your balance axis along with your partner’s. We’ll talk about techniques to safely leverage your partner’s weight to send yourself off axis and explore momentum exchange within the partnership. We’ll apply these skills to deepen your connection to your partner, allowing for freedom of expression and enhanced communication in any dance!

[Sunday]
Struttin' Your Stuff (2 hrs)

By now, you've likely seen or danced this wonderful jukin' idiom: the follow leaning to their lead, jogging together to chunky guitar blues. Whether you've danced this Memphis-based idiom or not, we'll get you partnered up and struttin' your stuff in no time! We'll introduce the lean-to connection that makes this dance work, and help you build a firm foundation with footwork beyond the basic jog, including the classic 'wrong-footing' unique to this dance.Once you've gotten your feet underneath you, we'll work to develop some dynamic partnered movement within the Struttin' framework! We'll use the lean-to connection to create and manipulate momentum in the partnership and use it to create cool swoopy shapes and dazzling footwork. We'll also incorporate snappy turns to round out your vocabulary!

Steal That Move! (1 hr)

Ask any old-school dancer, and they’ll tell you that all they need is one time. They need to see you do that thing you do one time, and they’ll make it their own. We’ll take some time to really dive into this skill, and talk about observation and putting new moves into your own body in a way that will really make them yours. In this class, we’ll work with you to develop the skill of watch and learn through a LOT of practice. After breaking you in with an intense no-breakdown “See, then do” session, we’ll answer questions in the end of class about specific movements and how you can get better at learning by watching and repeating.

*The workshops are designed to be ideal for folks who have some social dance background, whether that's in Blues, Lindy, WCS, Salsa, Zouk, Fusion, etc.

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Please review the following policies before registering for the event:
Covid 19 Policy
Safer Spaces Policy
Scent Policy