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Blues Dance & Style Focus:

The two main categories of blues dance that the contemporary blues scene distinguishes are Juke Joint Blues (Juke, Jookin’, Jukin’) danced primarily to delta and electric blues and Ballroom Blues (Ballroomin’) danced primarily to jazz blues. This workshop will focus on Juke Joint style blues movements, musicality, connection, and partnership!

Jukin’ comes from the south and its name comes from the fact that it was danced in “juke joints”, the type of bars that early blues musicians would have played in. Because of the limited space in such bars, jukin’ evolved as primarily a dance on the spot and, reflecting the music it’s danced to, tends to be sharper and more punctuated with more focus on hip movement and body isolations.

Sources:

https://www.honeyblues.co.uk/history-of-blues-dance
https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/exhibits/online/blues/styles.html

Please have some familiarity with partner dancing, including slows, quicks, turns, etc.

Who? Galen King and Ross Blythe

What? Blues dance workshop focusing on Juke Joint Blues

Where? 1125 Cerrillos Rd, Santa Fe, NM 87501

When? Saturday, April 19th, 12-9pm

Instructors

After moving to the Seattle area for college Galen taught Argentine Tango at Grit City Ballroom, became president of her university’s social dance club, and taught frequent lesson series in Lindy Hop and Blues. Continually learning, she also had the opportunity to take classes and privates from national and international teachers, in addition to working for and being mentored in the running of T-Town Swing in Tacoma, WA. In 2019 she co-founded Downbeat Vintage Swing Society in Bozeman, MT, serving on the board and teaching regular lesson series.

In competition she has met with success as a follow, as a lead, and in ELEF (switch) dancing, finaling in mix and matches, placing in several regional strictlys, and winning 2nd in Switch dancing at Lindy Focus 2022.

Galen is also a certified Feldenkrais movement instructor, which lends her dance teaching an attention to the mechanics of anatomical movement patterns as well as the skill to explain these movement patterns clearly to new dancers. Now living in Santa Fe, NM, Galen can be found teaching lessons and out at as many dance evenings as possible. Known for her playfulness and rhythmic creativity, as well as her interest in conversational dancing and shared innovation in partnership, Galen teaches and dances with a focus on these elements.

Ross was drawn to the blues idiom because of its emphasis on personal expression in relation to a partner and the breadth of tempo and style within blues music. As a teacher Ross builds layered classes to challenge all levels, balances technique with application, and chooses appropriate music to support each exercise.

Met with overwhelming competitive success, Ross has placed 1st at a number of contests within the last two years: BluesSHOUT 2015 Open Strictly (Chicago, IL), North Star Blues 2016 JnJ (Minneapolis, MN), Austin Blues Party 2016 Social JnJ (Austin, TX), and Sweet Molasses Blues 2016 Advanced JnJ (Boston, MA).

Social Dance

There will be an evening house party from 6-9PM for blues social dancing at a private residence in Santa Fe, NM. After you complete registration and payment, we will email you the address during the week prior to the workshop lessons. Entry to the social dance is free.

Registration

Online registration is closed. Register in person at the event.