An Intermediate/Advanced Workshop with Ruby Red and Lucas Weismann

Saturday August 24, 2013

CHICAGO, IL – Take your partner dance skills and learn how to break into other styles of music. From Soul to R&B, from Downtempo to Dub-step, we’ll spend the day diving into all the techniques you use in Blues Dance; expanding them so that no matter what the style of music, you’ll have great connection to the music and to your partner. Drawing on techniques from Ruby and Lucas’ shared backgrounds in Blues, Lindy, Tango, West Coast Swing and solo dance, we’ll expand your repertoire in ways you’ve never imagined. (And, you’ll be able to use your new skillz at the Rhythm & Hues party that very night, with Lucas on deck.)

If you are comfortable dancing an entire night of Blues, Tango or Lindy Hop and have attended more than six months of class in your style of dance, you’ll feel right at home in this workshop

Classes and Topics

Assessment and Evaluation – This workshop is for intermediate to advanced dancers. we’re going to use the first half hour of the day assessing your skills, answering questions and getting everyone on the same page. Then we’ll select the best material from the following classes. We have more material than we can fit into four hours, but we want to know what you’re excited about working on.

Dance like the song – Different songs have different rhythmic themes. In this section we’ll be finding rhythms underlying musical structure to find a unique basic movements for each song. From soul and R&B; from blues-based pop to electronic music, we’ll explore a variety of ways to modify your rhythms and moves to fit the music.

Song Punctuations and Pauses – We have some delicious moves for you, involving slow-motion rotations, light lifts and air-steps (that are safe for all!) that we use to express the music. With a focus on exercises that will help you refine your connection, momentum, leverage and compression skills, you’ll find new ways to add musicality to moves you may have gotten bored with.

Lyrical Connection – What do you do when the beat drops out of a song for a moment? Or what about those songs that don’t have a back beat? Or maybe the song does have a beat, but that violin over the top of it is what really moves you? Well you dance to that awesome melody, of course! In the world of lyrical dancing, we’ll explore some connection and movement techniques to allow you to fully express to that haunting melody.

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