Class Schedule
Please note that the schedule is seriously subject to change. We're still working on it.
| SDFX Classes January 8-10, 2010 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Friday, January 8th | Saturday, January 9th | Sunday, January 10th | |||||
| Baja Room | Dockside Room | Bayview Room | Dockside Room | Terrace Room | Bayview Room | Dockside Room | |
| 9:30am | Breakfast & Check-In | ||||||
| 9:45am | |||||||
| 10:00am | Intro To Fusion: Rethinking Dance (Andrew Sutton) |
Left Brain Blues/Tango Fusion (Mihai) |
|||||
| 10:15am | |||||||
| 10:30am | Breakfast & Check-In | ||||||
| 10:45am | Check-In | ||||||
| 11:00am | Flying and Falling (Campbell & Chris) |
African Dance (Makeda) |
Follows' Playtime (Tim & Whitton) |
BRUNCH | |||
| 11:15am | LUNCH | ||||||
| 11:30am | |||||||
| 11:45am | |||||||
| 12:00pm | Blues Tapestry (Ransdell) |
Colgadas with Full Turns (David) |
|||||
| 12:15pm | Fundamentals of Argentine Tango (Jay & Parisa) |
Trip-Hop (Ben & Lessa) |
LUNCH | ||||
| 12:30pm | |||||||
| 12:45pm | |||||||
| 1:00pm | |||||||
| 1:15pm | Applying the Fundamentals of Argentine Tango (Jay & Parisa) |
Vintage Ballroomin' Blues (Brenda) |
Who Has The Ball? (Ransdell) |
||||
| 1:30pm | |||||||
| 1:45pm | It Takes Two (Andrew Sutton) |
Latin Blues (Andrew Smith) |
|||||
| 2:00pm | Macro Blues (Campbell & Chris) |
Off the Wall (Drew) |
|||||
| 2:15pm | |||||||
| 2:30pm | |||||||
| 2:45pm | |||||||
| 3:00pm | Hip Hop n Blues (Lucky & Lessa) |
Smooth Moves (Doug) |
Ballet CAN Help Your Blues (Andrew Smith & Campbell) |
||||
| 3:15pm | |||||||
| 3:30pm | Fox-Blues (Lucky & Tina) |
Sweet vs. Bitter: Musicality and Musical Tension (Campbell & Chris) |
|||||
| 3:45pm | Get The Funk Out (Doug) |
M'omentum (Lucky & Lessa) |
|||||
| 4:00pm | |||||||
| 4:15pm | |||||||
| 4:30pm | |||||||
| 4:45pm | Micro Blues Foundations (Ben & Lessa) |
Right Brain Blues/Tango Fusion (Mihai) |
So Good You'll Want Seconds (Andrew Sutton & Crew) |
||||
| 5:00pm | |||||||
| 5:15pm | Brenda's Special Class |
Bringin' It Home (Brenda) |
Beyond Micro Blues (Ben & Lessa) |
||||
| 5:30pm | |||||||
| 5:45pm | |||||||
| 6:00pm | |||||||
| 6:15pm | Doug Silton's Special Class |
||||||
| 6:30pm | |||||||
| 6:45pm | |||||||
| 7:00pm | |||||||
Friday, January 08, 2010
Fusion 101 - ReThinking Dance
10:00am - 11:15am: Andrew Sutton (Sacramento, CA)
Whether you are trying to fuse two dances, ten dances, or every form of dance, you must understand the fundamentals of the dances that you're fusing so that you can make seamless fusion rather than confusion. In this class, we'll explore the similarities in foundational dance movements to help build connections across all dance forms. Fusion 101 will teach you these shared fundamentals as they will help you improve everything from your Blues to your Lindy Hop to your Tango-Blues-Lindy-Pop Fusion. Come develop the tools to build your personal dance form.
Left Brain Blues/Tango Fusion: Theory & Technique
10:00am - 11:15am: Mihai Banulescu (San Francisco, CA)
If we took the top scientists in the world, taught them blues and tango, locked them in a dance research studio for a year and asked them to define blues/tango fusion, what would they come up with? What precise observations would they make about angles, muscle tone and acceleration? What kind of experiments would they run to find that out? What would their work reveal about each dance, and the relationship between them?
Fundamentals of Argentine Tango: Movement in Open and Close Embrace
12:15pm - 1:30pm: Jay Abling (Portland, OR and San Diego, CA) & Parisa Zolfaghari (Portland, OR and New York, NY)
We will work on some of the underlying lead/follow techniques in tango, using the nature of the embrace to create basic movements such as weight changes, walking and changes of direction.
(All Levels)
Trip-Hop
12:15pm - 1:30pm: Ben Long (Portland, OR) & Lessa Jay Lamb (Thieme) (Seattle, WA)
Despite the name, trip-hop is a smooth and heavy intersection between hip-hop and electronica. Exploration of this type of music can revolutionize your dance style and open your mind to the vast possibilities in this and other kinds of electronic music. We will work with the timing variations in trip-hop and other electronic music, and how to break those rhythms down into usable dance formats even when it seems overwhelming. We'll further discuss how to work with your partner's movement and momentum in ways that draws out and highlights trip-hop musicality.
(All Levels; Experience Required)
Macro Blues
2:00pm - 3:15pm: Campbell Miller (Austin, TX) & Chris Mayer (Austin, TX)
You've heard about the micro, now experience the MACRO! In this class, we'll explore the edges of the blues connection. You'll find everything from large, sweeping motions to powerful weight sharing, all with a healthy aspect of control and partnering. This class will cover some advanced concepts but will also address more intermediate topics such as traveling and dynamics.
(All Levels; Experience Required)
Off The Wall
2:00pm - 3:15pm: Drew Robinson (Portland, OR)
The concept of the class is experimentation using the wall and alternate surfaces, props, and other connection points to spice up your dancing. We will introduce props and connection points and work on possible uses associated with various types of music building off each other's ideas.
(All Levels)
Get the Funk Out
3:45pm - 5:00pm: Doug Silton (Los Angeles, CA)
Learn to dance to funky music. Develop a dance vocabulary so that you can move to complex and layered up-tempo rhythms. This class will also teach improvisation and musicality.
(All Levels; Experience Required)
M'omentum
3:45pm - 5:00pm: Lucky Skillen (New York, NY) & Lessa Jay Lamb (Thieme) (Seattle, WA)
This class uses single axis elliptical movement to add unique flow to your dancing.
(Intermediate/Advanced)
Mini Private Lessons & Critique (Optional)
5:15pm - 6:15pm: Brenda Russell (Collins) (Portland, OR)
Blow your mind with amazing dance critique. This is a tangible, manageable way to significantly improve your dancing with one of the nation's best and most widely-recognized dance instructors.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Flying and Falling aka Blues 3D
11:00am - 12:15pm: Campbell Miller (Austin, TX) & Chris Mayer (Austin, TX)
Traveling in blues is about more than just moving back and forth around the floor. In this class, we'll discuss how partners can use each other to add a new dimension to their dancing — a vertical one. We'll work with lifts, drops, drags, and spins, all to get you and your partner moving in a brand new way.
(Intermediate/Advanced; Experience Required)
Note: Partners encouraged but not required
African Dance
11:00am - 12:15pm: Makeda Dread Cheatom (San Diego, CA)
Learn to incorporate elements of traditional African dance into your social dancing. African dance has its roots in community expression and is often a collective experience. This high-energy dance utilizes concepts of polyrhythm and total body articulation. Learn to move many parts of the body independently, adding rhythmic, expressive, and percussive components. This type of movement adds complexity to the dance without relying on traveling. Some traditional African-American slave dances went on to become national dance crazes for all Americans, such as the Cakewalk, Black Bottom and Charleston and are still a part of social dance today.
(All Levels; Very Strenuous Physical Activity)
Follows' Playtime
11:00am - 12:15pm: Tim O'Neill (Los Angeles, CA) & Whitton Frank (Los Angeles, CA)
Blues is a wonderfully egalitarian dance: the leads listen and the follows speak up. This lesson is all about exploring the ways in which follows can ask for more, take more time, and contribute more to the conversation. This is much more than embellishment. You will be affecting your partner and taking on new responsibilities. For the leads, you will learn why listening is what defines an advanced dancer.
(All Levels)
Applying the Fundamentals of Argentine Tango
1:15pm - 2:30pm: Jay Abling (Portland, OR and San Diego, CA) & Parisa Zolfaghari (Portland, OR and New York, NY)
We will apply techniques used in the first class to one of the basic moves of tango: the ocho cortado. This combination is quite flexible in expressing different rhythms of the music and can be easily incorporated into other forms of dance.
(All Levels)
Vintage Ballroomin' Blues
1:15pm - 2:30pm: Brenda Russell (Collins) (Portland, OR)
Brenda will break down body alignments, leg action, and pulse, then show you how to use them in specific ways to create a stylized look. We will use Vintage Ballroom Blues as our example, then compare, contrast, and demonstrate how these techniques are used to create other styles of dance.
(All levels)
Who Has the Ball?
1:15pm - 2:30pm: Chris Ransdell (Tulsa, OK)
This is an advanced connection class, helping both lead and follow explore their sensitivity to each other's dance contribution. The exercises in this class provide a stronger awareness of subtle dynamic movements. It is not intended to teach a specific style of dance, but focus more on action/reaction or cause/effect in dance.
(Intermediate/Advanced)
Hip Hop n' Blues
3:00pm - 4:15pm: Lucky Skillen (New York, NY) & Lessa Jay Lamb (Thieme) (Seattle, WA)
This is a new concept of blues currently developing in Brooklyn, New York, that combines hip hop techniques and blues fundamentals to create an innovative new style.
(All Levels; Very Strenuous Physical Activity)
Smooth Moves
3:00pm - 4:15pm: Doug Silton (Los Angeles, CA)
Learn to dance so that you appear smooth, effortless, and graceful. This class will involve technique to help you improve your balance so that you can be more smooth and steady on your feet. You will also learn several moves to incorporate into your dancing that will help you keep a smooth flow when dancing to both ethereal sounds and chunky beats.
(Intermediate/Advanced; Experience Required)
Ballet CAN Help Your Blues
3:00pm - 4:15pm: Andrew Smith (Portland, OR) & Campbell Miller (Austin, TX)
Dancers classically trained in ballet, modern, jazz, and ballroom all tend to have a distinguishing quality and technique. Andrew and Campbell have trained intensively in ballroom and ballet and modern. Many aspects from such styles can be applied to social dances to improve lead/follow technique, aesthetics, connection, musicality, quality of movement, and more. Andrew and Campbell will introduce fundamental dance concepts from Ballroom and Ballet that can be implemented in your dancing. Each concept will be supported by an exercise for you to practice at home: this is only the beginning of your journey.
(All Levels)
Micro Blues Foundations
4:45pm - 6:00pm: Ben Long (Portland, OR) & Lessa Jay Lamb (Thieme) (Seattle, WA)
The key to Micro blues and spectacular partner dancing is having an awareness of your partner's body as well as your own. This class will guide you through the steps necessary to nurture that awareness. We will explore the concept of leading and following from your center in order to develop a more genuine connection in the dance. Be prepared to transcendent your usual experience of dance, in an environment that almost feels more like meditation than movement. Mmmmmm... melty.
(All Levels)
Right Brain Blues/Tango Fusion: Theory & Practica
4:45pm - 6:00pm: Mihai Banulescu (San Francisco, CA)
Why is fusion a good idea? What is so much fun about it? Is the whole of blues + tango truly greater than the sum of the parts? Where will it evolve? How are new dances created, anyway? What is essential and new about blues/tango fusion? What if, instead of controlling and herding fusion with rules and definitions, we saw it as a living, growing organism? If fusion could speak for itself, what would it say?
So Good You'll Want Seconds: How to Have Unforgettable Dance Nights
4:45pm - 6:00pm: Andrew Sutton (Sacramento, CA) & Crew
This class will involve discussion, sharing, and experimentation to help make your night of dancing amazing. Andrew will lead the discussion and will invite all available instructors and advanced dancers to help you learn what it takes to make a great night of dancing in general and make dancing with you wonderful. Saturday night's dance is HUGE and this is the perfect way to make sure you have an incredible experience.
(All Levels)
Mini Private Lessons & Critique (Optional)
6:15pm - 7:15pm: Doug Silton
Blow your mind with amazing dance critique. This is a tangible, manageable way to significantly improve your dancing with one of the nation's best and most widely-recognized dance instructors.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Blues Tapestry
Noon - 1:15pm: Chris Ransdell (Tulsa, OK)
Think you know blues connection; think again! In this class you will discover the newest form of connection to allow closed position blues aerials, rapid improvability, and graceful lifts. You will never connect the same again! This class requires a basic understand of movement and traditional connection. It is most relevant to Ballroomin' Blues. Our music choices will be mellow and very jazzy. In this Ballroomin' Blues class you will discover Chris' own personal & unique form of connection which allows for closed position blues aerials, rapid improvability, and graceful lifts. This will add a whole new dimension to your dancing! This class requires a basic understanding of movement and traditional connection.
(Intermediate/Advanced; Experience Required)
Colgadas with Full Turns
Noon - 1:15pm: David Chiu (Orange County, CA)
Colgadas are gravity defying single axis turns that feels like you are floating in space. As if turning in a colgada is not already an awesome sensation. We will be doing the colgadas with full turns and even multiple turns. Ladies will learn to trust hanging away from the men with a 360 degrees off-axis turn on one foot. And the men will learn how to instill trust from the ladies to achieve colgadas with full turns.
(Some Tango Experience Required)
Latin Blues
1:45pm - 3:00pm: Andrew Smith (Portland, OR) & Ivy Grey (Portland, OR)
Some popular alternative artists (Thievery Corporation, Idan Raichel's Project, CÉU) feature rhythms that can be effortlessly expressed through Latin movement. Strong Latin/Cuban/African influences can be found in the Blues movement of acclaimed instructors such as Barry Douglas or Brenda Russell. This class will help dancers discover the passion and intensity that can be expressed in Latin movement. Andrew will assimilate and condense dance mechanics from Rumba, Cha Cha, and Samba into a single class. Footwork, leg action, hip action, posture, shaping, aesthetic, and quintessential Latin patterns will be covered.
(All Levels)
It Takes Two
1:45pm - 3:00pm: Andrew Sutton (Sacramento, CA)
Dancing is often thought of as purely lead/follow. Though this is a great way to communicate, but it is rare that a dancer will only lead or only follow throughout the entire dance. This class will teach you to recognize when you are taking on the "other" role and to select when you role-swap or influence your partner rather than by over-communicating by accident. This class will teach you how to communicate in your dancing so that your "whispering" gets as much joy and attention as your "shouting."
(All Levels)
Fox-Blues
3:30pm - 4:45pm: Lucky Skillen (New York, NY) & Tina Donth (Austin, TX)
This is a style of blues that mixes ballroomin' blues with foxtrot adding a unique flare to your dancing.
(All Levels)
Sweet v. Bitter
3:30pm - 4:45pm: Campbell Miller (Austin, TX) & Chris Mayer (Austin, TX)
Blues makes use of all of your taste buds. This class will explore musical extremes and teach you how, through movement and styling, to make your dancing fully express the songs. And we'll dive into songs that cross genres, and work on feeling comfortable dancing to anything. Combine your dancing and the music to create a 5-star experience.
(All Levels)
Bringin' It Home: Advanced Technique & Dance Concepts
5:15pm - 6:30pm: Brenda Russell (Collins) (Portland, OR)
After a long weekend of classes in various styles from multiple perspectives we will help connect and refine the integration of these ideas. Bill and Brenda will address specific questions and cover techniques to help you put it all together, allowing you to get the most creativity and play out of your dancing.
(intermediate/advanced)
Beyond Micro Blues: The Arc of the Dance
5:15pm - 6:30pm: Ben Long (Portland, OR) & Lessa Jay Lamb (Thieme) (Seattle, WA)
Learn how to prevent dance indigestion though utilizing the arc of the dance. We will start with exploring the anticipation of initiating a dance and end with how to engage the awkwardness that often follows its conclusion. In the middle, we'll warm your appetite, prime your spirits, and dig into the main course. Whether it's a story, a meal, or a dance, there has to be an initiation, rising tension, a climax, and a resolution. Without all of these components, the dance can feel... umm...
(All Levels)