Group Classes: Normally, we start classes for the year in early January. However, we will be postponing our first classes of 2012 until sometime in April. Shortly after the baby is born we will have a better idea of the exact time frame and will be scheduling classes then. To stay up to date, please sign up for the email list (on the right) to get the latest updates on when classes are announced. If you are just starting out dancing, we highly recommend going to the beginner swing dance lesson before the 2nd & 4th Saturday dances. That will give you a great head start!

Private Lessons: As of mid-January, we will be putting private lessons on hold for a while. We plan to return to group classes first and private lessons sometime after that. Again, keep an eye on the website and the email list for updates.

Thank you to everyone for your understanding and support! We’re very honored that we’ve already gotten many inquiries on when we will be returning to teaching. With the help of some close friends, we plan to return in spring. If you want to be one of the first to know when the little one arrives, be sure to follow us on Facebook.

Rob & Dawn’s Christmas Party (12/17): We would like to invite all our friends, neighbors, and students (past and present) to our annual Christmas Party to say thank you for a great year! We’ll provide the music and the dance floor. Please feel free to bring light snacks and/or drinks (no alcohol please) for yourself or to share. There will be an open dance floor and we’ll be playing lots of great holiday swing music. Feel free to dance, or just come out and socialize! The event will be on Saturday, December 17th from 8pm to 11pm at the Longwood Ballroom.

Beginner Lindy Hop (4 pm):  This will be a condensed version of our regular six week class and will cover just the essentials to get you up to speed in Lindy Hop. Unlike our six week class, this class will not cover the six count basic, so you must know that in order to join in. However, you can pick this up at the beginner lesson before the dances or if you are in our current swing class, you are all set. This “mini” series class is designed to take you from six count moves into the Lindy Hop swing out (eight count) and give you the essentials to get you out on the dance floor. The full Lindy class won’t be offered again until late spring or summer, so be sure to sign up now.

Lindy Hop Style (2:30 pm): This three week series class will focus on style and footwork variations for Lindy. It is designed to teach you how to be creative with your footwork while still adhering to strong basics. It will also focus on the connection used to communicate and interact with your partner while you “style it up”. From variations to slides to kicks, this class will cover a wide variety of tricks and techniques. You must know the Lindy Hop basic to join in.

Both classes? If you are just starting out with Lindy Hop, we don’t recommend that you do both classes at the same time. However, if you are doing the Lindy Hop class as a review, you are welcome to do the Lindy style class at the same time.

With a new addition to the family, we will be revamping how we offer private lessons in 2012. Until then, we plan to keep teaching private lessons until the end of the year. Be sure to take advantage of them now before our schedule gets busy! We will go on hiatus from teaching private lessons at the start of the year and don’t plan to return until sometime after we start group classes again in March or April.

Naturally, this means we won’t be starting our 2012 classes on time in January as we usually do. We fully plan on returning to teaching (thanks to the help of some great friends) sometime in the spring. The exact date will most likely be determined by the little one. Keep an eye on the website for updates. In addition, you can follow us on Facebook for class updates… plus the big announcement and photos once that time comes.

Ready to get started with swing dancing? We have two great classes in store for this fall! The six count swing dance series class will start from scratch and teach you all the fundamentals of swing dancing. No previous experience is needed. We’ll start with the six count basic and progress into moves and combos. Each class will build on the information from the previous class to make learning easy. The classes are an hour long with an extra half hour of practice and individual help. This is a great way to get started and get comfortable on the dance floor!

We’ll also be offering our beginner Balboa series class. Looking to look smooth dancing to even the fastest of tempos? Then Balboa is for you! This is the ultimate swing dance when it comes to connecting with your partner. It has a rhythm and flow like nothing else and is seriously addictive! This six week class will teach you all the core fundamentals and basics of the Balboa and start adding in moves and combos.

Classes start on Sunday, October 9th. These are the last series classes for 2011, so don’t miss out. We look forward to seeing you in October!

Our next set of classes will start in the late summer (August) timeframe. We will be taking a bit of a break and only offering one series class this time around. Our next set of beginner level classes will probably start in the fall. But don’t worry! If you want to get started with swing dancing, we highly recommend the classes before the 2nd and 4th Saturday swing dances. You’ll get a solid start there and be a step ahead when we start our fall classes.

The one class we offer in August will be Intermediate Lindy Hop. We’ve had a large number of requests to do a “Lindy 3″ class following our recent Lindy 2 class. We don’t want to exclude other people who know Lindy Hop from joining in the class, so instead of sticking with the numbering sequence, we’ll tag the class as “Intermediate Lindy”. This class will be designed to challenge those who know the foundations of Lindy Hop by exploring style, footwork and timing variations, and move combinations. Registration is now open!

Have a great summer!

Lindy Hop Series Class: Ready to get started with swing dancing? This class will teach you the original form… Lindy Hop! The class will start with the six count basic and take you step-by-step and progress to the eight count swingout. We’ll focus on technique and connection to give you solid foundation. This is our most popular class, so be sure to register soon. Click here for more information.

Collegiate Shag Series Class: Fast paced and fun! Shag is an energetic dance that is perfect for faster tempos. It’s really EASY to learn and this class will take you from the basics to moves, variations, and style! If you can remember “slow, slow, quick, quick”, then you can learn Shag! We only teach this class once a year, so don’t miss out! Click here for more information.

Swing and Big Band Station (click to listen)

Let’s face it, swing and big band music has all but disappeared from the airwaves. For years, I searched online for good stations, and was mostly frustrated. Well, not to sound cliche, but the Internet has changed all that. Pandora is perfect for those of us who love niche or “dated” genres such as swing and big band.

In case you are behind, Pandora uses the music genome project to build custom stations tailored just to you. Basically you tell it the music you like and it finds music similar to that to play along with it in a station. In a nutshell, it compares your music tastes to others and “magically” makes a playlist on the fly. This is great for people like me since I want to hear the music I like, but I also want to hear “new” music (or at least music new to me) in the playlist as well. I mean iTunes and iPods are great, but I also love to hear different tunes in the same genre as my collection. After all, that’s how I find great music to put into my collection in the first place.

Pandora is all this and more. Best of all, you can share your stations with others. For example, click on the icon (above right) to hear one of my stations. It’s tailored to my tastes, so it’s mostly classic swing artists. However, I left it open enough so I get to hear stuff new to me every so often. As a result, it’s more of a “listening” station and not necessarily a “dancing” station. Feel free to use it as a starting point for your own station.

I don’t claim to be an expert on the genome project by any means, but I have learned a few things about Pandora over time. It is very possible to narrow down a station too much. If you do, you tend to hear the same songs over and over again. There seems to be an art to creating a station that both encompasses your tastes, sticks to a genre, but plays a variety too. Here are a few tips:

• When starting out, don’t give Pandora just one artist or song to start with. Make use of the “add variety” feature on the station. Add in other artists and songs within that genre that you like too.
• Don’t overuse “thumbs up” and “thumbs down”. If you rate every song, your station will just get more and more narrow until it only plays just the songs you like. Might as well just pull the iPod out at that point.
• Having said that, make sure you do rate the songs you really do or don’t like.
• Think twice before you hit the “thumbs down” button. Just because you don’t like a particular song, you don’t send the wrong message to Pandora. For example, I don’t like bebop jazz. However, it occasionally pops up in my swing station. I don’t give a thumbs down to, say, a Count Basie bebop tune, but I will give a thumbs down to an artist more known for bebop like Max Roach.
• If you want a good “genre based” station, treat it like a regular radio station. You are going to hear some songs you don’t like or don’t like as well as others. You wouldn’t call and complain to the station for that. However you would if they strayed out of format (time to use the “thumbs down”).

Hope this helps! Be sure to follow us on Facebook and I’ll post some of my stations there every so often.