Level information:
Cotton City Blues is aimed at existing Blues dancers wanting to 'level up', AS WELL AS people interested to find out all about Traditional Blues. You may be an existing dancer that wants to explore Blues dancing, you may love Blues, Jazz, Soul and Funk, and want to add Bluesy flavour to your existing West Coast, Tango, Swing dance repertoire. Come join us!
Class descriptions:
Friday Welcome classincluded in your weekend pass - useful & fun for everybody, essential if you are a brand new dancer, it shows your commitment and respect to the other participants who want to have the most fun dancing with you! This will allow you to take full advantage of the weekend classes. Meet people, ease yourself into the weekend and gather pointers on Blues posture plus other core elements.
Saturday workshops:
Get in the zone focus class with Lucas & Velody (ALL LEVELS) PLUS
Lucas & Velody:
"Leads and Flows" Leads - make the moves you already know feel *even* better, via smoothness & sophistication. Add Blues vocabulary into your repertoire. Improve your 'absorb and redirect' skills. Follows - learn how connection is expressed in Blues dancing: how to find it, maintain it, relax whilst travelling linearly & reconnect to it. Results: Awareness of correct Blues partnership skills. More finely tuned connection, more creativity and comfort.
"Turn it like you mean it" Following on and using concepts from Leads & Flows, we now introduce rotational energy into the mix to level up your turn technique. If you already lead / follow spins like a ninja - fantastic! We are going to show you great balance and control at varying speeds, to ensure quality of movement throughout and a thorough understanding of the mechanics of both roles in the partnership. Result: more finely tuned technique during set up and execution of turns and rotational momentum.
Faye & Frank ** Blues 101 ** We’ll be paring things back, shaking them down and building our blues from the ground up. Suitable for new-to-bluesers as well as anyone who knows and loves the benefits of revisiting the fundamentals. We’ll explore stance, frame, connection and tone with the emphasis on practical and useful, and ensuring we get maximum effect from them all in our dancing, no matter what our level of experience.
** Blues 101-and-a-bit ** We’ll use all the great stuff we looked at in the previous workshop to spice up some basics. Because when it comes to blues, the basics ain’t just basic, you know. We’ll be walking with style when we add a dash of rhythm variations, season with some simple turns, and sprinkle with dynamic tone changes to create a feast that’s fit for a (BB) king.
Saturday night Practica: ALL INSTRUCTORS
This is your opportunity to work on a one-to-one basis with the instructors on subjects of your choice / that we feel will be of most value to you. It is INCLUDED in your weekend pass and is an opportunity to follow up on anything outstanding from class and any other Blues & Fusion dance elements you would like to explore.
Sunday workshops:
Lucas & Velody: (ALL LEVELS) Building on the vocabulary already established, we introduce the concept of improvisation and innovation in Solo and partnered movement.
Faye & Frank: ** Bling up your blues, the Frank & Faye way ** We’ve got a whole bunch of nifty stuff under our belts, and in this workshop, we’ll be sharing some of the best of it with you. Dips, drops, mini aerials... the perfect way to bring some bling to your Sunday afternoon blues dancing and put a smile on your face.
