Dance Styles

Considered the Grand Daddy of Swing, the Lindy Hop evolved in Harlem dancehalls such as the famous Savoy Ballroom in the late 1920's. Lindy Hop is a partner dance – but because it has its origins in street dance, it’s a lot more informal than ballroom dances like the waltz or the foxtrot. Later called the ‘Jitterbug,’ Lindy Hop exploded in popularity across the U.S. in the 1930-1950’s. Lindy Hop can be a fast or a slow dance and it can be danced to every kind of music from big band tunes to hip hop.

Lindy Hop Classes on Mondays

Lindy Hop Classes on Tuesdays

Lindy Hop Weekend Workshops

Lindy Hop Social Dancing

Lindy Hop Festival

In the late 20s and early 30s, “The Balboa”, danced completely in a closed-position, developed in the crowded ballrooms of Southern California. It is characterized by its distinctive footwork and its adaptability to a wide range of tempos without sacrificing a bit of its grace.

After a while, dancers of “The Balboa” wanted to experiment beyond what could be achieved in “Pure” Balboa’s chest-to-chest position and started to introduce variations that required creating more space between dancers including spins, dips, tricks, airsteps; anything one could imagine.


Balboa Sunday Workshops

Bal-Swing Social Dancing

Balboa Workshops in DJam 2010

Related to Swing dancing in that it has similar origins in the early 1900's African American community, Blues is a style of social partner dancing which was danced in smoky after-hours juke joints and house parties a hundred years ago. Its storied past is as old and mysterious as that of Blues music itself. Because Blues dancing never attained mainstream legitimacy, it remained very true to its African origins, both in its style of movement and in its artistic and theoretical principles. Today, Blues is danced by swing dancers worldwide to slow, groovy Jazz, Swing, and Blues music. It can be a highly individualistic and improvised dance, but it has very simple basics.

The key features of Blues dancing are its expressiveness, its subtlety, and its very free structure, which lends itself to improvisation and musicality. Blues is a dancer's dance: just about everything you do in Blues dancing is for you and your partner, and not for anybody who may be watching. The best Blues dances will give you the distinct feeling that you and the person you are dancing with are the only people in the universe. Blues is fun, relaxing, playful, and sensuous.

Whether you ultimately want to dance fast or slow, blues is a great way to learn connection and musicality skills. Blues breaks partner dancing into its essentials - weight changes and lead-follow technique - that will be directly applicable to all other styles of partner dancing.


The Blues Club

Swing & Blues Festival