Author: julieb

On Thursday, Sept 21, Blues Union will reopen with a new schedule, including a beyond-beginner class and community studio time!

Check Facebook for updates & more details: https://www.facebook.com/groups/92007818597

Alright folks! We’ve had live music a couple of times before, but now we have a whole schedule to kick off for the fall.

To get things started, we’re going to have ourselves a Blues Clinic. In case you aren’t familiar, Blues Clinics are hour-and-a-half long sessions (from 7:30 to 9:00) where music is constantly playing in the background and students get personalized feedback from the instructors they dance with. We bring in as many of the Boston instructors as we can, and each student gets to dance with them. There’s also an extended-length beginner lesson running at the same time, making Blues Clinic nights the perfect time to invite complete newcomers to the dance.

Once the Blues Clinic is done, we get ourselves ready for three hours of live music with the Delta Generators!

The Delta Generators (http://www.deltagenerators.com/) are a hot local Blues band that can’t wait to play for us. They made a name for themselves combining the sounds of raw Delta Blues with the energy of early rock & roll, but that power doesn’t constrain them – they routinely throw in everything from some Memphis soul to Louisiana funk to spice things up.

We’ll be open until midnight in order to fit this much awesome, my friends. Entrance to the dance will be $10 instead of the usual $5 in order to cover the band, and the Blues Clinic will be an additional $5.

If you’ve been to our Blues Clinics, you’ve probably seen these two lovely ladies, Sara Gaynor and Khrysti Smyth, helping out with instruction. We’re going to go ahead and put them through their paces in the instructor spotlight for the first time at Blues Union, and hope you can join us in supporting them! Their lessons will be:

Get Grounded! (Intermediate, 7:30-8:15)

Most of us have experienced many classes that focus on connect……ing with our dance partner, but what about our other major connection points? Like with the floor? Sara and Khrysti feel that all of our movement comes from the ground up, so they’ll help you develop better balance and control by exploring how we connect with the ground as we’re dancing and how to apply that to your connection with your partner.

Back to Basics (Beginner, 8:15-9:00)

Sara and Khrysti have similar dance philosophy, namely that anything is possible with a solid foundation. And that it’s a good idea to break down your basics and build them up again on a regular basis because they are always changing! So whether this is your first time on the floor, or you’ve been doing this for years, check out their take on the basics of blues dance and see if they can rock YOUR foundation.

After the lessons, Khrysti and our very own master of food Stephen York will be teaming up to DJ a couple of excellent sets for us. Amelia will be providing brownies, and if enough people bug Carl Herrmann about it he’ll be providing bacon!

As always, the lessons are $5 and the dance is $5.

Hello everyone!

It’s once again time for our monthly Blues Clinic. Each month we take the time to put as many of our instructors in one room as possible, and each instructor dances with each Blues Clinic attendee and gives them personalized feedback on how to improve their dancing. Everybody then gets to practice what they’ve learned over the course of the session (7:30 to 9:00), and can go back to an instructor and ask questions… as many times as they want. At the same time as all this, we have an hour-and-a-half long beginner class running on one side of the room, making it a perfect way to bring friends into Blues dancing.

After the Blues Clinic, we’ll have Khrysti Smyth and Alex Abdoualev at the DJ booth!

Steve is once again going fancy with his food planning – this Thursday we’ll have decorative dessert night, with food provided by Karen, Micki, Adrienne, and Marina!

This is it, friends! Chris and Campbell are coming to town, and this Thursday they’re giving you a sneak peak of what the weekend has to offer. Check out these fine teaser classes:

Call and Response (Intermediate, 7:30-8:15)

You can’t have a conversation with only one person talking! Call and Response is about taking turns, letting your partner speak, and creating something *together*. We’ll even explore some solo movement — see what you can make up!

Badass Blues Basics (Beginner, 8:15-9:00)

One of the easiest and hardest things about Blues is that there is really no one basic step. It’s very freeing a lot of room for expression, but it can be daunting because you don’t always have that one thing to fall back on. But fear not! We’ll walk you through our favorite “basic” steps and show you how to get your groove on out on the Blues floor. Come learn the steps that never get old!

After the lessons are over, Khrysti Smyth and Amy Kucharik will be rockin’ and rollin’ us all night long! Steve will be bringing ceviche, Martha will be bringing pudding, Naomi will be bringing lemon cake, and Micki and Eileen will be bringing even more tasty food for us to scarf down.

As always, the lessons are $5 and the dance is an additional $5.

See you all Thursday!