This week at Blues Union

Thursday, August 9

Come join us for more partnering fun with Jenn Martinez and Shawn Hershey:

Drag Blues (7:30-8:30)
Learn some stylish moves in Drag Blues! In this series, we’ll be using close embrace, counter body movement and weight-sharing to create dips, leans, drags, and maybe even a few lifts. We’ll challenge your core strength and your control to add more dynamic movement into your dancing!

Note: To take this class, you must be at the intermediate level at New School Swing, or have a recommendation from a Blues Union instructor. To get a recommendation, ask an instructor at the Blues Clinic 🙂 More information can be found on our Upcoming Classes page.

Blues Basics (8:30-9:00)
This will be a weekly class designed not only for the novice, but anyone wanting to focus on the fundamentals of Blues dancing. It will provide enough vocabulary to have fun on the dance floor, as well the opportunity to hone and polish the core techniques behind the dance.

Devona Cartier and Steve York will be behind the DJ booth to satisfy your Blues cravings.

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

Register for the Intermediate Series!

We here at Blues Union are really excited about our intermediate series, and we hope you are too!  The teachers can cover the most material when there isn’t a large influx of drop-ins every week, so to help create the best experience we can, it is now possible to pre-register for the entire series. As a little incentive, the Blues Clinic is included for free with registration! Please only register if you have been cleared to take the classes; we will still enforce the intermediate level.

Blues Union August Series: Drag Blues – $20





Thursday, August 2

For our second intermediate series, Jenn Martinez and Shawn Hershey will challenge your partnering skills with Drag Blues:

Drag Blues (7:30-8:30)
Learn some stylish moves in Drag Blues! In this series, we’ll be using close embrace, counter body movement and weight-sharing to create dips, leans, drags, and maybe even a few lifts. We’ll challenge your core strength and your control to add more dynamic movement into your dancing!

Note: To take this class, you must be at the intermediate level at New School Swing, or have a recommendation from a Blues Union instructor. To get a recommendation, ask an instructor at the Blues Clinic 🙂 More information can be sound on the Upcoming Classes page.

Blues Basics (8:30-9:00)
This will be a weekly class designed not only for the novice, but anyone wanting to focus on the fundamentals of Blues dancing. It will provide enough vocabulary to have fun on the dance floor, as well the opportunity to hone and polish the core techniques behind the dance.

Jonathan Pechon and John Brooks will be behind the DJ booth to whet your Blues appetite.

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

Thursday, July 26

We just completed our first intermediate series, so it’s time for a Clinic! With this class change comes a format change to help support dancers of all levels:

Blues Clinic (7:30-9)
During Blues Clinics we gather as many instructors as we can for personalized instruction. Students dance with instructors and get individual feedback on their dancing. Music plays continuously in the background, and students are encouraged to social dance and give each other feedback while not dancing with instructors.

For the first half of the Clinic the instructors will focus on working with the intermediate and and advanced dancers. For the second half, they will focus on helping beginners. But no matter your level, you’re still welcome to approach a teacher at any time during the Blues Clinic to get help and feedback. It’s also a great time to talk the instructors about taking the intermediate level classes.

Plus, we’re bringing in a dancer favorite: Shawn Hershey and the Blues Bananas! Music by dancers for dancers, the Blues Bananas will keep you dancing all night with their unique blend of traditional jazz and blues. You can learn more at www.thefriedbananas.com.

Since we have a band playing, we’ll be going till midnight.

As always, the Clinic is $5, and as with live music nights, the dance will be $10.

Thursday, July 19

There’s one more week of our first intermediate series with Julie Brown and Paul Mandel!

Solo Blues: Musicality, Inspiration (7:30-8:30)
Solo blues is a beautiful thing, and it’s even more beautiful when inspired by the music and the dancers around us. In this series, we’ll focus on a solo dance technique, rhythms, poly-rhythms (doing more than 1 rhythm at once, with different parts of your body), call & response, and riffing! Be prepared to work hard and to come out with more variety, more confidence, and more beauty & creativity in your solo blues!

Note: To take this class, you must be at the intermediate level at New School Swing, or have a recommendation from a Blues Union instructor. To get a recommendation, ask an instructor at the Blues Clinic 🙂 More information can be found on the Upcoming Classes page.

Blues Basics (8:30-9:00)
This will be a weekly class designed not only for the novice, but anyone wanting to focus on the fundamentals of Blues dancing. It will provide enough vocabulary to have fun on the dance floor, as well the opportunity to hone and polish the core techniques behind the dance.

Amy Kucharik will be behind the DJ booth to scratch your Blues itch.

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