The More You Know with Odysseus Bailer

My friend Odysseus has been working for years to find useful and successful ways to talk about Black history and culture in swing and blues dance classes. After years of experimenting, he now wants to share his knowledge with you! Please watch the video above for workshop highlights from Odysseus himself. Format highlights 3-hour virtual…

Our Responsibilities as Swing and Blues Leaders

Hello, swing and blues community. The shit has hit the fan. As you all know, Black people dying at the hands of American police isn’t exactly a new thing. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery are just the most recent names in a long and dark history of this country. Anger at this inhuman…

Find-a-Photographer or Videographer

Need a photographer or videographer for your dance event? Here are some options! Scroll down to fill out the form to add yourself if you are interested in being a photographer or videographer for dance events. Please note, as this is self-reported data, make sure you still do your research before hiring anyone to work…

Coronavirus: What is it and what can I do?

I am not a medical professional. I have a degree in Evolutionary Biology, which means I have a strong understanding of how organisms evolve. My teaching experience at the undergraduate level gives me lots of practice researching and communicating complicated topics about biology. This is meant as a general resource guide for non-specialists to learn…

Curriculum Development

Why develop a curriculum? Amazing dance classes are the foundation to build excited and energized students. Good classes empower students to build and practice new skills, enhancing their understanding and appreciation for the topic at hand. But if students attend regular classes for a month, three months, a year, will they grow? Will students be…

Blues Organizer Dinner at bluesSHOUT! 2018

I have many passions, one of them bringing organizers together so we can help each other. Once again, I organized an organizer dinner at bluesSHOUT! 2018, this time with the help of Faye Adnak and Vartan Khachaturov. Theme This year we wanted to facilitate an environment for open-ended discussions amongst organizers. After giving everyone a…

Blues Organizer Dinner at bluesSHOUT! 2017

After the success of our first blues organizer dinner at bluesSHOUT! 2016, we decided to bring together organizers again. While the previous year we generated discussion topics based on crowd-sourcing, this year we started with a specific theme to guide all of our discussions. We then selected sub-topics, generated several starter prompts, and invited knowledgeable…

Blues Organizer Dinner at bluesSHOUT! 2016

On April 6, 2016, I asked if other blues dance teachers wanted to get together at bluesSHOUT! to share teaching ideas amongst ourselves. And, well, it kind of ballooned out of control. The meeting quickly built from instructors getting together to all scene leaders getting together. Our goal was to create a space for organizers…

Blues Idiom Dance Playlists

Here are Spotify playlists with music appropriate for several blues idiom dances: Ballroomin’ idioms Savoy walk Slow drag* Strut Stride Jukin’ idioms Belly rubbing Belt-buckle polishing Boogaloo Chicago triple Funky butt Piedmont triple Slow drag* Struttin’ Texas shuffle *There are both ballroomin’ and jukin’ versions of slow drag. On this playlist you will find both jazz…

Blues Idiom Dances

There has been a lot of talk about blues idiom dances within the modern blues dance community. Many different dances have surfaced in recent community discussions, event workshops, and competitions. There are lots of names to remember, so let’s start with how they all connect. What are blues idiom dances? Blues dance is the family…