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Dive into the culture of the Caribbean and West Africa and take spiritual, musical journey. These dances are full of joy and rhythm, and are sure to energize your week!

Our West African and Caribbean classes are taught by Masani St. Rose-Toth, a captivating and authentic instructor with infectious enthusiasm.

Masani is a native Calgarian who started dancing at the tender age of 3, specializing in West African and Caribbean dance. Upon the introduction to dance, Masani found passion for the West African culture and style. It was through training under Michèle Moss-Johnston at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, she was able to build her foundation. Still working very closely with Michèle Moss-Johnston and various other artists from Guinea, West Africa, she finds every opportunity to take master classes from artists from various regions of Africa including, Congo, Uganda, Ghana, Mali, Guinea and Zimbabwe. Throughout the years, Masani has worked with various studios and professional groups across Canada. It is her mission to keep the art and culture alive from soul to sole!

Hello intermediate and intermediate-advanced Lindy Hoppers!

Sugar Swing is gearing up for its next year of classes of 2016-2017, and there are some things I thought to inform you about that you may not have heard. And some direction! Now that you are past the beginner stage, you might be wondering where to go from here. There are many ways to learn; classes are popular because they are relatively inexpensive, provide consistent progressive learning, are social and interactive. You should also consider private lessons, workshops, watching videos & lots of dancing, regular practice, and lots of social dancing.

Lindy Hop 2/3: Harlem Roots

It’s for higher level intermediate and intermediate-advanced dancers to progress in Lindy Hop. We’ve decided to put together this class with the vision to accomplish a few goals. First, to give more Lindy Hop classes to those that want a higher level than Lindy Hop 2. Second, to train our dancers in specific areas of vernacular jazz through the use of related dances to Lindy Hop. You’ll get a sampling of Tap, for example, to train your ear for rhythm, weight shifts, and timing. Snake Hips will encourage full-body movement on rhythm. Slow Drags focuses on improvising, relaxation, patience, and partner connection. All that, put together, will really push you to the next level!

Solo Jazz

Another route you must consider for progression is solo jazz. We believe that no lindy hopper can call themselves advanced without the ability to dance solo jazz. If you are a quick learner and have a handle on the shim sham or similar jazz routine, go into Solo Jazz 2. If you are starting out, go into solo jazz 1. Why solo jazz? It allows you to focus on good quality body movement, improvisation, and clear rhythms because you don’t have to worry about leading or following.

Balboa

It’s an alternative way to dance to the same swing music as Lindy Hop. It’s quite lovely, but also tricky. Right off the bat, you’ll get trained for much better partner connection, spinning/turning, and clear weight changes. But the great thing about Balboa? It’s a pretty dance that you can do, no sweat, to faster swing music.

Tap

Dancers who spend time with tap, like several months or years, inevitably become highly advanced in their Lindy Hop. It’s training your ear and body for precision and clarity in your dancing, along with exposure to more complex rhythms. If you’re in it for the “long game”, then make Tap your best friend. Or, conversely, if you struggle sometimes with staying on beat, then a class or two of tap will clear up that ailment.

Lindy Hop 3

Where is it? Well, we aren’t offering it Fall 2016, but maybe in winter 2017. We adjusted how we do levelling, so you can’t just do Swing 1 -> Lindy Hop 2 -> Lindy Hop 3 anymore. In short, we believe that most dancers who’ve completed Lindy Hop 2 should be branching out before entering Lindy Hop 3, and it appears that there aren’t enough dancers who’ve branched out enough to offer a Lindy Hop 3 class.

Instead, we recommend Solo Jazz 1, Solo Jazz 2, Tap 1, Tap 2, Balboa 1, Balboa 2, and Harlem Roots.

Volunteering for Classes

We ALWAYS need help for our Swing 1 classes! Why volunteer? Many reasons. First, you get to play a part in helping beginners learn to dance. Second, you review all the basics, for free! Third, you get to meet many new people and make more social connections. Four, if you have ambitions to perhaps one day teach, it’s a fantastic way to observe how classes are taught.

One little note. We treat volunteers as students in the class, as we have TAs and instructors to teach the beginners. As we’ve had some issues in the past with volunteers treating it like they are TAs… it’s not quite that. If unsure, just check in with your instructors!

50% off Lindy Hop 2

There is nothing wrong with repeating a class, and it’s actually quite common. Most Tap 1 students, for example, repeat their 12-week series before going into Tap 2. If you don’t feel confident with the material you learned, go ahead and take it again!

Level Checking

If you are unsure what ‘level’ you are at, then go ahead and ask for a level check with any one of our weekly instructors. 5m before or during a social dance is all it takes! They will give you decent insight.

Class Recommendations

Sometimes our students are really unsure what class to take next, since we offer so much. You’re also welcome to ask any of the weekly instructors for our opinion of what may be best for you.

Mad Kittens

More on the performance side of things, this is considered a ‘level 3’ offering. It’s 2 hours every Sunday night where our coaches teach a variety of solo jazz and lindy hop routines for performing. We host auditions in September (coming up soon), January, and May. Everyone is welcome to audition, contact us for when the next audition is happening!

Social Dancing

We expect, for example, our Mad Cat Swing team members to be actively social dancing at least 3x a month on average. Also, as per our new level progression system, you cannot progress to Lindy Hop 3 without being an active social dancer.

Keep in mind that social dancing is very very important to the development of your partner dance skills. In fact, it is AS IMPORTANT as taking classes or practicing! Of course, you can simply keep taking classes without social dancing, it’s just that certain skills will take much longer for development.

Big News

If you haven’t heard the big news, we have two legends of Lindy Hop coming to Lindy Harvest this year. Norma Miller and Chester Whitmore!! 96 years old and still active, Norma is in two of the most popular Lindy Hop features of all time: A Day at the Races and Hellzapoppin! She danced at the Savoy, was buds with all the great band leaders including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald. Phenominal. Chester Whitmore is a true legend too. He’s worked with so many big names in Hollywood over the years, along with many of the tap and jazz greats, ranging from Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, the Nicolas Brothers, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly… the list goes on. Even played drums for Lionel Hampton. Sorry, I’m REALLY excited for this… if you can make it, do come! Yes, 4 tracks of classes, two live band nights, 5 nights of dancing, performances, 3 contests, 7 guests and instructors… http://lindyharvest.sugarswing.com/

Sugar Swing and Nova Blues partner up to bring you traditional blues dance classes! These partnered classes focus on dancing to slow music. The beauty in dancing blues is that dancers have lots of time to relax, improvise, and have fun without worrying about complicated footwork.

We will be offering two classes that cover pulse, musicality, improvisation, connection, body awareness, and partner awareness. Blues 1 is an introductory class perfect for novice dancers and complete newbies. Experienced blues dancers are welcome to revisit the basics as well. Blues 2 presents more advanced techniques and complex ideas, and is recommended for more experienced blues dancers.

Classes will be held at Sugar Swing’s downtown location, in the Dance Code Studio at 10575-115 Street. For more information and to register, head over here.

To stay in the loop about Nova Blues’ dance events, join their Facebook group.

Evolution of Jazz Dance (according to Turlough Myers)

The first recordings of jazz music is of early, southern American, Dixie-land jazz in the late 1800s. It is understood that African American slaves found a way of expressing themselves and their culture through jazz. African Americans would dance to this early jazz music in a solo, African-rooted style. Over time, the slaves would mock their plantation owners by dancing, maintaining their own style, but partnered.

The “Cake Walk” is the first swing dance on record. Plantation owners would host a dance competition, styled after partnered African American dancing, which was ironically making fun of these white European dance styles. The winners of the cakewalk would win a cake, obviously. As jazz music evolved, so did the way the dance was stepped and partnered.

New Orleans, Dixie-land jazz evolved into the Charleston, straight out of Charleston, Carolina. First danced by the African Americans, it hit the mainstream and white people started copying it. The Charleston and the Black Bottom are recorded as the earliest known video clips of jazz dancing. Nothing was formally taught in classes; all steps were created on account of how the music felt and by watching others. At this point, all partnered dancing remained close in proximity, with small-medium sized steps. But in 1927, in the film After Seban, George “Shorty Stump” Snowdon broke away from his partner, the first recorded instance of it.  However, it is thought that this break away actually happened first in 1925 at the Savoy Ballroom, while dancing the Charleston. The Savoy, in Harlem NYC, was the epitome of jazz music and dancing. This move by Snowdon changed partner dancing forever, and the Savoy was where people went to experience jazz in its roots and its evolution.

By the 1930s, jazz music hit the scene with big bands and exploded all over the place. The music developed and grew, in tempo and sound. “White Jazz” big bands were lead by Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. And despite the times there were black band leaders too: Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Chick Webb with his star singer Ella Fitzgerald. In the Savoy ballroom, race and segregation was not an issue. As Frankie Manning said, “[The Savoy] was the only integrated ballroom, well, in the United States. It was integrated to the point where whether you were white, Chinese or whatever, the only think they wanted to know was — Can you dance? That’s all we thought about.”

The lindy hop, influenced by tap dance and the Charleston, stepped in the mainstream of popular culture, and now everyone was swingin’! Chick Webb was the house band of the Savoy, and the best Savoy dancers were Shorty George and Herbert Whitey White. The latter is responsible for developing some of the exceptional dancers he met at the Savoy, such as Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Al Minns and Leon James, into Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, who then appeared in great jazz dance movies (A Day at the Races, Hellzapoppin’, Hot Chocolate).

So next time you swing-out just think that jazz dance started from the African American roots of a celebration – celebrating freedom and a way to hold onto personal spirit. Make sure your next dance celebrates your own spirit!