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Workshop is FULL except for Friday evening!
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Balboa and Charleston Workshop What better way to end 2003 than with a workshop with this amazing pair! Famous for their incredible energy and passion for all forms of swing dancing, but simply the best teachers for Charleston and Balboa. Despite living in the warmth of San Diego, Joel and Alison are both very keen to come to Montreal. So take advantage of this crazy low-priced weekend, and learn some new Charleston skills and finally catch up with the Balboa craze. "Joel and Alison rock bad ass! They're so good that I'm actually going to go to San Diego for a week and work with them on Balboa in mid November. If you like Bal and Charleston, I'd really recomend getting yourself to their workshops!" Aidan from Toronto
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| Advance Prices $105 whole package Friday evening, Dec 5th, $25 Charleston (Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced level)* Saturday, Dec 6th, $45 Pure Balboa and Bal Swing (Beginner/Intermediate level)* Sunday, Dec 7th, $45 Cool Pure Bal & Bal Swing Bal Tricks and Teachers Choice (Intermediate/Advanced level) *if you are a beginner, write to me at montrealbalboa@hotmail.com and we can arrange for a FREE lesson to bring you up to workshop level. |
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What is Balboa? | |
| Balboa (Its original pure form) Danced completely in closed position, pure Balboa evolved in conservative dance halls where space was limited. Some of these dance halls had strict rules or codes of conduct that prohibited the wild kicks of the Charleston and other exuberant dances. Pure Balboa is characterised by a fairly upright posture with both partners standing 'chest to chest' in close intimate contact. You never break away from your partner, there are no spins or turns, and you remain completely in contact through the chest at all times. This does not leave much scope for variations so pure Balboa is an intrinsically very simple dance. The only variations possible were changes in direction and a few step variations. These step variations generally play with the rhythm or change the look and feel (style) from below the knee downwards. If you part at the chest then you're not doing pure Balboa! The dance's simplicity and economy of movement make it very well suited to fast tempo music. This fact has meant that Balboa is often mistakenly thought of as just a fast dance. Indeed many of the original dancers could dance at amazing speeds. However, they also liked to dance to slower music and the dance has always been done to music of all tempos including some improbably slow tunes. It's been said that pure Balboa was done by older dancers who just wanted to meet and dance with women! | Bal Swing After a while some of the original Balboa dancers tired of doing just pure Balboa and started to introduce fancier variations which forced the 'chest to chest' connection to be broken. In this form anything goes; spins, turns, dips, tricks, and even air steps! All these things are allowed provided the overall style, feeling, and framework remain true in spirit to the original dance. In explicit terms it might be said that these open patterns should be combined with recognisable Balboa footwork. There's some dispute over exactly when this form got its 'Bal Swing' name. It is clear though that for some time many people referred to it as just 'Swing' dancing. Other forms of swing dancing also existed around that time in different areas, these were clearly not derived from Balboa. So only really swing dancers in the immediate LA region might have been doing what we now know as Bal Swing. Register
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