Swing/Blues dance with a LIVE BAND! Original Blues dancing began as a vernacular African-American dance, tied to the blues and jazz music that evolved during the early 1900’s. It is a lead-follow partner dance that involves rhythmic, syncopated, and often sensual movement. It’s all about connection and communication with your partner, and interpreting the music through movement. Swing dancing is about pure joy in expressing jazz music of the 1920’s-1940’s golden age of jazz. Come learn the basics of these fabulous dance forms in a brief beginners’ lesson with Christophe Taylor, and then stay to dance to live swing/blues band Buck Thrifty!
Christophe Taylor has been dancing blues since the San Francisco Blues scene first started in 2005. He’s traveled the country studying blues dance and dance teaching, attending national blues dancing exchanges, and occasionally competing. He’s been teaching blues for years at venues large and small. In addition to blues dancing, Christophe is also knowledgeable about a great diversity of other partner and folk dances like waltz, tango, swing, irish ceilidh, fusion, and more. He founded East Bay Waltz – Berkeley’s monthly mixed dance venue – in 2008, and can regularly be found teaching at Friday Night Waltz in Palo Alto as well. Christophe is a regular dance performer too. He performs with Le Cancan Bijou, several Italian folk dancing troupes, and also performs circus trapeze and aerials.