Hi West Coast Swing and Salsa Dancers!

Hope you got to enjoy and take in the Olympics! I must say, not knowing what to expect, I really loved my experience! It was very inspiring and fun!

Now it is time to try something new on the dance floor. Have you heard about Carolina Shag Dancing? This is actually one of the most popular forms of swing dance in the US, but we know little about it because it is danced in the east. I got introduced to it many years ago at the yearly Atlanta Grand Nationals Dance Competition that takes place in May. I was so inspired by the dancing and the fact that it was danced by entire families, from the young to the old!

 This dance is footwork oriented, consists of cool syncopations and is very fun.  For those of you who go to the swing dance competitions, you will often see shag footwork in west coast swing dancing.   But alot of us don’t realize that this fancy footwork has roots back east. This past US Open, I was fortunate enough to get introduced to a Hall of Fame Shag Dancer , Ellen Taylor.  It was so cool to see her out competing in Shag with Brennar Gore, who was the young adult West Coast Swing winner!

 Ellen would love to see Shag dance expand it’s influence, so she is kindly helping me in moving it out west! I had begun over the last few years, to introduce shag dance moves into my Invitational West Coast Swing dance class every summer. But now I hope to expand this further and get more of us actually shag dancing! So please, come and check it out! I will be starting with the basics and quickly moving onto fun and fancy syncopations. So whether you are already a swing or salsa dancer, add some Shag dance on tuesdays at 830 pm to your repetoire!

Also, just as a note, we have recently changed the format of our Wednesday dance mixer. We are now doing both Swing dance and Salsa, one dance on either side of the curtain. So come and have some extra practice on Wednesdays! For only $4, in the next few weeks, we could even get some Shag dancing out on the mixer floor!

So looking forward to the upcoming session with you on the dance floor!

Pamela Podmoroff, Urban Beat Dance Co.