• Community Building - Social Dancing

    Advanced dancers: Remember your superpower

    May 29, 2017 - By 

    If you identify as an advanced dancer, remember that with great power comes great responsibility. (Yes, that’s incredibly corny. No, I don’t regret it.) When you become an advanced dancer, the superpower you gain is your awesome dance skills. You can use those skills to further your own pleasure and gain by holding them back from the newer dancers below you. Or, you can give those skills freely to the new dancers waiting to be inspired. “Waiting” to be inspired I say waiting to be inspired for a very specific reason: most newer dancers aren’t actually “inspired” by the dance…

  • Inspirational - Social Dancing

    In a Culture of Isolation, Be the Invitation

    February 9, 2017 - By 

    “In a culture of isolation, be the invitation to everything.” – Vera de Chalambert* As dancers, we know the meaning of an invitation. Or rather, we think we do. We invite each other to dance. Leaders invite followers into patterns and movements. Dancers invite each other into a connection and embrace. But, beyond the invitations we give our dancers in the context of the dance-relationship, are we truly inviting them in? Anonymous Dancers We usually think that if we know someone’s name they are no longer anonymous. But, a name is not the only indicator of anonymity. Anonymity in its broadest sense is tied to a lack…

  • Fun Stuff - Inspirational

    The 10 Most Influential Thoughts from Dance that Influence my Life

    October 11, 2016 - By 

    I’ve been dancing for over 8 years now. I’ve heard (and seen) a lot of inspirational things. But, there’s 10 thoughts in particular that stuck with me. These 10 thoughts influence much more than only my dancing; they influence my perspectives on the world. I hope you find them as poignant as I do.  “Don’t dance. Just walk.” New dancers frequently spend a lot of time trying to dance. I was one of them, until a teacher told me to focus on walking instead of dancing. Suddenly, dance made sense to me. Any task broken into its basic pieces is far more…

  • Fun Stuff - Inspirational - Social Dancing

    The Day I Was Told I Shouldn’t Dance

    September 15, 2015 - By 

    I’ve been told twice that I shouldn’t dance. I only listened once. The first was when I was a beginner. Only a few weeks into my dance journey, my instructor became frustrated by my lack of ‘natural’ ability in Salsa. He point-blank told me “maybe dance just isn’t for you.” His advice didn’t help me at all. Because I was not grasping his ‘concepts’, he instead determined that I was not built to dance.

  • Beginner-Friendly - Inspirational - Social Dancing

    What it means to be a ‘Social Dancer’

    July 10, 2015 - By 

    Being a social dancer is a fantastic thing. It means that you feel, deep in your core, a desire to connect with other human beings. It means you have a desire to be empathetic, caring, and in tune with the energy around you. We desire to create, channeling our energy into a beautiful experience that is always present and never replicated in any other place. And, unlike many things, we choose to create these magical experiences with a partner.

  • Dance Discussions - Fun Stuff - Inspirational

    Why Do You Dance: A Collection of Dancer Opinions

    January 27, 2015 - By 

    “I dance because dancing is life” – ‘T’ – New York, NY – USA Why do we dance? I dance because there is nothing else that engages me the same way physically, emotionally and socially all at once. It is a journey of perpetual growth alongside people I adore and cherish. But, I’m not the only dancer out there. In a quest to find what drives us dancers in our crazy, colorful, passionate pursuit of dance, I decided to reach out to the community. From solo artists to stage performers and social dancers, some themes seemed consistent across genre and…