Huntsville Swing Dance Society

This Follow-Intensive weekend is designed to help beginner to intermediate level follows take their dancing to the next level. This workshop will focus on building a strong movement vocabulary for both solo and partner dancing, commitment to movement, and defeating the Wicked Witch and her evil Flying Monkeys that try to keep follows from reaching their full potential! Teachers for the weekend are Alysha Cantrell, Lettie Andrade De La Torre, Jenna Knox and special guest Lindsay Longstreth. A dance will follow the workshop on Sunday evening with Knoxville's favorite DJ/Follow Kelly Gassert! Admission to the dance is included with the $35 registration fee. If you just want to come to the dance, the admission is $5 for KSDA card holders and $8 for non card holders. Contact Alysha Cantrell for more info at aacantrell@gmail.com or visit http://www.swingknoxville.org/?q=node/1621.

UPDATE 6/15: See below for the hour by hour schedule for the workshop!
Day 1:

• 10:00 a.m. Start with Relaxation. This class will focus on alerting students to the areas people commonly hold tension that keep them from being able to fully commit to connection. From the point that students are aware of these areas, the purpose is to show them ways of letting that tension go.
• 11:00 a.m. Back to the Basics of Following. This class will focus on general frame, allowing oneself to be led, and commitment to follow through all the way.
• 12:00 p.m. Follow Styling. This class will focus entirely on hands and arms and providing students with little bits of flair and pizzazz to accentuate variations and other movements. Emphasis will also be placed in committing fully to the styling as commitment makes style work. The ultimate goal of this class is to provide an answer for the ever-looming question, “What the heck do I do with these?”
• 1:00 p.m. Lunch. Pack a lunch and join us for a discussion!
• 2:00 p.m. Solo Movement I. This class will be geared toward providing a library of solo movement vocabulary so a follow never has to sit out in a scene that is ultimately so follow-heavy. Emphasis will also be placed on commitment as commitment to solo movement in particular is what makes it look amazing. Let’s face it, confidence in the moves and pictures one creates is what makes it appealing to look at.
• 3:00 p.m. Musicality I. This class will focus on listening to the music with commitment. This class will explore music in a physicalized form and grant students the opportunity to put the music in their bodies. Students will give physical form to range, volume, tone quality, and general quality of the music, and in so doing, learn how to anticipate what the music will do next.
• 4:00 p.m. 10 Flying Monkeys. 10 things follows should avoid at all costs.

Day 2:

• 10:00 a.m. Solo Movement II. More moves. More how it works.
• 11:00 a.m. Musicality II. This class will focus particularly on phrasing and putting punctuation in dancing.
• 12:00 p.m. Complex Following (taught by special guest Lindsay Longstreth). Lindsay will discuss active vs. passive movement in your body and more. Munchkins appreciated.
• 1:00 p.m. Lunch. Pack your lunch again and we’ll talk some more!
• 2:00 p.m. Variations I. This class will be “move” based and focused on helping follows expand their swingout variation vocabulary. In the long run, we want to provide them with enough variations they could potentially not use the same one twice in a single song, and yet, also provide them with a way of remembering all of them so that they know what all is in their vocabulary base. We will need “munchkins” for this class to help us by providing swingouts.
• 3:00 p.m. Variations II. MORE variations. Munchkins needed.
• 4:00 p.m. A variations class taught by Lindsay Longstreth.
• 6:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Wizard’s Ball. This is the opportunity for all of our students to practice what they’ve learned! We will have a Jack & Jill contest as well as a Solo Charleston competition!

The munchkins who assist us in classes by providing solid swingouts, (yes, we would like only those leads with solid swingouts for the classes) will be comped into the Wizard's Ball. While the Wizard's Ball is not a formal event, feel free to dress as you wish. Knoxville DJ Kelly Gassert will be DJing for the evening.

Please bear in mind this is still SOMEWHAT tentative but highly unlikely that it will change. Can't wait to see you all on the Yellow Brick Road!