Easy Brilliant
WEST COAST SWING
EASY BRILLIANT WCS - THE BEGINNER BOOT CAMP - 4 hours total
Sunday, July 16, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
Sunday, July 16, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
CONNECT-O-MAGIC – USING SIMPLICITY TO EMPOWER COMPLEXITY – Advanced Patterns & Styling Made Easy
Sunday, July 23, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm (Int/Adv)
Sunday, July 23, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm (Int/Adv)
FULL DESCRIPTIONS:
EASY BRILLIANT WCS - THE BEGINNER BOOT CAMP - 4 hours total
Sunday, July 16, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
Be amazing, super fast. A 4-hour intensive boot camp / crash course. You will become a genuinely good WCS dancer, ready to come WCS dancing with confidence. No partner or prior WCS experience needed. Prerequisite: Willingness to have fun along the way. Plunge in, learn great stuff, and emerge ready to dance anywhere with anyone!
If you have prior dance experience, we will help you use that to accelerate your learning. Chances are good that some WCS skills will carry back and enhance your other dancing, too.
• Instructor: Ken Kreshtool. "The best instructor I've ever had in ANYTHING!" –Harvard University students' comments, 6 years in a row. (For 3 videos of Ken dancing with Paula Wilson, scroll down.)
• Location: Studios 353. 353 W 48th St (betw 8th & 9th Ave) - 2nd Floor - Studio #3
• Class size limited to 16. Due to room size – we want ample space for everyone.
PRICE: Based on ability to pay, with our "more ability to pay" participants helping to subsidize:
• $200 per person if your household income is $300K or higher, or if you are feeling generous.
• $65, or $125 for 2 people, for everyone else, except...
• $35 for all Lindy Hop, Balboa & WCS teachers, full-time students and pro dancers, or you work full-time in a dance studio, or your name is Ying Zhen Ang.
• FREE if you have 20 or more WSDC All Star points, or are a WCS event ED.
Sunday, July 16, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
Be amazing, super fast. A 4-hour intensive boot camp / crash course. You will become a genuinely good WCS dancer, ready to come WCS dancing with confidence. No partner or prior WCS experience needed. Prerequisite: Willingness to have fun along the way. Plunge in, learn great stuff, and emerge ready to dance anywhere with anyone!
If you have prior dance experience, we will help you use that to accelerate your learning. Chances are good that some WCS skills will carry back and enhance your other dancing, too.
• Instructor: Ken Kreshtool. "The best instructor I've ever had in ANYTHING!" –Harvard University students' comments, 6 years in a row. (For 3 videos of Ken dancing with Paula Wilson, scroll down.)
• Location: Studios 353. 353 W 48th St (betw 8th & 9th Ave) - 2nd Floor - Studio #3
• Class size limited to 16. Due to room size – we want ample space for everyone.
PRICE: Based on ability to pay, with our "more ability to pay" participants helping to subsidize:
• $200 per person if your household income is $300K or higher, or if you are feeling generous.
• $65, or $125 for 2 people, for everyone else, except...
• $35 for all Lindy Hop, Balboa & WCS teachers, full-time students and pro dancers, or you work full-time in a dance studio, or your name is Ying Zhen Ang.
• FREE if you have 20 or more WSDC All Star points, or are a WCS event ED.
CLOTHING & SHOES & HYGIENE: scroll down
COVID: TBD as situation evolves.
COVID: TBD as situation evolves.
CONNECT-O-MAGIC – USING SIMPLICITY TO EMPOWER COMPLEXITY (Intermed/Adv WCS) – Intermed / Advanced Patterns & Styling Made Easy
Sunday, July 23, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
We will take a tiny number of deep, high-level Connection skills, polish them, and then effortlessly (more or less) create Intermediate and Advanced moves/patterns and styling with them. Leaders will be amazed at how easy advanced WCS becomes, and how to listen to the Follower's listening to you. Followers will master several layers of WCS's simplicity/complexity balance, and develop good back-and-forth communication with the leader, so that you can effortlessly follow even super-complex improvised patterns, while also getting a lot of great styling in without disturbing the flow. (And with no more need to hijack.)
Prerequisite: Comfort with Whips, and a willingness to be very openminded and have fun along the way.
• Instructor: Ken Kreshtool. "The best instructor I've ever had in ANYTHING!" –Harvard University students' comments, 6 years in a row. (For 3 videos of Ken dancing with Paula Wilson, scroll down.)
• Location: Studios 353. 353 W 48th St (betw 8th & 9th Ave) - 2nd Floor - Studio #3
• Class size limited to 16. Due to room size – we want ample space for everyone.
PRICE: Based on ability to pay, with our "more ability to pay" participants helping to subsidize:
• $200 per person if your household income is $300K or higher, or if you are feeling generous.
• $65, or $125 for 2 people, for everyone else, except...
• $35 for all Lindy Hop, Balboa & WCS teachers, full-time students and pro dancers, or you work full-time in a dance studio.
• FREE if you have 20 or more WSDC All Star points, or are a WCS event ED.
Sunday, July 23, 2023, 2:00-6:00 pm
We will take a tiny number of deep, high-level Connection skills, polish them, and then effortlessly (more or less) create Intermediate and Advanced moves/patterns and styling with them. Leaders will be amazed at how easy advanced WCS becomes, and how to listen to the Follower's listening to you. Followers will master several layers of WCS's simplicity/complexity balance, and develop good back-and-forth communication with the leader, so that you can effortlessly follow even super-complex improvised patterns, while also getting a lot of great styling in without disturbing the flow. (And with no more need to hijack.)
Prerequisite: Comfort with Whips, and a willingness to be very openminded and have fun along the way.
• Instructor: Ken Kreshtool. "The best instructor I've ever had in ANYTHING!" –Harvard University students' comments, 6 years in a row. (For 3 videos of Ken dancing with Paula Wilson, scroll down.)
• Location: Studios 353. 353 W 48th St (betw 8th & 9th Ave) - 2nd Floor - Studio #3
• Class size limited to 16. Due to room size – we want ample space for everyone.
PRICE: Based on ability to pay, with our "more ability to pay" participants helping to subsidize:
• $200 per person if your household income is $300K or higher, or if you are feeling generous.
• $65, or $125 for 2 people, for everyone else, except...
• $35 for all Lindy Hop, Balboa & WCS teachers, full-time students and pro dancers, or you work full-time in a dance studio.
• FREE if you have 20 or more WSDC All Star points, or are a WCS event ED.
CLOTHING & SHOES & HYGIENE: scroll down
COVID: TBD as situation evolves.
COVID: TBD as situation evolves.
CLOTHING & SHOES & HYGIENE
• Wear clothing. Preferably comfortable. Bring an extra shirt and change into it as needed.
• Wear comfortable shoes that let you pivot. Suede or hard-leather soles are good. Most dance-sneaker or plastic soles are good. Grippy rubber soles like on running shoes are bad. High heels and Salsa shoes: not good for WCS; flats or low heels are much better. Character shoes: marginal; your feet will probably hurt after 30 minutes.
• NO BLACK SOLED SHOES! (Studio requirement — they leave streaks. If that's all you own, wear socks or nylon thingies OVER your shoes.)
• RAIN & SNOW: Bring clean, dry shoes and change into them at the door, to protect the nice wood floors.
• Deodorant & fresh breath required. Bring a clean shirt and change into it as needed.
• Please do NOT wear perfume!
• Please do NOT use hand moisturizing lotion immediately before class (ick slippery).
COVID: We will be consistent with whatever the COVID situation is.
NOTE: Full refund available if you test positive or show any symptoms before class of cold, flu, allergies, COVID.
• Wear comfortable shoes that let you pivot. Suede or hard-leather soles are good. Most dance-sneaker or plastic soles are good. Grippy rubber soles like on running shoes are bad. High heels and Salsa shoes: not good for WCS; flats or low heels are much better. Character shoes: marginal; your feet will probably hurt after 30 minutes.
• NO BLACK SOLED SHOES! (Studio requirement — they leave streaks. If that's all you own, wear socks or nylon thingies OVER your shoes.)
• RAIN & SNOW: Bring clean, dry shoes and change into them at the door, to protect the nice wood floors.
• Deodorant & fresh breath required. Bring a clean shirt and change into it as needed.
• Please do NOT wear perfume!
• Please do NOT use hand moisturizing lotion immediately before class (ick slippery).
COVID: We will be consistent with whatever the COVID situation is.
NOTE: Full refund available if you test positive or show any symptoms before class of cold, flu, allergies, COVID.
YOUR TEACHERS
Ken Kreshtool: Internationally ranked West Coast Swing competition dancer. International West Coast Swing instructor. "The best instructor I've ever had in ANYTHING!" — Harvard University students' comments, 6 years in a row, for his on-campus dance classes (while working on a PhD there). Also has advanced degrees in law, education policy, and psychology, and formerly taught ballroom, salsa, swing & lindy hop. Ken is compressing what he has learned from over 200 dance teachers into the best classes you'll find anywhere.
Paula Wilson [not teaching this session]: Internationally ranked West Coast Swing competition dancer. Graduate of the Alvin Ailey School's Professional Division. Professional modern dancer and internationally traveling Argentine Tango teacher for 12 years. Award-winning former early childhood education teacher.
Some videos of us. These are pure improvisational lead-follow dancing — we are making it up as we go along. Not choreographed, not rehearsed. Typically for a demo like this, we hand the DJ 5 or 6 songs and say "you choose - play any one of them."
Paula Wilson [not teaching this session]: Internationally ranked West Coast Swing competition dancer. Graduate of the Alvin Ailey School's Professional Division. Professional modern dancer and internationally traveling Argentine Tango teacher for 12 years. Award-winning former early childhood education teacher.
Some videos of us. These are pure improvisational lead-follow dancing — we are making it up as we go along. Not choreographed, not rehearsed. Typically for a demo like this, we hand the DJ 5 or 6 songs and say "you choose - play any one of them."
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WHAT IS WEST COAST SWING?
In very short: West Coast Swing (WCS) is Swing and Lindy Hop moves done to R&B and contemporary Pop music.
Here is a really good introductory video — a compilation of short clips of various top Champions each dancing to a different genre of music, put together by a fellow in Barcelona.
Here is a really good introductory video — a compilation of short clips of various top Champions each dancing to a different genre of music, put together by a fellow in Barcelona.
More thoroughly: West Coast Swing (WCS) is a partner dance, a smoother and highly sophisticated form of Jitterbug or Lindy Hop-style Swing dance. It spun off from Lindy Hop in California during the post-WW II decades when Lindy Hop itself went dead or dormant for 50 years. It has continued evolving dramatically even today, adapting to new music and new dancers. Over the years, it has "borrowed" (stolen and adapted) almost every cool move, turn, dip, and styling from Lindy Hop, Salsa, Hip Hop, Country, and booty-shakin', and even some Ballroom, Zouk, Tango and Blues. West Coast Swing has one of the biggest vocabularies of moves and combinations of any partner dance — and the widest range of music styles. At the same time, WCS Followers have more freedom for improvisation than in any other partner dance. WCS is the easiest of the Swing dances to learn (if you have the right teachers — that's us!), while remaining one of the most fun and challenging to fully master. Come get in on the fun!
FAQ: World's best WCS group classes?
Are these NEW YORK CITY'S best WCS group classes?
Yes.
Are these the WORLD'S best WCS group classes?
Yes.