- Put on local events including classes, workshops and dances.
- Bring in teachers, DJs and live bands from other cities.
- Award scholarships for out-of-town dance events to committed students in our community.
- Support “dancer residencies”, allowing traveling teachers to live and teach in Philadelphia for up to one month.
History of LaB
Lindy Hop (named for famed aviator Charles Lindbergh) is a partner dance that evolved in New York City in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lindy Hop co-evolved with jazz music and is a member of the swing dance family (along with Charleston, East Coast, Balboa and many others).
In the early 1980s, Lindy Hop underwent a mass revival, culminating in a widespread obsession with the dance. Since the late 1990s, thousands of Americans (and still more Australians, Spaniards, Swedes and others) have been learning and practicing Lindy Hop as a social and competitive dance form.
Most U.S. cities are host to groups of Lindy Hoppers that organize weekly or monthly dances. Groups in many U.S. cities, as well as many major cities around the world, organize exchanges, regional (sometimes national) events which bring dancers together for several days to dance, take lessons, and/or compete.
Much in the same way the term “swing dance” encompasses Lindy Hop and other styles of dance, blues dance is a genre which includes many styles of solo and partner dance done to blues music. Blues dance co-evolved with blues music, and is thought to have emerged in the early 1900s from a synthesis of West African dances and European folk dances.
The style of blues dance that we teach and practice at LaB is contemporary, and includes traditional blues steps such as Slow Drag, as well as steps and techniques borrowed from Lindy Hop, Hip Hop, Tango and other genres of dance.
Blues dance is in the process of being revived, and is practiced primarily within Lindy Hop dance communities in several American cities (San Francisco and Seattle boast the largest blues dance communitites), but is spreading rapidly throughout the U.S. and to other countries.
Blues dance is known for being exceptionally improvisational and intimate, and for inspiring great focus on lead/follow connection. Although there are a few blues dance exchanges in major cities which sponsor competitions, the dance is primarily done on the social floor at house parties, dances and larger events.