You’ve danced with them, you’ve heard them teach, you’ve seen them dance together… now learn the concepts, techniques and moves that make Jon and Carsie’s style of blues so extra-special.

Every Tuesday in July, Jon and Carsie will be teaching a blues series for intermediate dancers. In this 5-week class (plus 2 Sunday workshops), they’ll cover:

1) Connection Perfection: How to transform your closed and open position blues from so-so to oh-so-fantastic
2) Really Cool Moves: A new move each week to illustrate concepts from the lesson in a way that looks and feels fantastic
3) Blues Musicality: Tips for both partners to translate what you hear in the music into a language that you and your partner can enjoy together
4) Balance and weight sharing: Simple dips and lifts to spice up any dance and meanwhile improve your balance
5) Blues etiquette: Tips to make your partner happier and more comfortable, on and off the dance floor

The series will cost $25 for the month, the same price you’d pay for five weeks of LAB dances (in other words, it’s free!). Series includes five Tuesday night classes (At Take the Lead (4701 Pine St.), July 1st-29th, 8-9pm), and two Sunday afternoon workshops (At Jon and Carsie’s House (2822 Poplar St. 1F), July 6th and 20th, 2-6pm).

Series is for intermediate blues dancers. That means people who feel comfortable dancing BLUES (not Lindy or six-count) to a whole song, on the social floor (to different songs, with different partners). Ideally, you’ve have been dancing blues for at least a few months, and you’ve taken at least a few blues lessons. If you’re not sure if you qualify for this class, please ask Jon or Carsie. Be warned: they may ask you to dance!

SPECIAL OFFER: Those who attend all five classes and both workshops will receive a $5 refund!!! That’s right, if you make every lesson, we’ll pay you.

Top 5 reasons to be there:

1) LIVE BLUES MUSIC with LAB’s house band, Carol and Garry
2) OUTSTANDING intermediate lesson with Jesse and Kerry
3) FANTASTIC beginner lesson with Stuart and Carsie
4) Your chance to sign up for Carsie and Jon’s INCREDIBLE (intermediate!!!) July Blues Series
5) Father Mike’s DJing, the mirror ball, the tiny plastic cups, Jerry’s glow sticks, and the usual cast of characters.

See you there….

We have some exciting guest teachers this week: Ben Grunwald & Sandra Mazlagic. These two dance mavens are multiple year veterans of UPenn’s West Philly Swingers. They’re great dancers and we’re quite excited to have them teaching at LaB for the first time. They plan on teaching their intermediate class on using followers momentum through some cool moves and are like pop turns but much cooler (that’s my interpretation not theirs).

Jesse & Carsie will teach the beginner lesson, DJ Emilion takes the music position for the night along with Carsie, Kerry’s grandma is famouser than you know, stuart’s awesomer than you know, cheryl’s is paintier than you know, and jon… heh, well, jon is jon.

See you dancin’

Mike & Emily are goofy, fun, innovative, and amazing dancers from New York City. They’ve worked with the West Philly Swingers from UPenn, and are highly respected around the dance community. They’ll be teaching a workshop on June 18th from 8PM-10PM at Studio 34. The workshop will be $10 if you pre-register, and $15 if you pay at the door on the day of the event.

To register for the workshop, please visit our sign up page:
http://www.lab.socializr.com/event/351124732
Read more for their bio and class descriptions (NEW!).
Read the rest of this entry »

WHEW! What a weekend. Keep your dance fix going by coming out to LaB! We’ve got you covered tonight. Stuart & Jesse will be continuing their review of Kevin & Sharon’s class, Jon & Kerry have the basics class covered, and Stuart will be DJing.

See you tonight!

Philly Lindy Love is just around the corner! You’d better tune up your dancing. We’ve got the perfect solution for you: Stuart, Jesse, & Cheryl will do a review class of some of the concepts we learned from Kevin & Sharon this past weekend. That means if you took the course, this’ll be a great time to solidify the skills they introduced, and if you were lame and missed out this weekend, you’ll get make up for it in small part. Topics we’ll cover include syncopations, putting stretch into your swing-out, and charleston swing-outs.

Of course, we always have a beginner lesson. This week, Jon & Kerry will enchant you with amazing foundations. Alex Moretsky will be DJing his sweet sweet tunes, and then we’ll be psyched for PLL this weekend!

Registration is now closed. For those hoping to pay at the door for the whole workshop or single classes, there are about 15-20 spots available if all the registered participants show up. At the door registrants will be allowed in on a first come, first serve basis. We will attempt to enforce a lead/follow balance in the classes.

The class schedule is as follows:
Class 1 @ 11:00AM
Class 2 @ 12:20PM
lunch break
Class 3 @ 2:20PM
Class 4 @ 3:40PM

All 4 classes are still $60. Individual classes will be $18/class.

The classes are being held on the second floor of the Ethical Society: 1906 Rittenhouse Sq, 19103.

Kick it witcha’ in class.

The venerable institution that is Jerry Segal has his birthday this week. In classic fashion, He’s the one who’s bringing presents: Jerry says, “Come hungry to LaB,” and boy are we excited!

Stuart’s finishing up his Charleston class this week, we always have a beginner lesson, and a mix of the house DJs to boot.

This’ll be short and sweet: Stuart blasts off with the second week of his Charleston Class, Jesse & Carsie will teach the beginner class, Father Mike will the DJing the first hour, and Greg promises to not cut another song short for the second hour.

See you out tonight!

Registration for our Sharon Davis & Kevin St. Laurent workshop on May 31st is now open. Until May 24th, you can get 5-hours of instruction from these world renowned dancers for just $50. On May 24th, the price for all 4 workshops rises to $60.

Recap:
Before May 24th - $50 for four 1h 15m classes
After May 24th - $60 for four 1h 15m classes

Visit our sign-up page to register:
http://lab.socializr.com/event/306383385
Please be sure to enter your full name and email address as indicated, as well as your lead/follow dance role in the comments. Detailed instructions are on the sign-up page. Read more to see class descriptions and find out information about a dance with the Boilermakers afterwards! Read the rest of this entry »

This week, we have the venerable Brenda Collins in town to teach the intermediate lesson. She’s probably our favorite teacher. We hope she’s one of yours, too, so come on out.

Additionally, Brenda will be teaching privates on Wednesday. If you’re interested (and you should be), email carsie (at) lindyandblues (dot) com.

Carsie will be back this week! To celebrate her return, she’ll be teaching the beginner lesson with Jon and possibly DJing tonight. Jesse looks and feels naked, we all wish Stuart was naked, and I have pictures of everyone except Cheryl and Kerry naked. Greg will be DJing in New York this Thursday, so I hope he’ll put us to the test (nakedness aside).

Last week we announced that Stuart would be starting his Charleston series this week. That was a mistake. The Charleston series will be a 3-week series that will start on May 13th. Stay tuned for more information.

Stuart will be running a 3-week class series from May 13th to May 27th. This series will focus in on the root-of-all-swing dance, the Charleston. We’ll have classes on integrating Charleston into the lindy hop, solo Charleston, and taking the Charleston beyond ‘break time’ during a song. Making Charleston look cool, instead of hopping up and down and kicking in place.

No partner is required for this workshop.

To sign up for this class, please go to the sign up page and RSVP for the 3-week series. Be sure to include your name, email address, and your lead/follow role when you sign up.

As with all our series, each class will be $5.

Whoa! By strokes of luck and genius, we LABtechs have managed to book two of best and most celebrated Lindy hoppers in the world to come teach a workshop in Philly. On Saturday, May 31st, the couple will be teaching four intermediate-level Lindy classes.

Registration is open for the workshop. In addition, the Boilermaker Jazz Band will be playing that very night just a rock step and a jump away!

Hit the jump for bios on these amazing dancers, some more pictures, and a video of them winning the ULHS Jack & Jill.
Read the rest of this entry »

Blues and Lindy matriarch Brenda Collins (from Portland/San Fran) will be stopping in Philly on her teaching tour of the east coast in May. She’ll be teaching at LAB on May 6th, and will hang around to teach a day of private lessons on May 7th at Carsie and Jon’s place downtown.

Brenda can teach privates in blues or Lindy, alone or with a partner. Brenda’s rate is $70 per 50 min, or $100 per 80 min. If you’re looking to to save money, or if you have one specific concept to work on, Brenda also offers 25 min sessions for $40. She’ll break down your dancing in the most delightful way, with emphasis on connection and technique, and send you home with a list of things to work on that will last you months.

To schedule a private on Wednesday, May 7th, or with any questions, send Carsie an email: carsie at lindyandblues dot com.

This week we’ve got a lot of visitors from out of town (kinda like last week, but I actually know they’re coming this week). Also, the kids from Swarthmore should be coming out, so come out and greet them.

This’ll be the last week in our drop-in class extravaganza. Jesse’ll be teaching an intermediate class on sugar pushes and dips (not necessarily at the same time), Stuart’s schoolin’ the beginners, Carsie’s opening for an act at World Cafe, Cheryl’s gearin’ up to tear apart her apartment, Kerry’s a berry, and Jon is strong like bull.

Jesse’ll be DJing this week, and Greg’ll back him up.

See you out tonight!

Happy Earthday!
Once again we’re doing drop-in class excitement this month. After his short hiatus, Stuart’ll be pushin’ you to the limit with his intermediate class, Jon & Kerry will school the beginners on how it’s done, and Jesse’ll be praising mother earth in the corner.

This week we’ll have Alex Moretsky DJing the tunes.

Don’t forget about the workshop with Sommer Gentry! Email jesse (at) lindyandblues (dot) com to pre-register for this super workshop!

Also, don’t forget to vote!

Sommer Gentry, nationally-renowned Lindy Hop dancer and instructor, is coming to Philadelphia! She’ll be teaching a two-hour musicality class for intermediate Lindy Hoppers (intermediate = comfortable doing swing outs) from 8-10pm on April 23rd. Pre-registration price (register by Tuesday, April 22nd) is $10, at-the-door price is $15. No partner necessary.

The workshop will be held at the Studio 34 community space. The studio is at 4522 Baltimore Ave, 19143, just a coupla’ blocks from Take the Lead. Find out more about Studio 34, the awesome people who run it, and more details on how to get there on their about page.

See below for bio and class descriptions, and email jesse (at) lindyandblues (dot) com with your name and email address to pre-register.

Sommer Gentry has been lindy hopping for ten years and still loves every single dance. She has won numerous Jack and Jills around the country, and placed in the American Showcase competition at the American Lindy Hop Championships four times with her husband Dorry Segev. She is also a co-founder of Charm City Swing and teaches and performs frequently in Baltimore.

On Wednesday, April 23rd, Sommer will teach Musicality you can Use-icality, a two-hour class presenting highlights of Dorry’s very popular “Music Theory for Lindy Hoppers” workshop series. This is not a class where you’ll be urged to “feel the music”. Rather, you’ll learn precisely how the music is constructed, how many bars to a phrase, the difference between standard swing and 12-bar blues, and what AABA means to your dancing. Each bit of music training will be associated with dance exercises.

oh tax day. that’s trouble. hopefully you got at awesome return, how better to celebrate than to spend $5 at LaB! If no return, you should come to LaB anyway and write off the cost as a health fee next year!

We’re continuing with our drop-in class madness this week: Jesse’ll take the beginner classes, Jon’ll take the intermediate classes, Cheryl’s recovered from being sick, Carsie’s off to the West coast on her tour, Stuart’s staying in Delaware to recover from his 3-4 weekends in a row of exchanges, and Kerry’s plain kickin’ butt.

Jesse’ll bring some new tunes to the fray and then Greg’ll probably show him how it’s really done.

This month is drop-in class madness. Jon & Kerry will be teaching the beginner, and Jesse or Stuart will take the intermediate class. Jesse & Greg’ll be DJing, so don’t miss out!

We’re back to your regularly scheduled LaB! This entire month we’re doing both beginner and intermediate drop-in classes that’ll explore everything your hearts could desire. Starting at 8, Carsie & Jon will teach the intermediate class while Jesse heads up the beginner class. Jesse’ll smack down with the DJ’d tunes until Greg comes along.

There are a number of awesome birthdays this week, so be sure to come out and celebrate!