Lead, Follow, & Flow: Basic to Advanced Partner Dance Skills
What you'll learn
- Learn to lead with attention to detail, follow through acute listening, and flow within a kinesthetic conversation both on and off the dance floor.
- Explore new possibilities of balanced connection, framing, and personal expression.
- Quickly learn how to dance with ease to any style of music you enjoy.
- The course is designed for both seasoned dancers or those wanting to learn partner dance fundamentals for the first time.
Requirements
- All are welcome and can benefit—whether you already have a dance practice or consider yourself to have "two left feet" and no rhythm, you will be dancing in no time with joyful expression and connection skills.
- A friend, family member, or partner is needed to complete many of the lessons (the material is designed for couples).
Description
Do you currently dance a certain style but feel tired or bored with the monotony of steps and moves you take? Or maybe you have always wanted to learn how to partner dance, but have been overwhelmed with counting steps or memorizing complicated moves?
I believe you can feel ease, comfort, and filled with variety within your partner dance today—you do not have to go through months or years of lessons to be a fluid, fluent dancer. By learning more about your body, how you relate to your environment, and the expansive array of human contact points possible beyond touch, you will gain a new awareness of how to lead, follow, and have a conversational dance flow. The concept of flow in this course is used to describe the practice of dancing with a steady stream of mindfulness and without prescribed patterns, steps, moves, or specified partner roles.
When you gift someone your focused attention and presence, your partnership is filled with freedom and exhilaration. Exploring the rapture of conscious human connection liberates you from the historical, gender-based social roles of command and compliance. Leading and following become actions that anyone can take at any time during a dance together—not roles that define who you are or what you can do.
With this mindset of leading and following being actions rather than roles, coupled movement will intuitively flow in celebration of the shared moment—neither partner will have to remember a single step or try to fit into a particular box. Exploring the universal language of dance allows you to listen and respond to partners within an authentic, interpersonal dialog. When you acutely tune into your comprehensive portfolio of human senses, you find insight into your emotions, desires, primal needs, and limitless human connection potential.
Many of the concepts that you will discover in this course can be applied far beyond the dance floor into your everyday family and social lives. Connecting with a partner through movement opens up new possibilities for how you can relate and interact within your community. You will gain essential skills to lead with empowerment, follow with greater attention to detail, and switch actions with ease. You will explore a rainbow of creative movement tools with which to broaden your physical musicality. You will discover both solo and partner dance expressions while moving free of strict stylistic rules and self-judgment.
We will spend about four hours together over 25 lessons. You will also have the opportunity during the course to download a copy of my book, Lead Follow Flow, to help expand your dance experience. On top of that, you'll have two opportunities to remotely interact with me one-on-one to get the most personalized online course possible. I believe you will dance away from this experience with the ability to feel confident and at ease in any social setting. Shall we dance?
Who this course is for:
- Anyone curious about igniting more passion and connection in their partnerships.
- Dancers wanting to heighten their current movement practice with more expression possibilities and the opportunity for balanced leading within their partnerships.
Instructor
- 4.9 Instructor Rating
- 3 Reviews
- 18 Students
- 1 Course
I catalyze empowered leaders and fluid co-creators across the world by sharing lifelong relating and communication techniques. My book, Lead Follow Flow, is the culmination of fifteen years of experience as a facilitator of multiple movement modalities across North America. I currently offer in-person and remote dance instruction, as well as host dance immersion retreats and teacher trainings.
I was introduced to movement in my youth through rhythmic gymnastics and later as a teenager during high-school theatre. In 2004, I learned of Mykl Werth and his co-creative social dance instruction at Northwestern Michigan College where I was studying to become a commercial pilot and flight instructor. Over the next seven years, I gradually transitioned my life’s path from flying up in the sky to soaring across the dance floor. I continued to use my background as an FAA Certified Ground and Flight Instructor through my work as a movement teacher.
I first began teaching dance as an afterschool programming facilitator in collaboration with modern dancer Jamaica Martin. We instructed at five Northern Michigan high schools starting in 2009. Two years later, I launched into teaching my own social dance workshops at several local yoga studios in Bozeman, Montana while pursuing further education at Montana State University. I then transferred to Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, and extended my authentic movement exploration by studying multiple conscious dance forms and becoming a Kaleidoscope Community Yoga instructor.
Throughout the spring of 2013, I was introduced to Maia Sandra. Having graduated from Cornish College of the Arts with a B.F.A. in Dance, Maia brought new awareness and possibilities to my dancing and instruction. We soon began instructing co-creative dance together at a couple of studios in Portland, Oregon.
In early 2014, we produced our first fifty-hour partner dance teacher training event which helped mold much of the content that I now base my social dance workshops around. I have spent the last decade teaching and researching partner dance up and down the West Coast of the United States and into British Columbia, along with occasional dance excursions to other parts of North and South America, as well as Europe. I love to explore new communities that are investigating conversational movement. My awareness and knowledge about partner dance flow and its relationship to Contact Improvisation have been greatly nurtured by my experience of being a regular facilitator at Dance Camp Northwest since the annual event began in 2013.
The instruction I share is a celebration of creative dance fused with authentic human relating. I have combined countless concepts into my Lead Follow Flow course and book from my study of more than three dozen movement modalities. I continue to offer individual and group dance instruction, as well as dance immersion retreats, and teacher trainings.