Learn Balboa from the Best on Saturday May 3rd!

Balboa has always been big in the Southern California Swing scene, but now it’s hotter than ever. It is perfectly suited for the fast tempos of the 20’s and 30’s bands that are so popular right now.

On Saturday, May 3rd, two of the country’s finest Balboa instructors, Jeremy Otth and Laura Keat, are putting on a one-day workshop, called the Balboa Blast, with classes for beginner/intermediate dancers who want to improve their Balboa, and well as classes for advanced folks!

Personally, I’m really psyched about this because my own Bal has kind of stagnated over the years!

To Beginner/Intermediate Bal Dancers

If you’ve dabbled in Balboa and maybe taken a few classes, this is your chance to really improve. Doing Balboa well is one of the things that separates the newbies from the veterans in Southern California.

Balboa is a close-in dance done to fast tempo music. If you’ve gone Swing dancing almost anywhere in LA or Orange County, you’ve seen it.  Balboa is really popular now.  The hottest bands like the California Feetwarmers, Dave Stuckey, John Reynolds, Icy Hot Club, and so on, all play mostly Balboa-tempo music. In Southern California, Bal not a side-dish. It’s the main course!

The beginner/intermediate classes start at 11:30AM.  It assumes a basic knowledge of Balboa and covers the fundamentals as well as spins, turns, and other goodies.

Here’s a video of Jeremy and Laura’s first-place Balboa performance at 2011’s All-Balboa weekend to get you inspired:

To Advanced Balboa Dancers

If you already know Balboa, there’s undoubtedly tons of new moves to learn from the advanced portion, but you might want to consider taking the beginner/intermediate classes as well. I’ve been doing Balboa for over ten years (or maybe I should say, hacking my way through it). I haven’t taken a class in years, so I’m going to take the whole day’s worth of classes, starting from the beginner/intermediate ones.  Even if you’re “advanced”, you can benefit from re-examining the basics once in a while, especially with such great instructors as Jeremy and Laura.

If you prefer, you can skip the beginner/intermediate classes and go straight to the intermediate/advanced portion.  Looks like they have some fancy moves planned for the intermediate/advanced class! I can’t wait!

The intermediate/advanced portion of the classes starts at 4PM and goes to 7:15PM.

Check out the classes at the Balboa Blast website

The Instructors

Jeremy Otth and Laura Keat are award-winning Swing and Balboa instructors based in Orange County who travel the world to teach.  I’ve taken many lessons from them before and they are great teachers and really nice people.  You would be learning from two of the the best Balboa dancers in the world!!

The Lowdown

The workshop will be at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Pasadena, the same location as Third Saturday Swing.  Cost is $50 for either workshop in advance, or $60 at the door.  Cost for both the beginner and advanced workshops is $80 in advance or $90 at the door.

Purchase your tickets here and save!

A cool perk is that everyone will be going out to dinner afterwards, so it’s a great social opportunity.  Afterwards, try out what you’ve learned at PBDA while dancing to the Icy Hot Club!

For the latest info and details on classes, check the event website or Facebook Page.  See you there! – Brian