Your teacher: Kenneth Shipp (USA)

Credit: Brad Nathanson

Kenneth Shipp hails from St. Louis, MO as an instructor who grew up dancing hip-hop and DJing breaking comps before jumping into blues. He has spent the past few years passionately studying the family of blues idioms, incorporating his nerdy personality along the way. Kenneth’s life experiences inform his dancing and teaching style so that students walk away with a better historical and contextual understanding. With every class and practice, he’ll encourage you to approach social dancing with coolness, relaxation, or in other words “Chill The F$%& Out.” When he’s not dancing, you can likely find him ranting about the latest blockbuster movie, game, or nerd convention, or desperately trying to dismantle toxic institutions.

Kenneth Shipp on YouTube

Credit: Wonil Jung

Registration is open!

Venue (classes and party)

Ella’s Fellas Dancestudio
(we are in the big room)
Hohlstr.192
8004 Zürich
Googlemaps

Schedule

Class schedule Saturday

10:45: Check-in
11:00 – 17:00: 4 classes (incl. breaks)

Class 1: Cozier Connections
- From close embrace to open connection, we’ll work on exercises to make each position feel better while also enabling better moments of call and response between leaders and followers.
Class 2: Difficult Dances
- Have you ever had a really bad dance and wasn’t sure how to fix it in the moment? This class will identify common partnering problems, building off our improved connections, and showcase how each role in the partnership tackles or eliminates issues within a single dance.
Class 3: Modern Walking Blues
- Using the electronic, synthezied sounds of Blues in the 1980s, we’ll explore the connection between elder Blues dancers, their love of line dances to artists like Lattimore and Marvin Sease, and how they walked the Blues to this music.
Class 4: New Orleans Blues
- New Orleans has always contained a litany of early Blues styles, evolving into a melting pot of Blues dances and sounds through the decades. We’ll tackle a few of the common musical cues and styles that embody the New Orleans style across Blues genres and how to incorporate them into your dance.

Class schedule Sunday (STARTS LATER!)

12:00 – 17:00 Classes (incl. breaks)

Class 5: Building A Toolbox
- How do you get better at Blues dancing? How do you practice the Blues? What areas should you be looking to develop as a new dancer? as a seasoned veteran? If these quesitons intrigue you or peek your interest, we’ll tackle the best methods and drills to use for growing your Blues dancing.
Class 6: Make It Blues
- Using the hallmarks of Blues dancing, we will challenge you to try and/or create a new move that works within Blues, understanding why it does or doesn’t work, and how to continue adapting movements into your Blues dancing into the future.
Class 7: Make It Smooth, Make It Cool
- Now that we feel more comfortable creating our own movement, we’ll tackle ways to make those movements feel and look better, along with polishing up other elements of our dances so we can feel confidentally smooth and cool at the same time.
Class 8: Feedback Session
- For the last hour, we’ll work on one dance segment together, before breaking out into groups for a chance to expand on different ideas from the weekend, as well as get feedback from the instructor while we work on our last drill of the weekend.

History Talk

Saturday, Pre-Party 19.30-20.30

Kenneth Shipp will talk about Blues and its history, just before the party.

Donation of your choice at the door.

Party with live music from E.Castle

Blues dance party in the evening with incredible live music from “E.Castle”. Party starts at 20:45.

E. Castle has specialized in early blues guitar, harp, and vocals since 2010, playing in blues and jazz and dance festivals like the Upside Down Festival in Belgium to the New Orleans Jazz Festival in New Orleans, the Caribbean Sea Jazz Festival in Aruba to the Rapperswil Blues & Jazz festival in Switzerland. A typical concert travels through Piedmont Blues to Delta, Shuffle, Country Blues, into early Jazz, prewar popular music and even includes some original music in these styles.

Links to one of his other projects, the band Frog&Henry: frogandhenry.com or Instagram.com/frogandhenry
And check out Zürich’s own local blues and jazz duo, ‘Franz Hatts & Castle’ for more blues dancing this summer. More info coming soon.

Price

Two days Blüesli: 220 CHF regular / 180 CHF reduced
One day Blüesli (if available, you’ll be waitlisted when you register): 130 CHF regular / 110 CHF reduced
Saturday Party with live music: 15 CHF (included in the workshop passes)

Not enough blues?

Join our regular weekly classes!

You just want to party? All Swiss blues events can be found in the shared google Calendar or on LindyHop.ch (use filter Zürich & Blues)

FAQs

Do I have enough blues dance experience to join the workshop?

This workshop is open level. You’ll get the most out of it if you have at least some blues dance experience (e.g., taken some tasters, participated to previous Blüeslis) and/or experience in other partner dances.

Still not sure? Write us an e-mail, drop in one of our weekly classes on Wednesday to refresh your blues basics or ask a recommendation to our local teachers.

Do I have to register in couple?

No, you can register alone. However, you might end up on a waiting list in case we miss leads/follows.

Can I join for one day only?

We might offer one-day tickets on short notice if some spots are left. We highly recommend you join for both days, however, as we’ll build on the material from Saturday and more dancing is always better!