What is Blues dance?

Like Swing dance, Blues dance originated and evolved from African rhythms and movements. However, Blues dancing was never widely practiced as a "social" or performance dance in the United States outside of the Black communities; so it developed and thrived in smoky juke joints and at Blues house parties and rent parties, giving it a more intimate feel.

Blues dance is strongly tied to Blues music, and many aspects of Blues dancing (for example, call and response, emotional intensity, and tension and release) are directly related to the music to which it is danced. There are many types of Blues music (rural, urban, up-tempo, slow, electric, delta, modern), and also many types of Blues dance, all with very different nuances and emotions.

Early Blues dances often contained very simple one-step or two-step patterns; some examples of such early Blues dances are the "Cake Walk" and the "Black Bottom." Other Blues dances such as the "Slow Drag" and the "Mooche" have also been passed down to us relatively unchanged from the original forms. In its modern context, Blues dance incorporates many aspects of these original dances as well as incorporating ideas from modern concepts of partner connection, improvisation, and natural body movement.

Learning to Blues dance enables the dancer to more fully understand dance concepts such as simplicity, clarity, creativity, expression, intensity, and musical and emotional interpretation that are critical to advanced social dancing of any kind.

In short, Blues dance is a truly amazing dance to learn and enjoy.

(from www.blues-dance.com)

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Blues is also an emotion that you bring to your dancing. Blues dance, like most Black vernacular dances, enables intense individuality in expressing the music, emphasizing that the music, not the dancer, leads the dance; the dancer is simply the interpreter. Blues dance demonstrates the passion of the entire range of human emotions - from sadness to joy - not just sensuality.

Some observers and dancers who have not studied Blues dance other than by simple observation often overlook the nuances of the dance. To their eyes, the sensual appearance of the dance may overshadow its basis and structure. Blues dance at its best is rooted in subtle physical communication and connection between your partner, yourself, and the music and therefore is almost impossible to learn to execute well simply by watching.