Get the preliminary event schedule for Bridge Town Swing 2010 and start planning on spending an exciting weekend social dancing, attending workshops from top pros, and watching or participating in competitions!
Purchase your Bridge Town Swing event passes online and get access to Portland’s biggest west coast swing event of the year. We’ve got an updated location this year, all-star instructors, and exciting competitions!
Get your early-bird event pass to Bridge Town Swing 2010 and get the Saturday Midnight Buffet for free! This special offer is only available through September 1st.
Learn more about Bridge Town Swing or purchase an event pass now!
It’s that time of year again. Volunteers for Portland Dance Festival Needed! Portland Dance Festival is July 8 - 11 at the Sheraton Hotel near the Portland Airport.
If you’d like to volunteer this year, we’d love to have you! Volunteers are needed in several areas for the Portland Dance Festival. Prior experience not necessary, but we also love to have those that have participated before and would love to do so again. We need volunteers for the following areas: Door monitors, decorations (put up and take down), floor installation and take down, dinner show attendants, tickets collectors, and more!
Volunteers are needed Thursday through Sunday, days and evenings. Please e-mail Michelle Dodge at michelledodge@msn.com or call me at 503.317.1637.
The Norse Hall is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year! Unfortunately, that means that the Grieg Lodge is having a celebration of music and dance in the main ballroom this Saturday from 1 pm until midnight.
That means that the PSDC 4th Saturday Swing Dance will be held upstairs in the Lodge Room, and this time, we get our own private bar set up in the library! Chris Jones will teach an intermediate lesson at 7:30, and Bob Smith will DJ from 8:30 to midnight.
PSDC is once again offering a Newcomer West Coast Swing Workshop series April 23rd and 24th. If you have friends or family who have never tried west coast swing, this intensive course is designed to cover about the same amount of material as a beginning WCS series—all in one weekend.
Get all the details for the PSDC Newcomer’s Workshop Weekend »
Are you coming to Seattle’s Easter Swing this year? If so, we really could use your help for an hour or two. We still have lots of volunteer positions we need filled to throw this four-day party for 700+ people.
If you want to lend a hand, check out this list for the positions that need to be filled. Then, contact Pat Garrett at volunteer@seattlewcswing.com to tell her what you want to sign up for.
Thanks in advance for your help and we hope you have a great weekend at Easter Swing.
The Seattle Swing Dance Club
We have a location change for this month’s 4th Saturday Swing Dance. Due to the jazz festival taking place at Norse Hall that weekend, we will be holding our dance on Feb. 27th at Lenora’s Ballroom on the third floor of the Melody Ballroom building at 615 SE Alder.
Please use the entrance on the 6th Avenue side of the building to access the ballroom. This late change in schedule was unfortunately not reflected in the February flyers that have already been distributed, so please remind your dance friends about the change!
Steve Klein, Portland Swing Dance Club member, has purchased the full video and archive collection of West Coast Swing Dance Event videos from Images In Motion who retired last year. This collection spans over 15 years of Swing Dance related videos, including West Coast Swing and Lindy Swing from dance events in California, Arizona, and Nevada.
The event videos are professionally recorded for all competition levels, novice through pro and all stars. All competitions have listed the winning placements, first through fifth. These videos also include Showcase and Classic performances and workshop summaries from instructors and professional dancers who taught at the events.
To preserve this footage, Steve has created several unique products, such as the BEST OF series DVD, showcasing several professional Performance competitions on the NASDE circuit. Workshop summary videos are also available. In addition, Steve has created a website making ordering and viewing the products very simple. Digital downloads will be available soon making it even more convenient.
As a member of the club, you can get discounts from 10 to 15% off the retail price. In addition, a portion of all sales generated from the psdc club code will go to the Portland Swing Dance Club to help the growth of Swing Dancing in our community.
Go to SwingV’s Studio and Dance Club page at:
http://www.swingv.com/clubcode.aspx
Enter code: psdc
Message from Steve:
I want to thank everyone for your encouragement and support. Your financial support will help offset the costs associated with preserving this footage, and also help your swing club as well!
Enjoy!
Steve Klein
info@swingv.com
Due to the weather conditions worsening tonight, we are canceling our December Second Saturday Swing tonight for the safety of everyone. We apologize for this inconvenience and hope to see you out dancing with us in January!
Please note that there is no PSDC dance on the fourth Saturday of December, the 26th, but there will be a FREE Christmas Dance organized by the Friday & Saturday Night Fever crew (Bob Smith, Michelle Dumas, and Chris Jones) at the PPAA on December 26th!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Portland Swing Dance Club!
The Portland Swing Dance Club is pleased to announce our first workshop weekend of 2010: Swing Blizzard with Terry Roseborough!
Saturday and Sunday afternoon workshops plus our regular 4th Saturday Swing Dance, January 23rd and 24th, 2010.
A national WCS champion, Terry has recently been a featured instructor at Seattle Easter Swing and Sea To Sky, and is a crowd favorite for his smooth moves, his sense of humor, and his willingness to social dance with anybody who asks him.
Looking for a great way to plug in and/or give back to the Portland WCS community? We’re recruiting for next year’s board of directors to lead the Portland Swing Dance Club in 2010!
PSDC Board of Directors 2010 Vacancies:
Any member of good standing (a member for at least 6 months) may run for any position. The positions listed above currently have no candidates.
If you enjoy the dances AND Bridge Town Swing, please consider serving for a year. Learn more about each PSDC Board of Directors positions »
Contact the Nominations Chairperson, Sarah Spathas, if you are interested or have questions.
Want to find out who won what? We’ve got the results up! We’ll get the professional Jack & Jill and Amateur Overall awards listed soon! [Updated 9/22: All competition results are up.]
Thanks to everyone who competed and made it fun for their partner and the audience.
We’ve added a Sunday night dance to our event schedule, so if you haven’t had enough WCS this weekend, plan on coming back to the Doubletree Lloyd Center (1000 NE Multnomah) for some more social dancing with the locals and our out-of-town guests!
After awards finish up around 4 pm, we’ll have a dinner break and then re-open the Cascade Ballroom at 7 pm. This dance is free, to express our appreciation for all of the support that we’ve received from the community. We’ll dance until 10 pm, and maybe later if there’s still a good crowd at that time.
Hope to see you there,
Trina
BTS Event Registration will be open on Thursday night, so check in and avoid the lines. Registration hours:
Thursday, 7 - 10 pm
Friday, noon - 1 am
Saturday, 9 am - 1 am
Sunday, 9:30 am - 2 pm
Also, we’ll be selling video passes for the Prelims and Semi-Finals for all of the competitions. Video pass is $20 if you also buy an event video, or $30 without. The pass will be attached to the dancers’ video cameras. Please let dancers know that they will be able to purchase video passes so that they can bring their cameras to the event. Only 50 passes will be available and may be purchased at the Event Video table.
The early bird dance is Thursday (tomorrow!), with a lesson taught by Kyle Redd and Sarah Vann Drake at 8 pm, followed by dancing from 9 pm until 2 am. It’s at the Doubletree Lloyd Center, 1000 NE Multnomah, and admission is $8 for PSDC members and BTS weekend pass holders or $10 otherwise.
The Bridge Town Swing 2009 preliminary workshop schedule is online! Start planning which exciting workshops you want to attend with our fantastic professional instructors.
We’ve been experiencing problems with our web contact form. They should be resolved now. If you’ve contacted us in the last week and have not heard back from us, please send us an e-mail again.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience!
The event schedule is now online! It’s subject to change, but check out what’s in coming up for BTS 2009. View the 2009 Event Schedule »
We will be selling Video Passes for the Prelims and Semi-Finals for all of the competitions at BTS.
The video pass is $20 if you buy an event video, otherwise it costs $30. Only 50 passes will be available and you can purchase them at the event video table.
Purchase your Bridge Town Swing event passes online and get access to the west coast swing event of the year. We’ve got a new location this year, all-star instructors, and exciting competitions!
Bridge Town Swing is running a special on event passes this weekend in honor of the Portland Dance Festival. Buy your early-bird weekend pass at PDF (look for registration people at the Swing Room table on Friday and Saturday evenings) and get it for $10 less!
If you’re not going to be at PDF on Friday or Saturday night to buy your BTS pass, you can mail in your registration with a postmark of Saturday, July 11th or earlier and we will honor the discount.
Mail-in registration forms and BTS registration address can be found at:
www.portlandswing.org/bts/
Have a great weekend,
Trina
Trina Siebert
Registration Coordinator
Bridge Town Swing
On July 2nd through 5th, Portland is hosting an amazing dance event in conjunction with the nation’s second largest Blues Festival. Portland Blues Experience isn’t just a Blues event. The outdoor dance floor at the A&E Front Porch Stage of the Waterfront Blues Festival will be open all weekend so that you can dance west coast swing, east coast swing, zydeco, blues, lindy, and more for four days of live music. The legendary Etta James (”The Blues is My Business”) will headline on Thursday night, and many other familiar artists including Robben Ford (”Start It Up”) and Ryan Shaw (”Over & Done”) will perform.
In addition, don’t miss the Rock the Boat Cruise on Friday night on the Portland Spirit, designed especially for people who want to experience awesome music gliding on the Willamette River through beautiful Portland on a summer night. Featured performers on the cruise include the Loose Marbles (New Orleans jazz and swing), Candye Kane (high energy blues and boogie woogie), and Jim Wallace & the House Cats (West Coast and Chicago blues).
Still looking for more? We will have late-night dances every night with a mix of blues, west coast swing, lindy, and more (Thursday-Sunday) until 6 AM:
| When | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Thursday night | Lenora’s Ballroom (includes catering from La Casita and two rooms of DJ’d music) | $10 |
| Friday night | Marriott (featuring DJ Battle between Steven Watkins, Topher Howard, and Harley White) | $15 |
| Saturday night | Scottish Rite Temple (food, two rooms of DJ’d music, and we may add a live band) | $20 |
| Sunday night | Lenora’s Ballroom (snacks and two rooms of DJ’d music) | $10 |
All of this information and more can be found on our website: http://www.portlandbluesexperience.com
Registration is live and only $115 for a full weekend pass (until June 21st). For those of you who just want to attend the festival and cruise (Friday night), the Experience Pass is only $70. If you have other Fourth of July festivities to attend but don’t want to pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity, the cruise pass is only $30. All of these options can be purchased with a credit card on our registration page. If you prefer to mail a check or give it to us in person, then please send an email to: portlandbluesexperience@gmail.com.
We hope to see you there! You won’t want to miss this event!
Trina Siebert
Planning Committee - PBEx 2009
The Bridge Town Swing page is updated with 2009 event information! We’re moving to a new hotel, got top-talent pros, and an early-bird weekend pass on sale for a limited time.
Dear Fellow Dancer,
At last we’ve finally emerged from our dark, grey NW winter and have had some glorious sunshine! The warmth and light makes me want to do one thing: PARTY!!!! So with that in mind, I am inviting you all to join us for Sizzlin’ Summer Swing on June 27th. Come one, come all, and bring your friends to the Norse Hall because we are going to start this summer right! John Kirkconnell, our charming, funny, creative, and very talented friend from Canada, will be here teaching a couple of great lessons, we’ll be having WCS and NC2 contests, a tasty meal, and a dance with at least, count ‘em, four, but I’m guessin’ more, outrageously good DJs. You can buy the whole enchilada for a mere $25 presale or $30 at the door. We’ve taken our normal 4th Saturday dance and turbo-charged it! We’ll be having fun in June and proceeds for the event will be the “seed money” our club needs to keep BridgeTown Swing going strong in September. Please contact Jennie Beyerl or any other board member to volunteer, for more information about the event, or to buy a ticket.
While Sizzlin’ Summer Swing will be starting us off strong, there are also a couple of other opportunities to support WCS and PSDC this summer. Please pitch in to help decorate the Swing Room at the Portland Dance Festival (the theme this year is the Mad Hatter’s Ball), come to the club dance that will be held there on the 2nd Saturday in July, and engage in a little friendly competition in the WSDC-sponsored Jack ‘n Jills and Just Dance events and pro-ams that are Sunday’s highlight. PDF has a long tradition of great Country and West Coast Dancing. We plan to be there with our boots on!
Then there are our regular club dances. Dance directors live to dance too, so sign up to work the door for a mere half-hour and let Sarah Spathas get her dance on! We need helpers at the door and we are in desperate need for folks who are willing to take some pictures at the dances. Can you help?
Of course, we’re also looking ahead to PSDC’s big event, Bridge Town Swing. Every year it is our friendly local volunteers that make BTS memorable and a rockin’ good time. It’s not too early to contact the board about volunteering and/or to give us feedback about what we can do to make BridgeTown better and better. This is our club and our great event. Please do whatever you can to help it grow.
Oh, and speaking of growing, I am proud to say that, despite starting the year in a deficit, we have managed to pull ourselves out and are moving toward rebuilding our reserve and creating a financially efficient Bridgetown that still offers the quality event we expect. This growth is absolutely down to you, our members. As of this writing, we are holding strong at 246 member! That’s a phenomenal number in tough economic times and a 20% increase over our 2008 membership! You guys rock!!! Thank you to our “veterans” for renewing and for our new dancers for joining.
I wish us all a wonderful summer of BBQs, fishing, camping, swimming, vacations, and other outdoor activities, but please remember to save some time for dancing with your friends at PSDC—the AC at Norse Hall has been working fabulously well! Grab somebody and let’s dance!
Sincerely,
Kristy Brehm
President, PSDC
P.S. What’s the difference between a beginner and the rest of us? Experience, practice, and confidence! So ask a beginner to dance!!!
Come to the PSDC Sizzlin’ Summer Swing, a fundraiser for Bridge Town Swing, on Saturday, June 27th at the Norse Hall!
Sizzlin’ Summer Swing is a special PSDC event featuring:
Come dance west coast swing and country dances at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel from July 10 through the 12th! The PSDC sponsors the Swing Room Friday and Saturday night.
Registration and schedule are available on the Portland Dance Festival web site »
If you’re interested in volunteering, please contact our event director for information.
Message from Steve Klein, PSDC Member 007.
I have had the fortune of coming back to the Swing dance community after a long extensive break of about 7 years. I was also one of the founding board members of the Portland Swing Dance Club and the club had been going strong for nearly 2 years by the time I dropped off the scene.
When I returned to the dance scene in 2007, and the swing scene in 2008, I was pleased to see most of what we had started was still in place. Being Facilities Director that first year I remember personally securing the Norse Hall. Then when my business took off, we signed over our Sunnyside Grange 2nd Saturday Dance to the Swing Club and they are still going strong today.
All of this is a testament to the club’s strong roots. Long Before the club brought people in for workshops, long before the club thought about forming the popular Bridge Town Swing event; long before all of these, there was the Portland Swing Dance Club. That was the foundation. I can still remember the evening back in February of 1999, where Tabitha and I opened up our 2nd Saturday Sunnyside Grange downstairs for a first ever public meeting for the new forming West Coast Swing Club. The first board was very pleased to see over 100 people signed up that night and pledged their annual membership to support this worthy cause. The cause at that time was to grow West Coast Swing in our community and in the Northwest.
The man behind the dream – Mike McClure, along with Donna Mook, organized and asked us (and others) for help. In preparation we had many meetings at various houses throughout Portland area. Everyone liked Mike’s attention to detail. He was very into following parliamentary procedures during those first meetings, and whether we knew it or not, we were all learning proper etiquette.
Dancing WCS today is a true gift. I am enjoying attending the PSDC dances, learning the new techniques and enjoying the new music. Both the dance and the music are multifaceted which makes it very interesting. I’m also seeing some familiar faces, some new faces, and meeting many new people. It is a great time to be in the swing world.
The club itself is great but they could use all of our help during this time of economic uncertainty. In a community where there are many WCS dancers I don’t see the numbers up in our membership.
Remember the reason the club formed in the first place was to help the growth of WCS dancing in Portland and in the Northwest. We can’t do this without the people and the funds to back them up. Please support the club by encouraging your dancing friends to join the club. They could use your help during this time.
The Club has also incurred some debt from the last Bridge Town Swing event due to unforeseen expenses. These expenses will be renegotiated and reduced next year. I’m sure we all want to see this great event of Bridge Town continue for years to come, but its up to all of us to help during the times we go in the red as well as the times we are in a good financial position.
As a start of our 10 year anniversary, I would like to pledge that each and every one of our existing club members (yes, that means you) invite 1 new person who does not normally dance West Coast Swing to a PSDC Social Dance Night. And it’s FREE!
You have at least 1 FREE guest pass per year, and 3 FREE guest passes if you signed up for 2 year membership. I have already done this and encourage you to do the same.
The second founder’s challenge is to talk to an existing West Coast Swing dancers who is not a member of the club and encourage them to join. Explain the club benefits, and the benefits of Bridge Town Swing event which the club formed and supports. If you don’t know all the benefits, ask them to speak to one of the board members. The board members are usually at one of the social dances and can answer any questions they might have.
Lastly I want to say thank you to all those who have welcomed me back into the dance community. I know this goes without saying, but you all are a great people and are living life and having fun in the process. Let’s keep on dancing!
Sincerely,
Steve Klein
Our first board of directors formed in 1999 consisted of:
Here are some firsts:
Other related links:
Seven Great Years of PSDC
Learn the basics of rhythm, connection, and footwork for this smooth, sophisticated swing style called West Coast Swing! The weekend workshop package includes 5.5 hours of instruction, admission to the Saturday night dance at Norse Hall, membership in the Portland Swing Dance Club, and dance-related discounts!
Dear Dancers,
We’ve just confirmed that not only will Jim Minty be here all weekend for our Swing Blizzard workshops, but his partner, Katie McCaslin, will also be here for Saturday’s dance and Sunday’s workshops!
Hope to see you there,
Trina
Join us January 24th and 25th as we celebrate Swing Blizzard 2009 with Jim Minty!