Portland Swing Dance Club

Hey everybody,

After an unexpected layoff in 2007, the Portland Dance Festival is back! And, we’ve moved the event dates back a week in order to avoid conflicting with the 4th of July and all of the other fun things there are to do in Portland during that weekend. This year’s dates are July 10-13, 2008, and we’re also back at the beautiful Portland Airport Sheraton Hotel.

If you’ve never been to the Festival, it’s simply a unique dance experience that brings the swing, country, and line dance communities together for three days of social dancing, workshops, competition, party time, dance exhibitions, a fabulous dinner show and plenty of shopping. The Portland Dance Festival is designed to accommodate all ages and all ability levels. We even have a separate “beginners track” of workshops for those who are just starting out. We’ll set up three separate ballrooms, each with its own large wood dance floor and dedicated deejay, to provide for the several varieties of dance. By the way, just like BridgeTown Swing, all of our dance floors will be provided by Master Dance Floors out of Sacramento.

We are honored that the Portland Swing Dance Club will again be our hosts and sponsors for the ever popular PDF Swing Room. Regional favorite Terry West from Seattle will be our swing deejay and everyone should be advised to bring more than one pair of dance shoes and get plenty of rest; the dance parties have been known to go a bit late.

The Portland Dance Festival continues to be a World Swing Dance Council (WSDC) registered event. This means of course that anyone earning points in the Jack and Jill contests will have those points promptly reported to the WSDC to advance your standing within the organization. By the way, at our last event in 2006, the Jack and Jill contests were bigger and more exciting than they have ever been. We’re also offering Strictly Swing competition in several divisions (we call it Just Dance), and we’re offering swing Pro-Am.

Workshops…we’ll have more than 60! In addition to our favorite regulars Michelle Kinkaid from San Francisco, and Nancy Heaverlo from Seattle, our featured swing instructors this year are Christopher Hussey and Katrina Branson from Chicago, and Patti Jobst from southern California. We’ll also have several outstanding swing teachers from the “country” side of the house to round out our swing workshop schedule.

Since we all missed the event in 2007, PDF 2008 will be a “rebuilding year”. So naturally our party theme is “Under Construction“. So grab your painter’s pants, overalls, tool belts, gardening wear…whatever you want that’s promotes the theme. We’re expecting some pretty creative attire so don’t be caught unprepared.

With everything that will be going on, especially the late night dancing, you’re going to want to stay at the host hotel. Everything is so much more relaxed and enjoyable when you have a room isn’t it? We have a special group rate of $109 (usually much higher) at the Sheraton. You can call them directly at 503-249-7638 to make your room reservations or you can do it on-line through the link available on the front page of the Portland Dance Festival website.

All necessary event registration information and even more information regarding the details of the event can be accessed at: www.PortlandDanceFestival.com. Please note the early pricing option ends on June 22nd. Finally, if you’d like to volunteer a little of your time to help us out, we’d love to put you to work. We need folks in all areas. Please email michelledodge@msn.com to sign up.

We’re looking forward to another great event, and we hope you are too. See you in July.

Randy and Rhonda Shotts