Portland Swing Dance Club

Greetings Everyone,

Recognizing that a lot of us Westies also dance the Blues, this year’s Bridge Town Swing will have a Blues component. Brenda Collins will be teaching one, possibly two, Blues workshops and we will have a dedicated Blues dance room.

Here’s how the Blues component will work: the doors to the Mt. Adams room will open on Friday at 7 pm. From 7 pm to midnight, music will alternate between three West Coast Swing songs and three Blues songs. Our hope is that all the Westies who just want to come for an evening of dance can get an early start while mixing it up with the Blues dancers. At the stroke of midnight the Mt Adams Room will be all Blues and the Mt Hood Ballroom will open for general West Coast Swing dancing.. At that time people will be free to migrate between the two rooms and dance until the wee hours of the morning. We will follow the same format on Saturday starting at 7pm.

Steven Watkins, the renowned Blues DJ from San Francisco, will be providing us with his music on both nights. In addition, we will have Topher Howard from Seattle and Portland’s very own Jason Isbell contributing to each evening’s musical offerings. We think this combination will make for two memorable nights of dancing.

From Brenda’s perspective, “we can use Bridge Town Swing as an opportunity to showcase how diverse and integrated our Portland Swing community really is. Including Blues would inspire dancers to learn what is emphasized in both genres”. I agree with Brenda’s comments. Who knows, by adding the Blues we may inadvertently create a Northwest flavor of West Coast Swing that others will emulate.

More to come,

Greg