Explore Lindy Hop with DEL Tracing Footsteps
Our facilitators are deeply engaged and passionate educators. Explore Lindy Hop with us at DEL Tracing Footsteps: Journey Into Jazz Dance — Let’s Swing!
We are gearing up for our upcoming course, DEL Tracing Footsteps: Journey Into Jazz Dance — Let’s Swing!
This weeklong intensive focuses on examining the roots of African American vernacular jazz dance and the emergence of the Lindy Hop in the ballrooms of New York’s Harlem in the 1920s-1940s. In addition, the curriculum acknowledges the lineage of key dance, music, and African American cultural traditions that created the foundation of contemporary jazz dance forms.
In January 2023, we held a Lindy Hop-based Professional Learning Workshop in collaboration with the NYC Department of Education utilizing the Tracing Footsteps curriculum. Participants, facilitators, and guest artists all shared inspiring thoughts about their experiences with Tracing Footsteps, which “honors diverse voices through the dance history in New York City.” -Shirlene Blake, Director of Dance in the DOE Office of Arts and Special Projects
Several participants described the unique experience of learning from prolific Lindy dance artist Mickey Davidson, who will be a part of our intensive workshop next week: “To see Mickey Davidson dance… I had a fangirl moment!” “She encompasses everything that is dance within the African diaspora.” And Mickey herself shared what embodying dance history has meant to her: “It was through the elders, and the dance, and the history of African American people that I learned the tools for maintaining my humanity and defining my destiny.”
“Every time I’ve used the curriculum from Tracing Footsteps it’s been successful,” one participant shared. Another added, “Dance gives children confidence. The teamwork… they have to trust each other…”
“they get to learn about history and experience it in an embodied way.”
A facilitator concluded that “we want to instill these values, the aesthetics, and the ethos that revolves around jazz culture into our wider community.” To sum up the Tracing Footsteps experience: “I need these workshops to remind me, ‘oh yeah that’s why I do this!'”
Check out the overview video below for a glimpse into our upcoming course!
Many of the facilitators and dance artists featured here will be a part of DEL Tracing Footsteps: Journey Into Jazz Dance — Let’s Swing! next week. They are deeply engaged and passionate educators, and we are so fortunate to have them!
Our facilitators include Ann Biddle, Director of The DEL Institute – Teacher Certificate Program, curriculum writers Barry Blumenfeld, Dawn DiPasquale, Carol Lonnie, Sandi Stratton Gonzalez, and Susan Thomasson, and Lindy Hop dance artists Mickey Davidson, Brandon Barker, Sean Vitale, Candice Michelle Franklin, and Samuel Coleman.
Join us for this exciting and rich intensive course next week!
P.S. Don’t miss this swing dance performance with Caleb Teicher and Veronica Swift at 92NY on July 13! (Optional add-on event for Caleb Teicher & Veronica Swift ticket buyers: Swing Dance Party, 9 pm!)