BsB Deep Dive: Piedmont Blues (Winter 2025) [Oakland]

Details

Join us for a two-day Deep Dive workshop focused entirely on Piedmont Blues with nationally and internationally renown instructors Grey Armstrong, Heidi Fite, Jen Delk, and Gwen Bone!!! We'll be exploring Blues dance aesthetics and partnership dynamics, while developing your personal style and creativity on the dance floor.

There are two tracks: Beginner requiring no prior dance experience, and Intermediate for those of you who are more familiar with Piedmont Blues

Classes will take place 12-4pm on both Saturday and Sunday (December 13th and 14th). Doors Open 11:30am and close promptly at 12:10pm. What's Piedmont Blues? Piedmont blues comes from the “Piedmont” region foothills stretching from Virginia through the Carolinas into Georgia. Dancers in those communities developed social dances to accompany the guitar-driven, ragtime-influenced, syncopated music that the region became well known for. Piedmont blues dancing isn’t a single codified form, but rather a collection of local dances that shared similar rhythmic features tied to Piedmont blues music. Like many blues dances, it grew out of the local community and flourished at house parties, jook joints, backyards and front porches, often with very few musicians rather than full bands and in very small spaces.

Piedmont blues dancing can be done in solo or with a partner, but even the partnered versions give a very light nod to the partnership and leave a lot of room for solo interpretation and independent movement. Partnered Piedmont blues dancing often includes a relaxed open embrace, sometimes side-by-side, where both dancers can show off rhythmic variation and practice call and response. It often incorporates steps drawn from cakewalk, early jazz, or buck dancing. It emphasizes a lot of footwork-driven movement, with shuffles, slides, taps, and syncopated triple steps to echo the “fingerpicking” quality of the guitar music. Demo Videos Heidi Fite and Christi Jay Wells, Damon Stone and Mike Legenthal: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx11oG7H5gZ7aIds86gKQg3eBR4TIhq9XQ Jen Delk solo dancing to Piedmont Blues: https://www.instagram.com/p/DOow6yEkTVx/ [More Coming Soon!] Cost $100-140 sliding scale pre-registered $140 cash at the door for the weekend $60 for Saturday Only pre-registered (No drop-ins on Sunday). $80 Cash at door. If cost is an issue, please reach out at info@bayshoreblues.com before December 1st. (No one turned away for lack of funds!) [No. Seriously, if there's any hesitation at all, please reach out!]

Schedule

Saturday

12-1pm: Combined class

1-2pm: Classes Split by levels

2-2:30pm: Break

2:30-3:30pm: Classes Split by levels

3:30-4pm: Combined Practice Session

Saturday

12-2pm: Classes Split by levels

2-2:30pm: Break

2:30-3:30pm: Combined Class

3:30-4pm: Combined Practice Session

Covid Precautions:

KN95, KF94, N95 or higher rated masks required (well fitting, no vents) for duration of the class. We will not be checking vaccination record, but we highly encourage you have your booster shots. If you feel sick or like you might be getting sick, please do not attend. If you have had COVID recently, do not attend unless you are testing negative and 10 days have passed since your first symptoms or positive test. If you cannot attend, please reach out and we'd be more than happy to offer you a full refund upon request.  We also encourage you to take a test prior to showing up to class if you do feel well just to double check, but tests are not required as efficacy is not as high of a spread prevention method as masking up. Not sure what level to sign up for?

We'll be learning the same moves and concepts, so you can't go wrong! It just depends on your learning style and where you are in your dance journey.

Beginner track will focus on learning the dance and getting as much practice in as possible. We'll work on technique, but the focus is to get as many reps in as possible. Think of it as building the rough draft of "What is Piedmont?" in your body.

Intermediate Track will focus on the finer details and techniques. If you want to know the exact angle your elbow needs to be at to stretch out your lag maybe 5% more to push the edge of possibility, this is the track for you. You will likely listen and talk more about theory and dance a little less.

You'll get plenty of time with all of our instructors and we'll have integration sessions between the two levels because when you're on the dance floor we want you to have the skills to dance with everyone you encounter!

Want to make a full dance weekend out of it?? Workshop does not include any socials, BUT we have a few local events to get your dancing social dancing in!

• Friday: Live Blues Music at the Starry Plough w/ Margie Turner and the Outback Band

  • Cover: $12-15.

  • Taster lesson at 7pm,

  • Live Music 8-11pm

  • 3101 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 https://thestarryplough.com/event/blues-night-13/the-starry-plough-pub/
    

• Saturday: Blue Light Lounge

  • Cover $20. $15 if bought in advance

  • All Levels drop-in @ 7pm

  • DJ'd Music 8-12:30am

  • 1751 Sacramento St, San Francisco, CA 94109, USA

  • https://the-blue-light-lounge.square.site/

    
    

Where can I find updates? Event updates and day-of information will be posted primarily through the facebook page [Coming very soon!]. Be sure to mark yourself as going and invite your friends! About Grey Armstrong Grey is a highly sought after international teacher who is proud to share his culture and love of dance with the world. Going from regular panic attacks after class to where he is today, Grey’s dance journey has been anything but straight forward. Bringing opportunities for growth and confidence building Grey’s loves to help dancers find their style within the foundations. He is known for innovative classes, deep cultural context, and an intuitive learning style. By challenging students physically, intellectually, and emotionally Grey leaves students with a feeling they have been changed beyond just dance. 

Grey loves to follow, help dancers find their voice, and finding new music. You can find him dancing a variety of styles and yet, he returns to blues again and again.

He is also an artist, writer, and educator whose work focuses on unpacking unconscious bias, cross-cultural communication, and most importantly… compassion. As a minority lottery winner, he realized quickly that if the world was going to understand people like him, he’d need to be the one to explain it. Through events across the world, a blog with world wide readership, and an ability to bring hard topics back down to earth, Grey is always striving towards creating an impact and understanding. If his audiences learn something about themselves along the way, even better!

See his work here: https://linktr.ee/greydiants

About Heidi Fite Heidi began dancing and teaching Blues dances in St. Louis, MO in 1999 and has been dancing, teaching and performing ever since. An early promoter of Blues dancing, she founded the first national Blues dance workshop (Cheap Thrills), which later transformed into the nation's largest Blues dance competition weekend (bluesSHOUT!).

Heidi continues to travel the world teaching Blues dance as a living tradition, with a rich history and an exciting future. From local classes to international workshops and historical research and documentation of the dance, she is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Blues dancing.

Her classes are inspiring and challenging, but Heidi's focus on the underlying principles and fundamentals of the dance allows her to break down the most difficult concepts and moves, making them easy to understand and incorporate. Heidi is able to communicate and instill in her students a love of dance and a dedication to the learning process. Her classes will put some serious 'boom boom boom' and 'aw haw haw haw' in your dancing.

About Jen Delk

Follower, leader, organizer, student, teacher, music nerd (actually everything nerd).  Jen started teaching dance in college to afford the habit. She refused to believe there was one way to break something down. Her curiosity about how things worked as a child taught her that if you try hard enough you can break something and if you try harder you might be able to put it back together making it better than before.

In the classroom Jen often draws on her  own journey to find grounding, a voice, and a better connection with the music as a lead and follow. It’s been a long journey, it’s definitely not over, and she will gladly share what she has learned along the way.

Jen lives in Denver, and when she isn’t scheming about future dance related projects ,she is probably at home jumping on her trampoline or hanging out with her chickens.

About Gwen Bone

Gwen has been Blues dancing for over a decade with home scenes in Boston, Madison, New York City, and, currently, San Francisco. She grew up in a variety of dance and movement traditions and is passionate about crafting partnership and blues music. She loves to explore ways to find rhythm and space for personal voice in her dance. Her dance voice and approach to practice has led to national acclaim at BluesShout, Blues Muse, Signifying Blues, Lindy Focus, Sweet Molasses Blues, Northstar Blues, and more. As a teacher, she encourages dancers to explore the partnership space, their authentic movement, and find joy in movement.