Featured

Alphabetical Jazz Steps – Edition 3 (2017) with Chester Whitmore

04.09.2017 by Chris

After the first edition from 2009 with 37 solo jazz steps and the second revised edition from 2012 with 84 steps, Stuart Collins and his friends created a new clip with the help of Mister Chester Whitmore himself.

Here's the new clip: 68 steps with a lot of additional comments and insight from Chester.

Click on the timestamp to jump to a step:

0:09 Apple Jack
0:48 Black Bottom
1:11 Boogie Back aka ‘Back it up'
1:29 Boogie Forward
1:35 Boogie Forward (clap behind)
1:42 Boogie Step
1:52 Box Step (original)
2:24 Box Step (contemporary)
2:40 Break (Shim Sham) aka ‘TOBA break'
3:32 Break (Half break) aka ‘Tiger Rag break'
3:57 Break-a-leg
4:20 Cakewalk / Camelwalk (classic)
4:45 Cakewalk / Camelwalk (modern)
5:09 Camelwalk (backward)
5:22 Cartwheel
5:39 Charleston (1920s)
5:53 Charleston (Jump)
6:05 Charleston (Kansas City)
6:18 Charleston (Squat)
6:27 Cool Breeze (1953) aka ‘Grapevine'
6:43 Cool Breeze (1970s)
7:07 Crazy Legs
7:29 Crossovers
7:40 Cross step
8:02 Eagle Slide
8:44 Fall off the Log
8:53 Fall off the Log (turning)
9:01 Fishtails
9:09 Gaze Afar
9:16 Grinds
9:44 Hallelujahs aka ‘Shouts'
10:18 Heels (Digs)
10:28 Heels (Russian wing)
10:42 Hitchhiker
11:03 Itches
11:09 Jig Walks
11:29 Knee Slaps
11:35 Lockstep
11:44 Lowdown
12:18 Mess Around
12:27 Mooch aka ‘Four Corners'
12:51 Opposites aka ‘Push n Pull'
13:13 Paddle Turn
13:23 Pecks
14:07 Pecks (Jackson 5)
14:31 Ride the Pony
14:46 Rocks
15:05 Rusty Dusty
15:19 Sailor Kicks
15:35 Savoy Kicks
16:05 Scarecrow
16:11 Scissor Kicks
16:21 Shim Sham
17:01 Shish-ka-boom-ba
17:11 Shoe Shine
17:15 Shorty George
17:23 Skate
17:31 Skip up
17:38 Slip Slops
17:43 Spank the Baby
17:48 Stomp off
17:54 Struttin'
18:07 Suzie Q
18:17 Tabby the Cat
19:05 Tacky Annie
19:15 Tick Tocks
19:23 Truckin'
19:36 Turkey Trots

Marcia & Chris unterrichten bei Dance2bee in CH-Muhen, 10.-13.07.2017

20.06.2017 by Chris

Während der Sommer-Intensiv-Woche, organisiert durch die Tanzschule Dance2bee in Muhen AG, unterrichten Marcia Bodenmann & Christian Bossert Solo Jazz, Lindy Hop & Balboa.

Sommerkurse: Solo Jazz, Lindy Hop & Balboa

Website: http://dance2bee.ch/sommerkurse/

Kursprogramm:

Solo Jazz mit Marcia

Erlerne eine tolle Choreo wie in den 20er Jahren.

Anmeldung auch ohne Partner möglich.

Montag- Donnerstag, 10.07. – 13.07.2017, 18:15 – 19:15 Uhr

Lindy Hop Beginner mit Marcia & Chris

Der Tanzstil aus den 30er Jahren welcher als Vorläufer von Boogie Woogie, Jive und Rock'n'Roll gilt! Gespickt von Charleston und Stepptanz – Elementen ein unglaublich schönes und befreites Tanzerlebnis!

Beginner-Kurs

Montag- Donnerstag, 10.07. – 13.07.2017, 19:30 – 20:30 Uhr

Balboa Intermediate mit Marcia & Chris

Balboa ist aufgrund der sehr engen Tanzhaltung vor allem ideal bei voller Tanzfläche und macht Tanzen auf schnelle Musik besonders leicht. Bereichert durch öffnende Figuren wie bei Boogie Woogie wird Balboa zum Bal-Swing und sehr abwechslungsreich.

Figuren & Technik für Tänzer/innen mit Basic-Kenntnissen.

Montag- Donnerstag, 10.07. – 13.07.2017, 20:40 – 21:40 Uhr

Tanzschule Dance2Bee — Tanzsaal Dance2Bee

WhatStep – Your Dance Move Assistant App: The Story

28.03.2016 by Chris

This is a guest post by my friend Roger Schmidlin. He created a dance move assistant app for your mobile called WhatStep. So, let's jump into it.

How It Began

My name is Roger Schmidlin and I have been Lindy Hoppin’ for over 20 years.

I even ran my own dancing school in Perth, Australia. On my path, I have been to lots of workshops and dancing classes.

But I had one big problem: I could not retain all these new learned moves in my head. I tried to write them down, but after a while I had no clue anymore what these notes meant.

I took videos, but they ended up in a big mess on my computer. I know that many dancers share the same problem.

So, I finally wanted to solve this. My mobile app WhatStep was born.

The Making Of

I started the development in March 2015. I was pretty naive then to think it would only take me a few weeks to get it done. There is so much that goes into an app.

My background is software engineering but I have never done any mobile apps. It was all new and exciting for me. My goal was to develop it for Android and iOS, so I used the development platform Xamarin.

The most effort went into the development platform itself (which was in a beta state and had many bugs on its own), dealing with the new technology and publishing it to the stores.

After 6 months I had my first versions in the app stores. It was still buggy and in its very basic form. Because of user’s feedback, I was able to improve my app quite a bit and tailor it to the dance market.

At the moment I have about 600 installs on Android and just over 400 on iOS. Out of these are about 7% that actually purchase the app. 30% of my sales goes to the stores. And you have to use quite a bit of paid advertising in order for your app to be seen.

My demo video (see below) was totally seen about 30.000 times (Facebook and Youtube together).

Some people think you become rich with writing apps. The above numbers are for one year's work. You do the maths. The apps are available on Android and iOS.

Here Is How WhatStep Works

Take your mobile phone to your classes and video at the end with WhatStep
Add personal notes to the video and give it a tag (Lindy Hop, Workshop, Frankie Manning)
Some schools do this already for you and will send you the complete recap collection via their newsletter
Watch your videos in slow motion or even frame by frame
You can also import video clips from Youtube. You can slow them down too
Once you have a cool video playlist, share your cloud videos with your friends
Check out my demo video to get a quick overview on how it works

Demo Video

The Future Of WhatStep

I put my heart and soul in this app to make it the best dance assistant app on this planet.

Many of you have already given me lots of feedback and ideas for more features.

I want the community to be part of this. Make it your app. I like WhatStep to move towards social interaction.

Features like endorsing friends, nominating moves and even having a move dictionary are on my list.

Get involved and join our Facebook Group.