Lindy hop and solo jazz
private dance classes
and events
Hi, I'm Kristina,
a dance teacher, but mostly just girl who got madly in love with dancing...
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Jazz culture greeted me with such simplicity and the way of learning in which making a mistake meant having a surprise moment, an opportunity to bring more liveliness into dancing. My first teachers were the ones showing me that you don't need to be a professional to reaaaally enjoy dancing, that staying playful on a dance-floor could bring way much more than perfectly performed spin, that even when learning process becomes hard - it could also stay fun.
Now, when I’m teaching myself, I'm trying to do my best to create environment where those values could stay alive, pass them to others. I want to let people experience what jazz is all about, to share something what helps them to stay in a moment, rest and feel inspired - on a dancefloor and maybe even in life.
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african-american dances
from 1920-1950
Lindy hop
jazz dance style performed with a partner
Lindy Hop was born in the black communities of Harlem, New York. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based on Jazz, Tap, Breakaway, and Charleston. It's a social dance, meaning back in a days people were learning it not in a dance studios, but from each other - in parties or just by trying to copy or teach each other.
SOLO JAZZ
jazz dance style performed alone or in a group
Solo Jazz, sometimes called Authentic Jazz or Vernacular Jazz, includes popular back american jazz dances such as Charleston, Tap, Black Bottom, Shimmy, Suzy-Q and many more. This dance developed in a social environment when people in their dancing were imitating suroundings: sounds, annimals, things, situations, each other - in this way trying to express themselves and also to create connection with music and each other.
How do you
define Jazz?
"There are 3 elements which have to be present. One is IMPROVISATION which is "THE I" part - it's freedom to express yourself.
The second is SWING. which is the opposite of "THE I", it's "THE US". The swing is the matter of coordination and balance. It teaches you diplomacy - yes you have a freedom, but other people have freedom too, so how ya'll going to get that together? How's your freedom gonna go from yours to ours. So where's you revel in that improvisation "oh you're playing that too".
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Then there is BLUES, the blues aesthetic is our spiritual overview which is optimism in a face of adversity. And an optimism that's not naive. This is life, bad things happen, that's a fact of being alive. There is no perfection, if you're out here you are paying dues. And how do you deal with those dues, how do you use what you have to be resilient and to deepen your humanity though the tragedy and the struggles and how can you express the depth of that humanity that is earned in a way that it would uplift people and give them a general - this is to exhibit a generosity of feeling and generosity of spirit, of the depth, of the feeling that we call soul that comes out of the blues aesthetic. "
By musician Wynton marsalis