Dance Flurry is a trip around the dance floor – and the world!
Every February, Dance Flurry defies the winter cold of Upstate New York, by hosting an annual (indoor) celebration of live music and dance in Saratoga Springs, New York!
You can test your terpsichordian* talents with multi-cultural dances
*”Terpsichordian” is the Greek-origin word for dance.
But you don’t have to spell it – dancing is for doers! 🙂
The ballrooms at the Saratoga City Center and Hilton are filled with enthusiastic contra dancers – inter-generational, gender-flexible, multi-cultural, beginners, experts, and everything in-between – plus live bands!
Contra dance partners pass up and down long lines interacting with other couples. The music – echoed by the swirling, stamping crowd – is an energetic Americanized version of English country dancing, Irish jigs, reels, techno, etc.
Other ballrooms and and workshops invite you to be a “hep cat” with swing music from the 1930’s or 1940’s with top bands like Jay Ungar and Molly Mason http://jayandmolly.com/ (I love swing – in fact, I wrote a swing song “Everybody Goes Wow!” for my original musical “SssWitch” SssWitch.net )
You can fall in love – or find a friend of any gender – to a tender waltz like “Ashokan Farewell” by Jay Ungar, the sound track to the famous Ken Burns PBS series on The Civil War.
Live out your Latin dreams on interactive dance-music tours to Cuba or Dominican Republic with metamovements.com
Or let your hips sway to a Latin rhythms by The Ladybugs in local ballrooms.
You can work your body to a Hip-Hop beat with choreographers Ray F. Davis and Carla Giudcelli. I was having so much fun in the hip-hop workshop, I didn’t even know it was hip-hop! (which turns out to be a huge umbrella that can include people of all ages and backgrounds)
You can enjoy the haunting spirituality of Native American flute music and hear the Algonquin language spoken by the indigenous people of upstate New York (and beyond).
You can open your ears and mind to middle-Eastern music, complex rhythms and culture with Karim Nagy.
You can enjoy a concert of Argentinian tangoes with the authentic orchestra of of pedroguirado.com The instruments include the bandonion – a uniquely complex version of an accordian. You will be amazed by the inventive sounds of a tango violin, piano, and bass (played by band leader Pedro Guirado).
But beware – it’s easy to fall in passionate love to this music. In fact, I wrote a song called “Blame It On the Tango.” (My lyrics rhyme “gaucho love” with “couch ‘o love”)
Looking foward to more events from DanceFlurry.com Hope we can share a dance!
Thanks to Journalist Carla Marie Rupp for photo!
Susan (“Dr. Sue”) Horowitz, Ph.D.