Go Dancing
If you want to be a dancer, you have to dance! Plus, it’s a great way to socialize and meet people. We recommend, of course, our own dances: to find out when the next dance is, check us out on Facebook.
If our monthly dances aren’t enough, there’s also some great West Coast Swing dancing in the Twin Cities. Check out the website for WCS Minnesota, or join the group on Facebook for more information.
Get Better
If you’re serious about dancing, you should be taking classes and/or private lessons. We recommend the classes at Dahl Dance Center, including their beginner class starting March 16th.
Get Music
So you went dancing, loved it, and got your tail into classes and lessons. Awesome. Now you’re looking to practice. “Where can I get my hands on some of that awesome West Coast Swing music?” I hear you say.
Well! You’ve come to the right place. We’ve gathered a couple of different options for you:
Beginner Music: we maintain a Youtube channel of beginner West Coast Swing music—-and we mean “maintain” in the “we made it once and have basically ignored it since,” kind of sense. This is here and it exists and it’s a good way to get started, but you’ll have to branch out pretty quickly.
Current Music: we recommend looking into the lists maintained by Ruby Roxx, Stacy Kay, and Katie Fallon to find newer/more interesting music. The links are published on Spotify, which some people don’t use—them’s the breaks, sorry. (You should be able to view parts of the list without Spotify; try the links a couple of times.)
And finally: ask DJs! If you’re at a dance and you hear something you like, ask the DJ what it was (or use Shazam or something). DJs got into DJing because they love music; usually they will be happy to talk your ear off about any particular song. Make sure in all that talking you get the name and the artist, then look it up when you get home.
Kick Butt
You’re a couple of months in. Somewhere in there, you suddenly became awesome. Now you’re looking to stretch yourself even further. What’s next?
Consider trying out a West Coast Swing competition! They’re super chill as far as competitions go, and pretty affordable to boot. Competitions are in a leveled, jack-and-jill format, which means you’ll dance with a stranger who’s around your level. There’s also a bunch of workshops and TONS of social dancing. What’s not to love? Get in touch with us to find out when the next competition is.