Without dance, people could only hum along to the “Macarena,” and Jane Austen characters would be forced to say what was really on their minds. Let movements speak with today’s Groupon for swing dance classes from The Lindy Project. Classes take place Wednesday nights at the Tapestry Dance Company and Thursday nights at Khabele Dance Studio. Check the schedule to find your chosen class. Choose between the following options:
- For $22, you get four swing-dancing classes, one per week for a month, for one person (a $45 value).
- For $40, you get four swing-dancing classes, one per week for a month, for two people (a $90 value).<p>
The Lindy Project’s award-winning instructors spread their wealth of dance knowledge and knack for clear instruction throughout the city, instilling rhythmic prowess and swing-club savvy in dancers of every level. The syncopated steppers specialize in the lindy hop—a fast-paced, partnered form named after Charles Lindbergh’s wildly successful trampoline business—along with the Charleston and classic swing. Each one-hour beginner class focuses on a single theme, building upon the new turns and routines learned in previous weeks over a two-month period while still allowing new students to drop in on the first class of any month without needing to catch up. Partners are rotated throughout each hour, much like an amnesiac’s buddy-cop screenplay, to allow solo spinners thorough hands-on instruction and to give dancing duos an opportunity to meet a bounty of new people. Dancers with more experience under their belts can audition with a teacher to take more advanced courses, learning the subtleties of momentum, musicality, and self-correction. After class, students reinforce what they’ve learned in a question-and-answer session, as well as through watching online video recaps that grant visual reminders of the covered moves.
The Lindy Project
Named for Charles Lindbergh's feat of leaping across the Atlantic with a plane strapped to his back in 1927, the lindy hop shook the foundations of many an American dance hall in the 1920s and '30s. During those roaring decades, the dance blended unrestrained new forms of movement, including jazz, tap, breakaway, and the Charleston. The dance became synonymous with swing, requiring of its dancers athleticism, enthusiasm, and a bit of training. Today, in an era of popping and locking, or programming robotic shoes to dance for you, the instructors at The Lindy Project keep the art form fresh, imparting Austin's two-steppers with the skills and fitness to perform this slice of Americana.
They lead group classes twice a week for couples and solo artists, or expedite the process with private lessons taught by an instructor schooled in a wide range of styles, such as balboa and shag. The art's many influences leave room for individualization and improvisation in dance styles, with some instructors incorporating more lifts and twirls while others perform tap moves while wearing scuba flippers.