West Coast Swing

Weekend in

Zurich

The Event

Ben Morris & Melina Ramirez were teaching in the  West Coast Swing weekend 7.-8. March 2009 in Zurich – great teachers, lovely personalities and of course amazing dancers.

The event is run by Melanie Stocker Bucher, who is a many times World Champion in Boogie-Woogie, an extremely good teacher in various dance styles, a coach to many dance teams, judge and organiser. Melanie teaches West Coast Swing and Boogie-Woogie practically every weekend in different countries around Europe and Russia, therefore it’s no wonder that her own event runs smoothly and there is that extra ingredient to make it something special.

Lessons

The advanced level learned to speed up and slow down moves and ladies had the chance to give the slow versions a lovely stretch from the body. The combination of having to follow the speed changes in freestyle and to add your own technically quite demanding use of body to those slow parts slotted in by your leader, makes the dance more varied and interesting for the follow.

The second day gave more challenges as leaders looked for ways to make the lady duck under in different patterns and ladies practiced travelling spins while ducking under AND doing rapid changes of direction.

You could feel the concentration and motivation in the class – just what a great dance weekend is about!

Evening Dance

The evening dance was great with different DJs taking care of the music and Ben & Melina were there dancing with us. The show consisted of 9 different numbers in numerous styles: West Coast Swing, Charleston, Lindy Hop, Boogie Woogie, Jazz, Balboa and Adagio – Lionel Giannone et Amandine Principe in slow music with superb dancing, almost balletic, with lifts and splits; absolutely amazing, true Dancers!!!

Next Year

All in all the weekend was great and I’m looking forward to next year: the dates are 6.-7. March 2010!