Balter Dance

We sat down for a Q&A with Maria Kakolowski and Lucas-Michael Jones! Here’s what they have to say about their upcoming lesson at Fusey Tuesy.

What’s your lesson about?
M: Basics of connection, so that students are confident to communicate ideas and experiment.
What’s your dance teaching experience?
M: Dancing since 2004, teaching off and on for a while and with organizations since 2016.
LM: Dancing since 2011, teaching since 2017 - I worked days at a kids dance camp and nights at a ballroom studio.
What made you choose this particular lesson plan/topic?
M: We chose things we work on often together! We were excited about them ourselves.
What is fusion to you?
M: Taking whatever movement background you have, into the dancing and music of the movement, partnered or solo.
LM: To quote Jamie-Lynn Figure of Colorado Springs, the tension between you and I, and what you love and what I love. To put it short, nowadays it’s home.
Favorite partner dance drill?
M: Walking! All the walking!
LM: Wow, what great interview questions. Favorite drills are anything that moves. I want to maximize my mistakes-per-minute.
Why did you use this photo?
LM: We have few photos together and Maria thought this was funny.
Peanut butter, smooth or chunky?
M: Chunky.
LM: Chunky.

CATch them before they travel! Eclipse Fusion Boston featuring Kelly DeLew and Clayton Jennings, we did an interview with your instructors. Read below to learn about their lesson, some useful drills, and to get to know these kind dancers!

Q: What is your lesson about?
Clayton: Small dancing! How to create small, impactful movement with your partner.
Q: What will students achieve in your lesson?
Clayton: Practice subtle complexity and hypertune partner listening skills. Appreciation for the little things in a dance.
Q: What made you choose this particular lesson plan/topic?
Clayton: A desire to grow the appreciation of small movement and teach others to maximize their experience in a small space.
Q: How long have you been teaching? What's your experience/lineage?
Kelly: I started co-teaching fusion and waltz a year or two prior to the start of the pandemic, and have started teaching more in the blues scene since dancing started up again.
Clayton: Dance Experience: Contra/Folk Dancing 15 years. Collegiate Ballroom 3 years. Blues Dancing 7 years. Fusion dancing 5 years. Instructor for: Folk Waltz, Blues, and Fusion dancing.
Q: How long have you been dancing? What's your story?
Kelly: My dance journey started with solo styles as a young child and then musical theater between the ages of 9 and 17. My partner dance experience began when a friend invited me to a ballroom social in Burlington, VT. It was love at first sight, and I quickly sought out all forms of partner dance available to me. At the time, this mainly consisted of East Coast Swing and Lindyhop. From there, I discovered the more smooth and fluid dances of West Coast Swing, blues, and fusion. I’ve also enjoyed dabbling in the world of contra and folk waltz since moving to Boston in 2017. In total I’ve been partner dancing for over a decade.
Clayton: I found contra when living in Western MA at the Guiding Star Grange (Greenfield) and discovered my love of dancing, especially to live music! I joined the ballroom dance team at UMass-Amherst after seeing a club flier and enjoyed the opportunity to grow my technical skills. After college, I dabbled in other socal dance styles such as: lindy hop, argentine tango, salsa, and west coast swing, rotating between different lesson series and social nights.
When I moved to Boston, I found Bluesy Tuesy (Harvard Square) thru some of my folk dance friends and fell in love with blues dance. I attended the Blues Union dance, so I could dance 2 x week and expand my repertoire of blues dance idioms. I’ve traveled to Blues Dance weekenders where I: met more regional dancers/instructors, took advanced workshops, and competed in J&J events. I have also sought out our wealth of local dance instructors to learn more about teaching blues to beginner and intermediate dancers.
When the fusion scene began in Boston, I realized that this was an opportunity to stretch the boundaries of my dance abilities and experience a variety of movement styles! I attended weekenders here on the east coast (Philly, NY, CT, Montreal) to collaborate, build community, and expand my appreciation for fusion dance.
Today I teach beginner blues, fusion, and (occasional) waltz lessons and enjoy dancing anywhere and everywhere! I’m on the lookout for new ways to create and collaborate and am forever grateful to our Boston dance communities and their organizers!
Q: Why do you teach?
Kelly: I enjoy sharing things I’ve learned, either from lessons I’ve taken over the years or through personal epiphanies from social dancing. I enjoy getting others, particularly new to dance folks, excited about partner dancing.
Clayton: To share my experience and grow the love of creative movement.
Q: Favorite moment in a class/with students?
Clayton: Finding the AHA! moments when a concept clicks for my students. Sharing laughter!
Q: What's your favorite exercise/drill for folks who are new to the concept of partner dance?
Kelly: This is for all skill levels, not necessarily new folks. It’s not very exciting, but walking in a straight line, practicing different turns while keeping yourself upright. This has been invaluable to my dancing and taught me more control of my movements in order to maintain my balance and have the freedom to embellish.
Clayton: Exploring the complexity of connection: compression, stretch, groundedness, muscle engagement, etc. Any exercise that improves partner communication and body awareness.
Q: What's your favorite dance connection point?
Kelly: So many!
Clayton: ALL OF THEM
Q: Peanut butter, smooth or chunky?
Kelly: Smooth, like my preferred way to dance!
Clayton: CRUNCH LIFE!!!
Q: Favorite dancer/teacher/someone you look up to?
Kelly: So many instructors out there, but a particular shout out to our local Julie Brown! She has such creative styling in her movements, and is also a badass teacher.
Clayton: I’m enjoying the creations of Jakub Jakoubek & Emeline Rochefeuille lately.
Q: What is dance to you?
Kelly: Physical expression of music!
Clayton: Communication, listening, shared emotion, breathing, fitness, collaborative art, story telling, socializing, novelty, spirituality.
Q: What is fusion to you?
Clayton: The blending of two (or more!) dance experiences to express the depth and variety of fusion music.

Look at this fungi!
We asked Rose Murphy a few questions about their lesson TONIGHT! at Gallery Z in Lowell.

Q: What is your lesson about?
Rose: The lesson will cover some basics on connection, consent, and getting comfortable- It's a little crash course for folks newer to fusion dancing, and a structured warm up for the mixer.

Q: What will students achieve in your lesson?
Rose: There will be a lot crammed into our lesson, but honestly, I just hope folks leave feeling like they have a few extra tools to move with confidence and joy.

Q: How long have you been teaching? What's your experience/lineage?
Rose: This is my first time teaching at a social and I’m nervous! I started with west coast swing in 2015, and in the past 8 years, have also grown to love bachata, blues, zouk, and fusion.

Q: What's your favorite exercise/drill for folks who are new to the concept of partner dance?
Rose: I love any exercise that incorporates a sense of play and creativity. Setting limits or rules, like “connect without using your right hand” or “follow with your eyes closed”, is such a fun way to keep yourself moving in new ways.

We asked Julie Brown some questions about her teaching and her lesson tonight at Eclipse Fusion Boston!

Q: What is your lesson about?
Julie: Slow drag! a slow couples’ dance in the blues family that’s also lasted til current times!

Q: What made you choose this particular lesson plan/topic?
Julie: It’s a great dance for small spaces and crowded dance floors, and it’s one of my favorite dances to teach. There are so many variations of slow drag to different music genres and different places/times throughout history. And while they’re simple on paper, there’s a ton of richness available in the connection between partners and connection to the music. Also Josè specifically requested it

Q: How long have you been teaching? What's your experience/lineage?
Julie: I’ve been teaching blues since 2006, so 17 years now, weeee. My dance experience/lineage started pretty young—I did a lot of musical theatre dance growing up but wasn’t very good, and my mom taught me & my sister some of the popular dances she did growing up, like the twist & the pony, which I later learned were also Black American social dances, part of the same African American social dance continuum as blues and jazz dances! I learned Lindy near the end of high school and blues at the beginning of college. A lot of the blues dance knowledge I teach today comes from Damon Stone, various books (Jookin by Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, Jazz Dance by Marshall and Jean Sterns, etc.) and video/film clips, and as well as some pieces from Bobby Green, Norma Miller, Prof. Thomas DeFranz, and a few other elders and folks who shared things they learned from their families and communities. I also get a lot of influence from learning some of the post-blues & post-swing partner dances like GrAystone, Chicago style steppin, bop, and Detroit Ballroom.

Q: Why do you teach?
Julie: Blues dances and the people behind them have given me so much, and they are so important—these dances & music are people’s personal stories and connections to their loved ones; they’re cultural heritage. They’ve helped me learn a lot of beautiful stories, important history, & amazing music, helped me explore my identity, my gender, my artistic voice, and my relationship to history and its effects on the present, and lead to me meeting so many amazing people. I hope to provide an opportunity for others to experience, learn, & explore those things, in the ways that I’m able

Q: Peanut butter, smooth or chunky?
Julie: Smooth for smoothies, chunky for sandwiches

We asked Nick and Nikki some questions about their lesson, coming up on 5/14! Whole interview text below, the photo caption is "Nick just told a bad joke and Nikki is unimpressed."

Q: What is the lesson about?
Nick: How to connect properly in frame with your partner.

Q: What will students achieve in the lesson?
Nick: They will learn a short set of patterns that they can use to practice proper connection. The focus will be on hand placement, body positioning and what listening to your partner
means for both leaders and followers.

Q: How long have you been teaching? What's your experience?
Nick: I’ve been teaching for 8 years and professionally teaching full time for 5. I began with contradancing and folk waltz, and soon moved into blues and fusion. Currently I work full time as a ballroom dance instructor.
Nikki: I’ve taught choreography on and off for a couple years, but I’ve begun to understand that I don’t want to teach choreography. I like to use dance as a connection tool. To connect to yourself and others. That is why I am a dance therapist.

Q: Favorite moment in a class/with students?
Nick: I don’t have any particular moments that stand out, but I always enjoy when I trick someone into dancing better. Dumb metaphors, telling them to change one small thing, distracting them with = conversation, or telling them to try to do something and purposefully fail are my favorite things to do for students.
Nikki: I was leading an improvisational dance. A student started to touch her left forearm and she started crying. Something in her body told her she deserved care and rest. I love when people become aware of their bodies and their needs and how dance helps them to do that. I love holding space for those moments.

Q: How long have you been dancing? What's your story?
Nick: I’ve been dancing for 13 years. My first experience with anything resembling dance was playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution in high school. Even though it wasn’t exactly what I would call dance experience, it is where I learned about rhythm, timing, and the connection between music and movement. I started partner dancing to get out of the house and meet people, and knew at the end of the first night that I wanted to make this a major part of my life. My first four dances I went to after that I was so scared to ask people to dance that I maybe danced 10 times total over the course of those four dances. I was really self-conscious.
I just kept going, made more friends and went to every lesson I could to figure out how to make this new hobby work. A lot of practice and hard work came next, but by the end I was out dancing three to four nights a week, which lead to a lot of sore muscles.
Nikki: 23 years! I started with Chinese traditional dance and contemporary dance. Since coming to the US I’ve learned more styles from different cultures. It has allowed me to find out much more about myself. When it comes to partner dance it has been really impactful on me, but I don’t have words to describe how. I wish I could do a movement response to the prompts instead!

Q: What made you choose this particular lesson plan/topic?
Nick: I’ve noticed that many great dancers have an autocorrect for dance in their brains. You can tell them to dance something, and they will find a way to make it work. They may not even know what it is they changed. I’ve felt for a while that our dance community would benefit from more work on connection and partnered movement, and I want to be precise enough in what I’m asking that no autocorrect is needed. The hope is that dancers who are very literal will come out of this lesson with better connection that will improve their dancing with all partners from beginners to advanced dancers.

Q: what's your favorite exercise/drill for folks who are new to the concept of partner dance?
Nick: With followers I like to make sure they know how to wait. I will lead a step or two and then stop to see if they will stop as well. For leaders its dancing a basic step while having a conversation.
Nikki: Practicing tension, compression and breath.

Q: what's your favorite dance connection point?
Nick: That is actually a big part of the lesson Sunday. It is the back half of the follower’s left side.
Nikki: I like close embrace.

Q: Peanut butter, smooth or chunky?
Nick: I am a heathen who doesn’t enjoy peanut butter.
Nikki: I’m not gonna answer that! It’s too hard of a question!!! How many times do I need to try before I get an answer?

And that's all folks! We'll see you at Sun Rising.

We’re excited to share some of the performers and food vendors coming to this year’s ! Join us on Saturday, June 3 on Common and see fantastic performances by:

Missy Steak, drag artist
Evan Greer, musician
Balter Dance, dance group
Katie Gullotti, singer
Jen Zumbera, Zumba instructor

And enjoy delicious food from:
The Chubby Chickpea Truck
Emma’s Macarons
Gourmet Kreyol
Uncle Joey's Cannoli

Alt text: A flier showing photos of various performers and logos from various food vendors. Text: Waltham Pride. Saturday, June 3, 2023, 11:00AM-4:00PM. Join us in celebrating Waltham’s LGBTQ+ community with music, dance, fun, and food! WalthamPride.org,

***an ***r

We had a great time Saturday dancing to DJ Omari's set!
Looking forward to teaching this Sunday.

4 liftable bodies and 4 lifting bodies.
Balter will be back on Sunday April 9 at Second Sun Rising. Looking forward to dancing with you then.

Workshop Friday is focused on those with some prior lifts experience. The workshop is not focused on a particular type of body - as with all our classes, we want as many bodies to be included as possible.

Image description: a liftable body

Community feedback said "something a bit more applicable than backflip," so here we go!
Our March 10 workshop topic is now Social(ish) Lifts.
Social(ish) lifts are about consent and safety first, style second.

Here have a primer on fusion dance

Dance - creativity within structure.
Class the 27th is all about using structure to our advantage as dancers. That structure could come from the music, from your own intentions, or from a connection in the form of the person you're dancing with.
Rehearsal last week discovered some surprising ways to get deeper connection using different structures. Here's two photos from an exercise we did.

Feeling grateful to return to rehearsals tonight, and workshops Jan 27.
Excited for The Lab.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1326080468216075/

7:30 tonight! Not 7, not 8, certainly not 9, 7:30! https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

7:30 tomorrow, prior experience highly recommended! https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

Bring your water and notebook.
https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

Throwback to goth night in early 2022. https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

7:30 Friday. https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

Support the community. We're looking for administrative assistants, paid opportunity.

Bluesy Tuesy - https://www.facebook.com/groups/102014349907754
Balter - https://www.facebook.com/BalterDanceBoston
Eclipse - https://www.facebook.com/groups/eclipsefusion
Dance for Connection - https://www.facebook.com/events/657270032718316/
Second Sun - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1787841881445140

See the dips evolve.
Fly with us December 2. https://www.facebook.com/events/423400209994478/

Come by Friday 7-9, even if it's your first class with us!

Remember to vote! It's easy, and all your relatives are doing it!

Move of the week: Sunnyside Up. Excited to teach this Friday.