CLASSES & LEVELS

Classes

The classes will take place over Saturday and Sunday in central Helsinki area. We offer 3 tracks of dances: Lindy hop, Balboa and Collegiate shag. Your Full pass includes 5 main classes (5h 50min in total) plus 2h of optional theme classes (Tasters). You can choose to either do all 5 main classes in the same dance and role or you can choose to split those between two tracks: 3 classes of one track and 2 classes of another.

We recommend to register with a partner for all tracks and combinations. Registrations without partner are put to a waiting list and matched up. You may have different registration partners for different tracks. Ideally your registration partner has a roughly similar dance level as you.

Examples:

Register as an advanced level follower for Lindy Hop as a first track with friend one and as an intermediate level leader for Balboa as a second track with friend two.
Register as an intermediate level leader for Lindy Hop, both first and second track, with the same partner.
Register as an intermediate level leader for Lindy Hop as a first track and as an advanced level follower as a second track.

Levels and groups

We offer different levels depending on your skills so you could feel comfortable in the classes. Classes’ level groups are formed based on demand and attendees' self-evaluations ¹⁾ .

In collegiate shag we expect that overall level varies from our minimum requirements ²⁾ to intermediate-advanced ³⁾ .

In balboa we expect that overall level varies from our minimum requirements ²⁾ to advanced ⁴⁾.

In lindy hop we expect that overall level varies from our minimum requirements ²⁾ to advanced ⁴⁾ (or even further).

Additional Beginners workshops of Balboa and Collegiate Shag

For those who never tried or want to revise and strengthen their basic knowledge of Balboa or Collegiate Shag dance we offer additional workshops one or two weeks before Helswingi festival. The minimum requirement for these workshops is at least 8 months of regular classes of any swing dance.

After completing this workshop you should have enough knowledge to continue chosen track classes during the Helswingi festival. Registration and more information about the workshop will be announced later.

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¹⁾ When registering you will evaluate your level yourself in the chosen track and role. Organizers will decide on the amount of groups for each dance track depending on the number of participants and their level variety while matching dancers level as close as possible.

²⁾ Minimum requirements for the class participants:

For all tracks: at least 8 months of regular classes of any swing dance.
Collegiate shag track: You’ve participated in at least one weekend Collegiate Shag workshop in the last 3 months. You know the basic step and its variations, the fundamentals of connection, leading and following. You know some moves and tried to dance Shag on the social dance floor.

Balboa track: You’ve participated in at least one weekend Balboa workshop in the last 3 months. You know a downhold or uphold basic and some bal-swing moves. You know the fundamentals of connection, leading and following and you have tried dancing Balboa on the social dance floor.

Lindy hop track: Your swing out is still not perfect, but your repertoire of the moves is growing and you feel comfortable leading or following on the social dance floor.

³⁾ What we mean by Intermediate-advanced?

Your basics are strong, dancing feels very comfortable and it’s easy to bring new variations in to dance. Your own personal dance style is starting to form.

⁴⁾ What we mean by Advanced?

You feel your dancing is so strong that it would be easy to dance even while sleeping. You find it easy to adapt to different dancers. Learning routines and figures is fast. At this point you are probably looking deeper into dance fundamentals, exploring new and wanting to tell and share even stories and emotion with your dance.

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