10:00-10:55 AM — Room 2A

Scottish Country Dance is an aerobic and exciting social dance form blending highland traditions with country dance. We’ll use the figures and terms that SCD and contra share as a springboard to explore their differences, focusing on opportunities for super satisfying connections and phrasing.

Taught by Hila Lenz

Hila Lenz has been dancing Scottish since 2011, and started teaching classes and calling ceilidhs in 2018. She recently completed her Royal Scottish Country Dance Society certificate and is excited to share the joy of Scottish Country Dance with the New York City contra community.

11:00-11:55 AM — Room 2A

Have you ever gone to Golden Festival and seen people dancing to asymmetrical meters with fancy footwork and thought, “I wish I could do that”? Here’s your chance! This workshop will cover traditional folk dances from the Balkans (ex. Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia). These are community dances done in a line, without partners. We will start with the most simple and accessible dances at the start, gradually moving on to more intricate dances according to the needs, desires, and experience level of the dancers who attend. No experience necessary - all are welcome!

Taught by Kristina Vaskys

Kristina Vaskys is a music educator, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and dancer living in Brooklyn, NY. Her love of Balkan music and dance began when she performed with the Duquesne University Tamburitzans in college, and grew under the instruction of teachers such as Bajsa Arifovska, Adam Good, and Michael Ginsburg. In 2010, she founded all-women Macedonian village ensemble Niva after traveling to the Balkans and noting a distinct lack of female musicians there. She has been a teacher in New York City independent schools since 2006.

12:00-12:55 PM — Room 2A

Come and find out what all the energetic stick clashing, hanky waving, and jangling bells nonsense is all about! Join Ring o’Bells for an introductory workshop where we will teach you the basics of a Morris dance in one of our traditions. Open to teens and adults. Please wear clothes you are comfortable dancing in and sneakers.

Taught by Ring o’Bells Morris, feat. Kate Hamilton, Sarah Henry, Zoe de Pedro, & Laura Norwitz

Ring o’Bells Morris was founded in 1974 as the first women’s Morris dance team in North America. Known for their energy, precision, and inventive choreography, Ring o’Bells perform dances in the traditions of the English villages of Ascott-Under-Wychwood,Ilmington and Brackley. We rehearse Wednesday evenings in Manhattan and dance out during the spring and fall.

10:00-10:55 AM — Room 4B

Learn (or brush up on) a basic rotary waltz, and learn a few simple flourishes with father-daughter duo Carl and Chloe.

Carl has been calling and teaching contra dance, English dances, and couple dancing for decades. Chloe, a contra dance caller, has been waltzing all of her life.

Taught by Carl Levine & Chloe E. W. Levine

Photo by Jeffrey Bary

11:00-11:55 AM — Room 4B

Join caller and teacher Lyss Adkins for a foundational workshop on contra flourishes. We'll look at flourishes you can add to your dancing in places other than swings: in stars, petronellas, progressions, and more. This workshop will help dancers add complexity and artfulness to every part of their dancing.

Taught by Lyss Adkins

When you ask a Muppet to masquerade as a human and call a contra dance, you get Alyssa. Dancers consistently describe my teaching and calling as clear, joyful, and energetic. I stay precise and concise in my communication so everyone can more fully enjoy the dance, the music, and each other.

Photo by Alan Duffy

12:00-12:55 PM — Room 4B

Defensive Dancing Techniques for Contra Dance will be a workshop on some of the basic techniques dancers can use to modify, stop, or change a move. While safety and floorcraft are the main focus, this workshop's aims to use playfulness and self awareness to empower dancers to modify moves for the improvement of the dance experience. This workshop is framed around how to respond to an initiated move and the options available to redirect, modify, or extract yourself from said move.

Taught by Evan Kohne

A former middle school teacher, Evan has been contra dancing for 6 years. He also has experience teaching stage combat and folk dances like Irish Ceili and waltz for youth and student programs in his home state of Oregon. A regular attendee of a variety of social dance events and having taken up serious study of West Coast Swing in the last year, Evan has honed defensive dancing techniques to keep self and partner safe, and looks forward to debuting this workshop at the Fiing!

Photo by Ismael Fernandez

10:00-11:25 AM — Room 3B

Blues dance is an improvised social partner dance known for the freedom it allows for creativity and self expression. In this class, we will teach you everything you need to have a killer time social dancing. We’ll start with the basics of blues movement, and then we’ll dive into how to use stretch and compression to endlessly improvise your own custom partner dance moves. We will emphasize learning through playful exploration of these techniques to banging blues music. Come blues dance with us!

Taught by Jeff Segal & Jess Noble

Jeff Segal loves blues dancing. He’s been dancing since 2010, when he fell in love with blues by dancing late into the night at house parties and lindy hop late nights. Since then, he has competed and taught nationally, won multiple national competitions, and organized and DJed for blues dancers. He’s known for social dancing till he passes out. As a teacher, Jeff is passionate that movement is best learned from a place of play. He enjoys working with students of all levels to unlock their creativity and have more fun with dancing.

Jess Noble is an NYC Blues dancer known for her connection, following technique and playfulness on the dance floor. Of all the dances she does, blues has stood out for Jess in its groundedness, strength, and sass since she started in 2016. She loves exploring how blues weaves through other African American vernacular dances and into later styles of music like soul and R&B. Drawing on a range of dance and movement inspirations from Lindy, Balboa, Tango, martial arts, and air steps, Jess emphasizes being in the moment and generating movement from within the body.

Photo by Ismael Fernandez

11:30-12:55pm — Room 3B

Why do flourishes work the way they do? To answer that, you need an atlas! This workshop will teach how flourishes work from the ground up. We will go over the Golden Rules of dance (along with the Silver and Bronze Rules) that will help you master how to bring flourishes into all aspects of your dance and understand how different flourishes connect to each other, your fellow dancers, and the rest of the dance.

Taught by Steven Roth

Steven has been dancing contra on a weekly basis for almost 20 years straight. Once upon a time, he decided to learn every contra flourish that has ever existed, a process documented in contributions to the Contrasyncretists Youtube Channel.

Photo by Ismael Fernandez