Adamo and Vicci
Adamo and Vicci started their blues dancing journey together in London, where they nurtured and grew the blues dance scene for three years before packing their bags and moving to Valencia, Spain. They continue to be actively involved in the London blues scene, running The Down and Outs blues performance troupe and managing Blues at The Ritzy, a buzzing monthly blues social in Brixton. They are also co-organizers of Espanish Blues Festival in Madrid.
Adamo and Vicci have an incredible chemistry on the dance floor, bringing intensity, elegance and musicality to the dance. Their passion for blues is evident in their inspiring classes, giving dynamic and energetic lessons with a focus on creativity, communication and connection within the partnership, developing a relationship with the music, and encouraging dancers to find their own blues voice.
Both trained teachers, Vicci and Adamo love to create new and intuitive ways to communicate technical concepts to their students. Their lessons are interactive and interdisciplinary involving drawing, discussions, giant elastic bands and even chopsticks!!!
They believe your body is a musical instrument and your dancing is the music you play, and will help you to discover the way your body moves in a whole new light. By watching them dance, or joining their classes you will learn to really ‘feel’ the blues!
Alina Sokulska
Her dance experience met with academic formation in Arts helps Alina to comprehend Jazz Dance, her major passion, as a historical and anthropological phenomenon of the Art of mixed identities. This helps her as a dancer to find new profound approaches to choreography, social dance, improvisation, musicality and a dancing style. Moreover, she has been sharing her experience teaching both solo and couple dances with her partner Fedor Nedotko, lecturing, performing, choreographing and collaborating with jazz bands as well as hosting dance weekends, workshops and festivals in Ukraine, Russia as well as around the world.
She set up her company Jazz Workshop with Alina Sokulska in 2013, cherishing the concept of dance expression to Jazz Music of any style, elaborating on her own dance language and artistic voice researching rare jazz dance forms of the 20th century through African-American Body Movement.
Her dance mentors, both met and never met ones are Al Minns, Leon James, Teddy Brown, Jimmy Slyde, Alvin Ailey, Brothers-in-Jazz and Irven Lewis, Chester Whitmore, Gordon Neil, Frankie Martinez, Josette Wiggan, Roxane Butterfly, many others and of course… Music!
In her art she tries to follow the quotation by Hope Boykin, Ailey dancer:
Everything should be done with purpose, passion and style. Everything.
Nick and Ilaria
Nick & Ilaria are a young and enthusiastic London based blues duo who couldn’t be more excited to coming back to Bluesila ’17. They love being given the opportunity to share their special dance because they find the way you connect to the music and your partner so authentic: “We believe every dancer should experience the magic of blues!”
School teacher by day and dance teacher by night, Nick finally summoned the courage to go blues dancing in 2013 and quickly transformed from a nervous beginner to a community leader. Ilaria grew up in Italy with a background in artistic gymnastics, modern dance and hip-hop from the age of 6, she moved to London in 2012 and started soon after her blues dancing journey. Outstanding contributors of the London blues scene, front and centre of the Swing Patrol’s very own blues troupe The Down & Outs, Nick & Ilaria traveled all across Europe to constantly learn perform and compete, with many wins under their belts.
Regularly mentored by the illustrious Adamo & Vicci, Nick & Ilaria began their teaching journey in 2014 for the special occasion of Milan’s first blues dancing workshop. Since then, they have successfully run and taught at Sin City Blues, the Tuesday blues night in central London – they have also been part of teaching teams at international festivals such as Bluesila, Drag the Blues Barcelona and Double Shot Valencia.
Most of all they cannot wait to travel to Lithuania – surrounded by lake, forest and lovely dancers – to spread their passion for the beautiful expression of life, love and music that blues dancing is!
Konrad and Agnieszka
Agnieszka has found Blues to be a perfect form of dance expression for her as a dance that reflects her dancing story: it has African roots, some tango impact and a spell of jazz elegance. She started dancing at the age of 7 with ballroom, to then turn to African and modern jazz dances. She loves inspirations from all kinds of styles and Blues seems to cover that. Agnieszka has been teaching a variety of classes in Germany and Spain and now tries to build a Blues scene in Warsaw with her partner, Konrad Pruśniewski. As for her achievements she may be proud of 1st place in solo blues during Grenoble Fallin’ Blues 2016 plus second place in JnJ, 2nd place on Drag the Blues 2015 crazy JnJ, 2nd place on Bluesila Dance Camp 2015.
“The beauty of Blues is in its indefiniteness…. There are no steps, choreographies… a magnet attraction of two poles resulting in a piece of intimate creation between prolific, open dancers, willing to experiment while discovering different layers of rhythm and music”.
Konrad as a curious person tried a variety of different activities. From primary school he had been learning Japanese martial arts which as a result led him from soft to a bit harder styles. When in 2013 by coincidence he discovered lindy hop, boxing gloves had been abandoned permanently. Since then dance turned his world up-side-down and revealed different ways of enjoying life. Hard work led him to fast progress and also several achievements in Lindy Hop and Blues contests. Only in Blues Konrad won 1st place in JnJ on Bluesila Blues Camp 2015, 1st place on Grenoble Fallin’ Blues 2016 and 1st place in crazy JnJ on Drag the Blues 2015.
Creativity and curiosity directed him into Blues in which he found complementation of dancing and also deeper connection and feeling. Dancing with Agnieszka opened new tracks and started a new chapter in their lives. Creating and building new, not known and not scheduled or imposed form out of expression in each dance is the thing most valuable for Konrad. During mentioned process you never know what will be revealed. It just might be ordinary fun but also it could become a masterpiece understandable and visible only for two.
Ron & Sharon
Ron and Sharon’s fun and challenging classes aim to create new insights in your dancing. Focusing on various elements of communication between partners, their classes will provide you with new ways to create more harmonic and inspiring dances. Their ability to simplify complicated concepts through a clear class buildup will provide you with practical ways for improvement. By creating fine and clear contrasts between different elements in the dance, they create a solid understanding and fast implementation of the material and inspire you with new ideas for further exploration. The fun atmosphere they create in their classes contributes to that as well.
With a rich background in martial arts, functional fitness and other dances, Ron has a deep insight about efficient usage of the body, which can help dancers to prevent injuries and create a better feeling in the dance. Sharon, a saxophonist from an early age, also strives to teach her students to feel the dance, and constantly seeks to give personal feedback to her students and to help them individually.
Ron and Sharon teach regularly in Europe and also teach locally at Holy Lindy Land – Swing Dancing School, all over Israel. They also co-organize “Feelin’ Blues” Festival in Tel Aviv and “Desert Stomp” Festival at the heart of the Israeli Negev Desert.
