Note: All 3 weeks are sold out by now!

 

Join us in the mountains of Ardèche France, and bring altitude into your dancing. Swing Summit is an intensive dance camp, designed to give you the ultimate learning experience and to make a real change in your dancing. This is why:

• maximum 8 couples per class = lots of personal attention from the instructors (ratio 1 teacher for every 5 students)
• 3-4 h hours of classes per day with instant feedback
• daily open practice sessions, supervised by the teachers
• a complete experience: all classes match and/or build upon each other
• lindy hop levels: intermediate to advanced
• Social dancing twice a day, live Swing music every Thursday night
• Outdoor and indoor dance floors for enjoyable classes in good weather or in case the sun is hiding
• Delicious home-made food
• (almost) no mosquitoes
• Free WiFi, swimming pool

This is it!

Most workshops are designed for you to get inspired and take home lots of material to train later. At SwingSummit, we don’t stop at “inspiration”! The goal is to experience an improvement by the time you leave this camp.

Did you know that there are 5 levels to learning? These are: awareness, awkwardness, application, assimilation, and finally art. We have noticed that at most workshops you don’t have time to go beyond awareness. On the social dance floor you might try it once, but might feel awkward and quickly go back to old habits. This is why we see such a big difference between what students can do in class and what they end up doing on the social dance floor.

We have divided each day’s training into: classes, practice, afternoon social, classes, practice, and finally the evening social. We want you to reach awareness in class, get past awkwardness during practice and get into application during the social. By repeating this process frequently, you will be in the zone throughout the week, you’ll finish the week with assimilation of the techniques and most likely even add your own artistic touch.

The Classes:

Both weeks include classes in lindy hop, charleston, solo jazz, solo body movement training, lead & follow technique, stretch, leader & follower styling plus supervised open practice sessions.  In addition, our team will teach one or two 2-hours themed classes each day; you can choose from:

Solo routines:

Imagine getting the opportunity to go to a camp and learn a famous solo jazz routine AND REMEMBER IT?!? This is the perfect occasion: Small groups and long time to learn and remember for example the Tranky doo and the Big Apple Routine.

Aerials:

At SwingSummit you will have the opportunity to not only learn the aerial in a class, but also practice is until you can perform it. You’ll get to put it all together in little jam sequences, so that when you get back home, you’ll be the one everybody goes crazy about in the jam circle! One entire week of training allows you to not only “kinda get it” but really work on your aerials until you nail them!

Musicality:

With a deeper understanding of swing music you’ll not only become a more fun social dancer by becoming more musical but it will actually help you understand many of the lead and follow theories.

Fitness for lindy hoppers:

Staying strong and fit is a vital element of a dancer’s lifestyle. Much of the knowledge we’ve collected over the years is very valuable also for you as a social dancer – for instance, learn how the the joint-by-joint method can help you prevent shoulder, knee or back pains. We’ll help you develop your own plan and routines to stay fit as a lindy hop dancer.

Depending on student interest we will offer more or less of each theme in a given week (for example in 2012, the first week had 2 hours of solo jazz every day, and for two weeks we had a full aerials course of 2 hours per day).

Level description:

In 2013 we are offering Intermediate to Advanced classes only. This workshop is intended to help you finally get the personal attention you need to get to the next level. Beginners have plenty of workshops and classes that do a fantastic job in teaching and inspiring them. Once you have the inspiration and the basics, you also start getting lots of competing ideas and a feeling of frustration is growing as there are not many opportunities to get answers for these. SwingSummit is one of those opportunities.

You should have at least a full year of proper dance experience.  The swing-out, tuck turn, circles as well as Charleston basics in side-by-side and tandem should be very familiar to you. If you come to the SwingSummit and don’t know the basics, we reserve the right to ask you not to participate in the classes. Having said that, we know that time is an imprecise factor when it comes to progress; your effort, energy and your resources play a crucial importance on how fast you improve. If you have any questions talk to us beforehand.

We have experienced that the best learning happens when you are “in the zone” – in a flow of natural progression. This happens when the challenge is just above your ability. Our goal is to provide classes and training that keep you in the zone for the whole week. When you sign up, you can choose between intermediate, intermediate\advanced and advanced. However, after you have experienced your class, your partners, and your teachers, if you feel you are in the wrong track then you can ask for a one-on-one consultation with Ali to help you select the track that gives you the best chance to stay in the zone. Since this level can change as the week progresses, you may ask for re-evaluation at any time.

Logistics:

Which week?

• Week 1: July 6 – 13, 2013
• Week 2: July 13 – 20, 2013

You can either stay for week 1, 2 or combine!  In previous years we’ve had several people who booked more than one week. Although the class material was the same each week, they felt that on the second week they had an even bigger breakthrough.

Pricing

Your final price for SwingSummit is composed of two parts:

• Classes and meals (all classes, both regular and themed; full board of 3 meals per day) = 495 Euro per person per week
• Accommodation = between 80 and 270 Euro per person per week – depending on your choice of housing (check out “Location and accomodation details” for options).

Language

Although our teachers speak many languages, the official camp language is English.

Registration

REGISTRATION WILL OPEN ON Sun, 18 November 2012 at 15:00 Central Europe Time (follow this clock: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=991)

Click here to get to the registration page: http://swingsummit.com/sign-up-for-swing-summit/

If you have any questions you can contact us at: dance@swingstep.com.

If you have trouble seeing the webform click here: https://aliandkatja.infusionsoft.com/app/form/swingsummit-2013-registration

NEW! Teachers’ Week

June 29– July 6, 2013

In this week Ali&Katja and the SwingStep crew will help you take your Lindy hop dancing and teaching to the next level. If you’re interested in the important details that will allow you to answer all your students questions and bring them the best lessons – this week is for you. Each day we will also present a teaching concept and work on exercises that allow you to internalize the pedagogic tools that we use to deliver our classes. If you are interested click here to read more!

 

SwingSummit Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/events/442176442485332/