We are happy to present free professional dance lessons. These lessons will be offered at River Run. Six professional dance instructors from around the country will be on hand to literally get festival attendees in the swing musically.
Josh and Emily McLaughlin
Josh & Emily started swing dancing about eight years ago. As a couple, they’ve been dancing for almost four years. They are co-owners of a company called Syncopated Rhythms. Their group of four dancers holds monthly workshops for the local scene. They DJ and teach regularly at various venues. They’ve been traveling quite a bit lately to complete, teach and DJ.
They have taught at Bal Rendesvouz, the Portland Lindy Exchange, Portland Fusion Exchange, Portland Parks and recreation, Come Raine, Come Shine, Portland Waterfront Blues Festival, and Oregon Dance Fair. In competitions they placed first in Oregon Dance Fair’s Lindy Competition 2007, and the Jack and Jill at Seattle Balboa Festival 2009.
Bethany Powell and Stefan Durham
Back by popular demand, Bethany and Stephan return to the Sun Valley Jazz Jamboree dance instructor team. Stefan wishes even more people danced and kew how magnificent dance can make things… most notably when the music is swinging and hot! He thinks Lindy Hop is one of the greatest dances of all time! He likes Charlie Chaplin and that TV show where dance crews battle for supremacy!
Bethany was never “classically trained” but has an affinity for the dances of the proletariat (getting down). She prefers Lindy Hop because it is not at all serious but, if it’s swinging, it can be momentous. Bethany is intrigued by the interplay of assertion and concession that makes for good cooperative art.
