STB2026 Course Descriptions

This document follows the current schedule: five Tracks, 23 Specials, and one free Yoga session on each of Saturday and Sunday. All 

classes are 60 minutes long. Lectures are excluded from this schedule and the teaching-hour totals. Hannah’s and Nii’s talks on history and culture are mentioned here as a preview; topics and times will be announced separately.

1. Choosing Your Classes

What is a Track?

A Track is a series of classes built around a shared theme or level. You will learn alongside the same group of dancers, studying with different teachers and discovering their individual approaches to dance, music, and practice. Within each Track’s broader focus, we give the teachers room to share what matters to them. We invite you to arrive with curiosity and embrace each teacher’s distinctive style and perspective.

STB2026 offers five Tracks: Lindy Int-Adv, Lindy Adv, Lindy Pro, Slow & Blues, and Jazz. Each Track includes five 60-minute classes, for a total of five hours. Jazz is a solo dance Track; the others focus primarily on partnered dancing.

What are Specials?

Specials are individual, themed classes that you can choose separately. Each lasts 60 minutes. Follow your interests to explore a style, a technical question, ways of understanding and interpreting music through the body, or simply a topic or format that sparks your curiosity.

STB2026 offers 23 Specials, prepared with care by our guest teachers from China and abroad. Track classes and Specials are scheduled at separate times so that Track students can also take Specials. With limited time slots and rooms, several Specials run simultaneously, so you can choose only one class per slot.

2. The Five Tracks

Our Lindy Hop program has three Tracks, grouped by level. Each offers classes with five different teaching teams, making it a great choice for dancers who love Lindy Hop and want to explore different teachers’ styles. One small detail that is actually quite important: it is also a lovely way to get to know your classmates more naturally. Hahaha!

Lindy Int-Adv

This Track welcomes dancers from intermediate through advanced levels. You may have been practicing and social dancing regularly for around a year, or have built comparable experience. More important than how long you have danced is your familiarity with the foundations: basic Lindy Hop figures in closed and open positions, basic partnered Charleston, and leading or following skills you can comfortably use on the social floor.

You are familiar with swing rhythm, have a basic understanding of musical structure, and can explore variations on familiar moves. Whether you are beginning to develop these variations or already have a broader vocabulary, this Track offers room to explore greater flow, movement quality, and swing feel.

Lindy Adv

This Track is for dedicated dancers with several years of classes and social dancing behind them who continue to learn and develop. You have confident partnering skills and can improvise in your dancing. You have also built up some solo vocabulary and can bring it into your partnered dancing. You have experience with workshops, competitions, or performances, and can understand concepts introduced by different teachers. Rhythmic vocabulary and dancing at different tempos are familiar territory. You can work with more demanding material and want to expand both your musical expression and your ways of thinking about dance.

Lindy Pro

This Track is for experienced enthusiasts and dance professionals with solid foundations, strong independent learning skills, and the ability to adjust their dancing and engage in deeper practice. You practice consistently and are developing your own judgment. You want classes to offer fresh perspectives as well as new material. This Track is for dancers willing to discuss details, experiment actively, and revisit and refine their choices.

Slow & Blues

Whether at a regular DJ night or a big party with a live band in full swing, some of the most beautiful moments arrive when the music slows down or blues fills the room. We have always believed there is more than one way to engage with good music. This Track focuses on slow dancing and blues, inviting us to discover how different teachers approach and enjoy them.

For dancers with more than a year of experience in partnered jazz or blues dancing. You already have basic leading or following skills and are willing to take time with slower music, exploring changes in weight, connection, and rhythm.

Jazz!

In this Track, we will explore the movement vocabulary and traditions of Authentic Jazz through different teachers’ styles, perspectives, and approaches. Classes may include classic steps and routines, musicality, improvisation, and choreography, as well as new ways of understanding familiar material.

Suggested level: Mixed Level — Intermediate and Above

You are already familiar with some basic Authentic Jazz steps, have encountered classic routines such as the Shim Sham, Tranky Doo, and Big Apple, and have begun exploring improvisation and building confidence in dancing on your own.

This Jazz Track has an entry point, but no upper limit. It brings together different teachers’ styles, perspectives, and material. Some things may feel familiar; others may take you into unfamiliar territory in movement and music.

We invite you to welcome challenges during the workshops and to be patient with yourself and classmates whose experience differs from yours. Embrace different styles and ways of learning. Stay open. Stay curious.

3. Specials

01 | Peter & Katja — All starts from Waltz

Open Level

People who spent a whole week studying Early Jazz with Peter & Katja at Herräng Dance Camp years ago came away changed! Their connection became more natural, and their minds seemed to open up. Last year, we invited the duo to share this topic in STB’s weekday classes, and everyone took so much away from it. One line really stayed with us: “It all starts from Waltz.” If you could take just one class to explore early social dancing, this might be a wonderful place to start. And there is more: you will also get to dance to music in triple meter!

02 | Chester — Hoofers Club: Tap Dance - Improver

Improver Level

You can comfortably perform simple Shuffle, Flap, and Paddle combinations. You are familiar with Time Steps and some variations, and can dance the Shim Sham, Walkaround / Coles Stroll, and BS Chorus. Tap shoes are recommended.

Chester often describes himself as a hoofer—an old-school tap dancer. And yes, a chance encounter with Fayard Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers in 1974 changed his life completely. That should give you some idea of what makes this class so special! This is an improver-level Special for dancers who already have a foundation in tap.

03 | Hannah & Nii — Baltimore Special

Open Level

Over the past few years, I have been seeing more and more dancers from Baltimore on social media. There is something distinctive about them: relaxed, unpretentious, yet full of power! It makes me wonder: what has this city given them? How do local Black social life and jazz culture live on in their dancing?

Hannah and Nii both come from Baltimore. We have named this class Baltimore Special and left them the space to shape its content. We invite you to join us in experiencing Baltimore’s Lindy Hop heritage.

Hannah and Nii will also give talks on history and culture. Topics and times will be announced closer to the event.

04 | Kiki House — Dancing like a tree

Open Level

A beautiful day begins with a beautiful morning! Start with breathing exercises to awaken the mind, gradually engage the core, and open up the body. Like a tree, root yourself in the earth and let strength travel from the soles of your feet through your whole body.

Live drumming accompaniment.

Bare feet and comfortable clothing that allows you to move freely are recommended.

05 | Zilong & Holly — Slow Down

Open Level

Think of Bullet Time in The Matrix: time freezes, yet the path of every movement becomes clearer than ever! Zilong and Holly will guide you in slowing the body down instead of coming to an abrupt stop, maintaining flow as speed changes, and exploring how to communicate that deceleration clearly to your partner through the lead.

06 | Wanyuan & Dafa — Conversation in Social Dancing

Open Level

Wanyuan and Dafa are also friends many of us know well! In both dancing and everyday life, they have a gift for starting a conversation that feels comfortable. Dance grows out of life, and the sincerity they bring to their relationships surely holds something worth sharing. 

This time, we have invited them to explore conversation through dance: how can we express our ideas while leaving room for the other person to respond? How can a dance become an exchange that both partners actively share?

07 | Adam — Listening to the Levels

Open Level

This class focuses on identifying the different things happening within swing music, particularly big-band swing, and using critical listening skills to change dance texture and respond to different elements of the music.

Live band accompaniment.

08 | River & Hammer — The California Routine, Slowed Down

The California Routine is a classic work preserved in footage of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers from the 1940s, bearing witness to Lindy Hop’s golden age. It is often danced to fast music, with an exhilarating density of moves that can be hard to take in all at once.

This class takes a different approach: using medium-tempo music to savor the routine in detail.

Break down the logic and connections between movements, making those dazzling steps clearer to see and understand.

Discover how the same material can take on a completely different texture at different speeds. We will explore the stretch, breathing room, and rhythm that a medium tempo allows.

Enjoy a classic while discovering how dancers of that era wrote jazz with their bodies.

09 | Andy & Yuyu — Talking on the Beat

When we dance, we already share a language. The beat is more than a metronome: it is time passing, a shared heartbeat, and the rules of the game we are playing together.

This is also one of Andy & Yuyu’s signature classes!

10 | Sep — Solo-Social Improvisation

Dancing solo does not mean keeping to yourself. Sep will revisit solo improvisation through the lens of social dancing: what skills do we need, and what habits could we set aside for a while? When we look beyond whether a movement looks good or belongs on stage, how can we feel more at ease with the music, the space, and the people around us? This class invites you to rediscover connection and participation in solo dancing.

11 | Semih — Blues

Aaaaaah! That is not only the name of an African dance performance on Sunday night at this event—it is also how people feel after watching Semih dance Blues. This time, we managed to catch him and make this class happen for you!

12 | Ilkyu & Jihee — Lindy Super Combo

Champions on the competition floor, and this time they are arriving with an unbeatable hand: four twos and both jokers! Lindy Super Combo—remember the thrill of landing a spectacular combo?

13 | Kiki House — Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

A class sharing the technical principles behind a form of African bounce. Beginning seated and still, we will awaken the body, gradually mobilize the joints throughout it, and break down how it moves, before dancing to the music and finding a continuous bounce within the body.

Live drumming accompaniment.

Bare feet and comfortable clothing that allows you to move freely are recommended.

14 | Sep — Music and Idiom Foundations through the Jazz Masters

Four different pieces by Basie, Bechet, Dizzy, and Ellington will be our starting points. Drawing on his understanding of the music, Sep will guide us through four explorations of Authentic Jazz style, inviting us to notice musical qualities worth responding to. It is all jazz, but how might our movement change when the music changes? Follow these pieces and develop your own danced responses.

15 | Peter & Katja — Foundation of Pure-Bal

Peter and Katja’s Balboa class was a big hit last year. Beyond the wonderfully old-school flavor of their dancing, they bring stories from beyond the steps that help us understand what lies at the heart of the movements. This time, we turn our attention to Pure-Bal, joining Peter & Katja to explore the Pure Joy of Pure Bal. This class offers an entry point for dancers curious about Pure-Bal, as well as those with some experience who would like to revisit their foundations.

16 | Chester — Tap Dance - Beginner

Beginner Level / Open Level

You already have some familiarity with Shuffle, Flap, and Paddle. Anyone who has tried a little tap and is still learning the basics is welcome. Tap shoes are recommended but not required; hard leather-soled shoes are also an option.

If you have tried a little tap and want to get your basics clearer, Chester might not be able to help you! But his choice of material is clever, his presentation is jazz, and his teaching is old-school! You will have to come to find out what all that means!

17 | Erol — Bebop

A bassist as well as an experienced dancer, Erol has played a vital role in the swing community’s growing interest in Bebop in recent years through his exploration and creative work. Once, while social dancing, I shared a dance with him to Bebop music. That dance made me feel the vastness of the universe—and that we were the universe. I have always wondered how he understands this music, whether dancing solo or with a partner. Perhaps we will find some answers in this class.

18 | Kyle & Yuanyuan — You Don’t Need More Moves

“You don’t need to know more moves. You need to listen to more music.”

Perhaps we have all gone through a phase of being obsessed with new moves—and moves in general. Yet in good dancing, less is often more. A tap master once said you only need five pieces of vocabulary. We understand the idea, but how? I imagine many of us have that question. Let’s hear Kyle and Yuanyuan’s take on it.

19 | Leru — Burlesque

Open Level — All Levels Welcome

Leru once wrote about her encounter with Burlesque, and her words really moved me:

“The allure on stage went beyond anything I had seen in everyday life. Dreamlike feminine figures, like muses, embodied all my fantasies of beauty. From that moment, I wanted to be one of them. I was captivated by the dancers’ presence on stage, just like everyone else in the audience. In that moment, I forgot the rest of the world existed. I desperately wanted to know how the performer felt, holding all the power and time of that moment.”

I would love to hear more about how this journey has felt for her, and I invite you to step into the world of Burlesque too!

20 | Awozi & Sophie — Trading Jazz ideas

This class with Awozi and Sophie is a rare meeting—an expression of the spontaneous, unexpected encounters that are such an important part of the jazz we love. They have crossed paths many times around the world, and whenever Awozi talks about Sophie, he never fails to mention how great it feels to dance with her. This time, we look forward to bringing that back-and-forth exchange of brilliant jazz ideas into the room. Beijing x Belgium—let’s get inspired!

21 | Wanyuan — All about upper body

Do you find yourself staring at your shoes while dancing, or not knowing what to do with your hands? Our feelings and bodies are always influencing each other. Emotions and personality may play a part, but sometimes it is simply a matter of needing more practice and inspiration. If you have seen Wanyuan dance, you probably remember the energy with which she opens herself up and embraces the world. This time, let Wanyuan guide us in opening our heart chakras and exploring expression through the upper body!

22 | Joy & Tian Tian — Lay Back & Subdivision | Live Band Class

Where does that relaxed swagger in swing music come from? Joy and Tian Tian will help us revisit the beat, distinguish the different timing feels of On Beat, Push, and Lay Back, and experience dancing behind the beat through our bodies.

Next, we will explore subdivision: what smaller rhythmic units can we hear and feel within a single beat? By subdividing the beat, we can develop a clearer sense of groove and timing, while gaining more tools for understanding complex rhythms and dancing to music at different tempos.

I hear the two teachers have already tried out this material many times and carefully gathered feedback to make it clearer to learn. That care makes me excited for this class. This time, a live band will join us, so we can listen, try things out, and feel the music as it happens.

Live band accompaniment.

23 | Misha — Sing It, Dance It

Misha, whom Alex calls his “Dance Crush,” dances with an ease that feels completely his own: powerful, playful, and full of changes that seem to emerge naturally from the music. Behind that effortless appearance, though, lie years of dedication and practice.

He is a dancer, a jazz trumpeter, and a swing DJ. Music and dance have long been part of his everyday life. For this class, he will bring a new creation: instead of using a recorded accompaniment, we will become part of the music ourselves, sometimes singing, sometimes dancing, bringing the piece to life through our voices and bodies.

I am excited to discover together how singing and dancing can respond to each other—and, in this hour, to get a little closer to Misha’s way of “living a jazz life.”