We offer dances, classes, special workshops, and other events celebrating blues dance in the Washington, D.C. area.
Red Hot Blues & BBQ 2024
Coming May 24-27, 2024: we’re hosting the triumphant return of Red Hot Blues & BBQ, an annual weekend of picnics, bands, and late night blues dances around the DC area, featuring live music with local legends Carly Harvey and Stacy Brooks and Louisiana headliner D.K. Harrell. Full weekend passes are sold out, but live music only passes and individual dance passes are still open!
Updated Mask Policy: Masks Optional
Masks are now optional at Capital Blues events. See our covid-19 policy for complete information.
Back Room Blues Weekly Dance (2024-05-16)
Back Room Blues, our weekly dance, happens Thursday nights at 9 pm in the Back Room at Glen Echo Park. Beginner lessons start at 8:15. Hope to dance with you there!
This Thursday’s Back Room Blues Dance features the following:
Beginner Lesson (8:15 pm – 9:00 pm, Back Room)
Instructors: Megan Richards and Catherine Cole
Megan (she/her) first fell head over heels in love with Lindy Hop and Solo Jazz in 2014 at Mobtown Ballroom, Baltimore… and never left. After finding a forever home in the dance community, she jumped straight into the deep end, joining various dance troupes (solo and partnered) where she choreographed, taught, and performed. Along the way she explored and fell in love with other forms of dance under the jazz umbrella including: Boogie Woogie, Balboa, Solo Blues, and a variety of Blues idioms. Her favorite aspects to focus on while teaching and dancing are body percussion, technical stylizations, and musicality. She also already had a background in Irish step dance and tap prior to all of this, which Zach Brass said she should include.
Catherine (she/her) found her way to partner dancing during her first week of college, becoming an active member of the William & Mary swing dance club. She attended out-of-town events, taught beginner lessons, and served as club marketing officer. After a hiatus from dancing during graduate school in which Catherine earned her MFA in Printmaking, she returned to swing dancing in the DC area and began attending and volunteering for blues in the Back Room in 2015. Catherine likes to find connections between her music and art background and dance, drawing from the elements and principles of art and music to find ways to improvise, play, and have conversations with her partners within the frame of the dance.
DJed Dance (9:00 pm – 11:30 pm, Back Room)
DJs: David Stein (first set) and Boris Glebov (second set)
David (he/him) began DJing in 2010 by playing swing and blues music for dance events in the Cleveland area. David frequently DJed for the Back Room in the mid-2010s and has rejoined the roster for the post-COVID era. David’s sets highlight juke-joint and contemporary blues, along with traditional Chicago and acoustic blues.
Boris has been DJing blues dances for nearly a decade and a half by now, which feels like a made up length of time. It all started in Tucson, that dear and dusty old Pueblo. All he had then was a corner of a friend’s tiny living room and a handful of “Best of…” compilation CDs – John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, that type of crowd. The scene was small, but the hopes were grand. Since then the crowds, the rooms, and the playlists have all gotten bigger. But the dream stayed the same – play the good music, drink the good whiskey, and go until the sun comes back.
