Swing into Spring Residency with LaTasha Barnes!

You read that right! LaTasha Barnes is coming to Wisconsin in April for a 2 week residency through the Division of the Arts at UW-Madison, presenting public, Continuum based workshops across the state at no cost! Please RSVP!

Her Milwaukee dates are:

• April 6 at Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, Wilson Hall with a public workshop at 2:00 and a master class for teachers and professionals at 5:00.

• April 7th at Falcon Bowl with a public workshop and social with CCSwing - 7:00 (this will replace both of our regular series classes that evening)

About Swing into Spring (from the Division of the Arts website):

https://artsdivision.wisc.edu/event/swing-into-spring/

Renowned dancer, scholar and Tradition-Bearer of Black American Social Dance, LaTasha Barnes, will visit Wisconsin for a statewide residency from April 3 – 12, 2025. Barnes and her collaborator, Le’Andre Douglas, will offer free workshops and guided explorations in Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Viroqua, Wausau, and Eau Claire, WI. Participants will explore the continuum of Black music and dance, connecting Authentic Jazz and Lindy Hop of the 1920s with contemporary forms such as House, Hip-Hop, Funk and more. This unique project aims to share the traditions of Jazz and to share its power to build community through the kinesthetic and collaborative joy of moving together. 

The residency will culminate in a free, all-ages, all-levels public celebration called “Swing into Spring” on Saturday April 12th from 1:30-6:30 p.m. at the Goodman Community Center on Madison’s east side. Ms. Barnes, accompanied by professional dancers and live musicians, will teach a continuum-inspired dance to participants, both in-person and via livestream, connecting with satellite locations all across Wisconsin. The Madison event will close with a reception featuring live music, refreshments, and conversation with Ms. Barnes and her collaborators. All are welcome!

Thank you to the Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment for supporting this residency as part of our statewide “Arts for Everyone, Everywhere” initiative.

Summer Break and a New Night!

Greetings, dancers!

We’ve wrapped our most recent round of series classes and are going to be taking a break for the month of July. There’s plenty going on in the city, so head over to Milwaukee Stomp’s calendar or to the Swing MKE Social Facebook group to see what bands are playing and where folks are dancing.

We’ll be back at it in August on a new night! Yep, CCSwing is moving back over to Mondays! We’re keeping the same format, just on a different night. We’ll likely be doing a run of socials through the month of August with some fun specialty classes beforehand and pick up with our series lessons come September. Stay tuned for more details and exciting things coming up.

As always, thank you for your continued support, and we’ll see you back on the dance floor in August!

January 21, 2022: Monthly Series Are Coming Back!

After months of discussions and planning and searching for a weekly weeknight venue, we’re so excited to announce the return of our monthly series — kicking off with our signature Lindy Hop 101 in February!

This will be just like we were doing on Mondays in the before times, but moving them back over to our home night of Thursdays and adding a fun new twist! To give you a chance to put what you’ve learned immediately into practice, when class ends, we’ll be opening up the floor for a social hour (and then some). There’s no need to have taken the class to join for the social afterwards.

Here’s what you need to know:

Where? Falcon Bowl in the Riverwest neighborhood. 801 E. Clarke Street. We’ll be over in the dance hall. Just to the left and up a few stairs after you walk into the door. We’ll have non-gendered designated restrooms available.

When? Every Thursday night - for this first month, we’re starting with just one class, which will run 7-8. We’ll start check in/registration at 6:45. The floor will open for the social hour+ at 8 and will run until about 9:30 (but we’re flexible).

How much? 2020 pricing, friends! At least this first round, we’ll be offering the whole series of 4 classes for $25. Pre-registration will open on the first of the month, but cash and card are always welcome at the door. The social hour will be donation based (suggested $5 to help us cover expenses, but anything is appreciated) or you’re welcome to join at no cost. We are a non-profit 501(c)3, so will make receipts available if you’d like for tax purposes. We’ll keep that going as long as we can continue to keep our staff paid and rentals covered. If we have to adjust, we’ll continue to try to keep pricing as low as we can to be as accessible as possible.

Why should I take tracked classes? Offering a series gives students more of a chance to progress in their dancing — being able to build on what you learn week to week, rather than just collecting skills and moves. As a bonus, you start to build a community when you’re seeing the same folks week to week.

That’s it for now! See you on Thursdays very soon!

NOVEMBER 13, 2022: FUTURE PLANS: WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Help us plan our Sundays going forward! We're hoping (cross all your fingers) to be able to resume our tracked progressive classes like in the before times (hooray) starting in 2023. If that's the case, then we'll be changing the structure of our Sundays.

Let us know your interests with a very short survey to give us an idea.

More lessons? Longer form workshops every other Sunday on top of weekly monthly tracked classes?

More socials? Socials every other Sunday?

Little of both? One longer form workshop and one social every month?

Check out the survey HERE! Thanks for your help!

Dec 1: Survey is closed. The results —more socials and same time or later — so that’s what you’re getting! Bi-monthly socials and we’re shifting to 5-8! Thanks to all who submitted responses!

JULY 24, 2022: REOPENING STATEMENT (UPDATeD COVID POLICY 3/2/23)

Hello friends and fellow dancers! You may have heard that Cream City Swing is working hard to reopen. Yes, it’s true! We’re excited to get back to the stuff that matters to our community: teaching, learning, dancing, and sharing the joy, history, and rich culture of swing. We’ll be dancing together soon, everybody!!

It might feel like CCSwing is “coming back,” but we are looking at it as a fresh beginning.  A lot has changed since March 2020 for all of us - a lot of it good; most of it excruciatingly hard. You’re different. We’re different. So it stands to reason that what’s next will be different, too. 

While we try some new stuff on for size, we hope you’ll join forces with us as we work to make this transition back to in-person social dancing as safe, fun, and rich as possible. 

Here’s what you can expect from us in the next few months:

EVENTS:

• Twice monthly Sunday Lessons + Open Floor. In August and September, we’ll be hosting lindy or jazz lessons followed by open floor time (aka - social dancing and practice and play), so we can all shake the cobwebs off a bit. No partner required. $12 will get you lessons plus open floor from 4:15-7:00pm. $5 will get you admission to just the open floor time, which will start at 5:30-ish. We’ll adjust things as we learn and as needs change.

• No CC Swing socials…yet. We hope to pick up our social dances, but until we can, check out this dancer curated calendar at Milwaukee Stomp!  *****UPDATE 10/2/22!!! Socials are here!!! October 30th

COVID PROTOCOLS:

• **Updated 10/17/22: Masks are encouraged but optional at CCSwing events and will be available at the door. Please wear a mask if you have had recent exposure.

  Please refrain from attending any CCSwing event if you are experiencing viral symptoms (fever, congestion, cough, etc.), COVID or otherwise, or have tested positive (symptomatic or not) within 10 days.   

• All COVID policies are subject to change at any time as the CCSwing Board sees fit as information and recommendations change.

• (Updated 10/17/22) CCSwing events will require, well fitted masks worn over the nose and mouth. Vaccination and boosters are recommended, but we will no longer be checking at the door. N95, KN95, and 3 ply surgical masks will be available at the door. No cloth masks without filters are allowed. No masks with exhalation valves, please.

• (Updated 8/1/2022): All CCSwing events will require proof of vaccination (fully vaccinated as defined by the CDC) as well as high quality, well fitted masks worn over the nose and mouth. Boosters are recommended, but not required.

• (Original policy - 7/24/22 All CC Swing events will require proof of vaccination and booster, as well as a high-quality mask worn tightly over the nose and mouth.  These are the current recommendations from medical professionals who have been advising the dance community throughout the pandemic and have proven effective in mitigating spread at dance events. We’ll have masks available for anyone who might need one.) 

• Why COVID protocols? One of our aims is to make our events as accessible as possible to the widest number of people.  We recognize that there will always be a risk of getting sick in a close contact activity like this, but vaccinations and boosters reduce viral load and masks significantly reduce risk of transmission. These requirements are there to make sure that folks with all levels of vulnerability can feel more comfortable on the dance floor. Thank you, in advance, for helping keep our community safe.
   

MISSION:

• Black Lives Matter. Lindy Hop is a Black American art form. So is jazz. These forms that we love were created in the context of American racism - a context that is not merely historical, but prevalent today. Black lives matter. It’s imperative that we say this because our organization and our community are centered around dancing, listening to, and adoring the music and movements that were created by Black people, who very rarely received adequate compensation for their labor. Implicit messages of exclusion have permeated the global Lindy Hop community for too long and we, at CCSwing, will seek to cultivate inclusive spaces and practices that credit Black culture and support our Black community and people. Black Lives Matter. Black Lindy Hop Matters. Learn more, engage and participate at www.movetogetherdance.org and www.collectivevoicesforchange.org/.

• Social History of the Dance. There’s a wealth of extraordinary information out there about the centuries-long history of Lindy Hop and Black vernacular dance. That history is essential to understanding this dance we do. The movement comes from movements. We’ve been evolving our curriculum to teach in a way that evokes the community-oriented spirit in which jazz and swing were developed and are excited to share our ideas and continue learning ourselves. (Hit us up for casual conversation, we’ll be delighted to point you to resources for learning, too!)

• Service to Our Community. Cream City Swing exists to support the community in dancing and learning and thriving. Folks in our dance community have done an extraordinary job of finding places and ways to come together and to dance safely these past few years, and we’re so excited to see those initiatives! But we also hope to connect more deeply with the range of arts, community, and education organizations in our city (particularly those that serve BIPOC and LGBTQ+ peoples) to allow our practice of the dance to become more recognizably like the way that these moves developed: among diverse peoples banded together in networks of mutual support and care, using movement together (and in moments of individual virtuosity) to express a range of human feelings, and to build on what came before to improvise something inspiring and new. 

We can’t wait to see you all, in person, on the dance floor soon!
~Your CCSwing Board