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WEEKEND EVENT: Edinbop's 20th Anniversary

WEEKEND EVENT: Edinbop's 20th Anniversary

Event Information

Edinbop

Edinbop

@edinbop Edinburgh

Edinbop is 20! Come and celebrate with us with a day of classes and social dancing!

Ticket sales for this event have closed.

Schedule

  • – Lindy Hop - Mixed Level Workshop with Gabs Novellino
  • – Solo Jazz - All-Levels Class with Gabs Novellino
  • – Balboa - Taster Class with Anne & Carsten
  • – Blues - Taster Class with Shell & Rob
  • – Collegiate Shag - Taster Class with Ruth & Murray
  • – Social Dance
View full schedule

Venues

Columcille Centre
2 Newbattle Terrace, Edinburgh EH10 4RT, UK

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Description

We have classes in all the styles we do - choose your own adventure!

We'll start off with a Lindy Hop mixed level workshop with visiting teacher Gabs Novellino. This has an individual ticket.

UPDATE: This was originally announced as intermediate/advanced, however after talking through it with Gabs we've agreed mixed level would be better for our community to grow together. This workshop is designed to be a mix of fun and challenging regardless of how long you've been dancing. If you purchased a ticket and this is different than your expectation, please message or email us.

Then an afternoon of taster classes starting with Solo Jazz also taught by Gabs, then Balboa, Blues and Collegiate Shag taught by our amazing local teachers. There's an individual ticket for Solo Jazz or a ticket for the whole afternoon so you can choose which dances to try out. For the partnered dances you don't have to choose your role in advance, you can decide at the start of the class.

Then come and dance with us in the evening to Castle Rock Jazz Band!

NOTE: There are separate tickets for each part of the weekend, so if you want to come to the social dance you'll need to select that as well as any of the class tickets.

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Gabs Novellino

Gabs started dancing at four years old and has never stopped. While spending a year abroad in Leeds, UK in 2012, she discovered the Jazz dances, fell hopelessly in love, and decided to dedicate her life to this passion. She is a dancer, teacher, choreographer, researcher, DJ and event organizer primarily in Brazil, and other Latin American communities. She specializes mainly in Lindy Hop, Authentic Jazz, 1920s’ Charleston, and Collegiate Shag.

In 2023, she became a Frankie Manning Foundation Scholar and also a part of the team that organized two editions of ILHC Latin America. She also works for iLindy, where she writes blog articles, weekly newsletter, and leads the production of new courses and projects.

Gabs is also a huge history geek and loves to dig deeper into the roots of Jazz music and dance. As a guest in the culture, she honors the opportunity to share the legacy and culture of Black American artists who created this art form.

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Gabs' Classes

Lindy Hop: Exploring the Dialogue between Leader and Follower

Mixed Level

In this class, we will broaden the concept of what it means to lead and follow. Rather than a one-way street, we will explore the dance as a dynamic conversation where both individuals share and listen to ideas. By connecting to the music and your own self-expression, you will learn how to take turns occupying and creating space within the partnership.

We will work on different types of connection—learning how to transition between them smoothly and how to let the music guide those choices. The goal is to move beyond "patterns" and toward a more collaborative, playful social dance.

What you will learn:

  • Call and Response: How to use this musical foundation to create a back-and-forth dialogue with your partner.
  • Shared Responsibility: How to make decisions together and share the "voice" of the dance.
  • Dynamic Connection: How to transition between different uses of connection throughout a song to keep social dancing fun and fresh.
  • Musical Interpretation: Techniques for making partnership choices based on what you hear in the music.

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Social Solo Jazz

Open Level | Everyone is welcome to explore dancing in their own way.

This workshop is for those who want to find—or reconnect with—the joy of solo dancing as a social practice. Today, Solo Jazz is often associated with competitions and performances, but that’s not how the dance began. As a vernacular dance, Solo Jazz has self-expression and community at its heart.

Just as you might go to a club today to dance to Pop or Hip-Hop with friends, people in the 1920s and '30s did the same with Jazz. In this class, we’ll move away from "executing moves" and focus on how it feels to dance together. We will investigate the social aspects of the dance floor, finding ways to interact, jam, and feel confident moving solo in a room full of people.

What we will work on:

  • The Social Heart: Understanding the historical and cultural importance of solo dancing as a social expression.
  • Building Confidence: How to feel comfortable and free moving solo while surrounded by others.
  • The Art of the Jam: Different ways to interact and play with other dancers on the floor.
  • Authentic Connection: How to listen to the music and respond naturally so you don't get "stuck" in your head.
  • Finding Joy: Practical ways to rediscover the freedom and fun of solo dancing.

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Taster Classes

Balboa

This elegant dance style, danced in close connection with your partner, was popular in California in the 1930s and got its name from the Balboa Peninsula, near Los Angeles, where it was danced in several dancehalls. We are mixing it with (Bal-)Swing, a very rotational dance, in which, occasionally, you ‘break away’ from your partner. Generally, Balboa and Bal-Swing are danced to faster Swing music when compared to Lindy and Blues.

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Blues

Blues dancing is a family of historical dances that developed alongside and were danced to Blues music, or the contemporary dances that are danced in that aesthetic.

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Collegiate Shag

The Collegiate Shag is a partner dance for up-tempo Swing and pre-Swing Jazz music and belongs to the Swing family of American vernacular dances that arose in the 1920s and 30s. It is believed that the dance originated within the African-American community of the Carolinas in the 1920s.

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On Sunday we have teacher training workshop with Gabs, which will be suitable for any Swing dance style and, while not centred on Blues dance styles, will cover a lot of the principles we think are important for teaching Blues. It is open to anyone regardless if you already have some teaching experience or not. There is a separate DanceCloud event for this.