If you’ve ever seen a dancer stolen from the middle of a dance, you know how cool it looks. If you’ve ever been stolen, you know the great fun of suddenly finding yourself dancing with a different partner. If you’ve ever participated in a birthday dance, you know how much fun it is to dance an entire song and everyone is dancing with just you.
Stealing is stepping into an already dancing partnership and taking the place of one of the partners while keeping the partner you are stealing continuously dancing. It’s done in step and on beat and when executed properly, as smooth as silk.
Stealing is an important skill to have in your Swing Dance repertoire. It’s used in Birthday Dances, Steal Jams, or even out on town with friends and you find the lead/follow balance is way off. It’s fun, it’s different and it’s very cool. You can steal in just about any swing dance form: East Coast, West Coast, Lindy, Blues… there are even Charleston steals.
The Steal Basics class will cover Steal Theory & Etiquette, and will teach you a couple of basic steals (Inside Steal & Outside Steal), in both 6 and 8 count variations, and show how these two basic steals can be applied to East Coast, West Coast and Lindy Hop. As time permits, we will move on to cover additional steals, including the underarm steal, breakaway steal, side-by-side steal and more.
