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Article Dance Studio Rotation in a changing SF

Article: Dance Studio Rotation in a changing SF Bay area scene

....Change is happening among the big players in the freestyle dance communities. While the venues may remain the same, the top management has changed in all four of the biggest venues. So what do these changes mean for us dancers? Simply put, there is now “More choice – more nights – and more dancers” than there were before. Here’s a brief rundown,

•Ecstatic Dance: (Sundays and Wednesdays 2011) the mother ship of large space and national acts, has broken into three distinct musical pieces and had a management change. Now Playing: Sunday “morning day dancing”, Wednesday “Ecstatic Dancing”, and Tyler Blank has creating Thursday “Live Music”, “Down Tempo” in Fairfax, and several iterations of Ecstatic San Francisco. Each variation has its own music, dance styles, personal space, and social scenes. 

•Dance Jam now Dance Journey (in 2011) and now Ecstatic Dance Berkeley (in 2014): (Friday nights) This venue and management goes back to the “original Dance Jam mother ship from the 80’s in Boston”. It grew by attracting both the Freestyle Dance community and the Contact Improv community. Today it is now “Ecstatic Dance Berkeley” with one large room, extended hours, new music and a “hard” tempo flip from fast to slow at 10:30 PM. The new management has made sure to keep this night the #1 venue in socializing among dancers. 

•Dance Medicine San Geronimo (2015) has moved into Freestyle free form dance by changing from all “5Rhythms and healing all weeks” to First Thursday only for healing-dance medicine and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Thursdays on the month Free form Ecstatic type, or to be more exact “Barefoot Boogie type”. It is now the best dancing venue for dancers based upon floor space per dancer combined with great music.

•Barefoot Boogie: (Sunday nights 2011) The mother ship of the precious San Francisco dance scene is still running after all these years. Still on Sunday nights, still the best dollar dance value going, and still the best place to find the most skilled dancers in one place. In the world of dance, Sunday night is the most difficult of all nights to get people “onto that dance floor” and away from that comfy couch. Thus those that actually do show up are here to dance, and dance hard to the most varied music collection played anywhere. Although it has had a management change, it continues to thrive with an expanded music program and new national DJ’s. 

•Metta Dance San Francisco Opens: (Monday nights 2010) The new kid on the block. The old saying “so many have tried, few have succeeded” applies to creating a successful thriving ongoing Freestyle dance in San Francisco. This new effort certainly has “the city edge to it” and probably is bringing more new people to the Freestyle dance scene rather than stealing dancers away from other venues. While Metta Dance still works on firming up their musical identity and tuning their space for a holistic experience, they are now considering a starting new SF Sunday morning dance venue. Stay tuned, we’ll see how it all turns out.

Does it get any better than this? Welcome all to Dance City - San Francisco and the Bay Area

Note:  Edited June 2015 to add dates to items

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