Camp Blues Instructors

Brenda Russell, Portland - brendadances.com

Brenda is fulfilling her childhood dream of becoming a professional dancer and instructor. She travels around the world teaching and training with a variety of coaches and historians. Her primary strength is breaking down dances in a way that makes them accessible to anyone, even those without a background in dance. She strives to help each of her students find the "dancer within," gaining inspiration from dancers of the past.

Brenda's primary area of study is African-American street dance from the turn of the century to the present. With such an incisive focus, she has become a major resource within the developing Blues dance community in the Bay area. Currently she is assisting with curricula and event development designed to raise the awareness in the community about blues music and dancing. Her hope is to provide structure for duplicable material, while maintaining the inherent character of the dance.

Lessa Lamb, Seattle

Lessa has been studying and performing various forms of dance for most of her life. She learned lindy through a happy accident of fate, when at the '98/'99 New Years Eve dance in Tacoma, WA, she was petitioned by a then-acquaintance to become his teaching partner. Eventually she discovered Blues in a dark back-room at a Lindy exchange in Vancouver, and she's never been the same since.

The unavoidable pull of Blues' sultry rhythms has captivated her, drawing her in, willing her to discover ever more dizzying heights of elation through movement. In her continuous discovery of blues, she has found that her best, most creative, and most satisfying series of movements come when she stops thinking about what she's doing, and just allows the dance, the music, the connection, to flow through her. In this conduit-like state, she finds serenity. It is this experience of transcendent, divine dance that she strives to impart to as many people as she possibly can.

She recently discovered tango, and is hoping to grow her passion for dance in this new direction when she has more time. (She's trying not to hold her breath for this...)

Whatever direction life takes her, she knows her passion for dance will always keep her on her toes.

Ruth Hoffman, San Francisco

Ruth Hoffman has been skipping and twirling through life since she began studying ballet at the age of three. In 1997 she discovered ballroom dancing. It wasn't long before she discovered Lindy Hop through a visiting teacher named Frankie. While at the University of Oregon, she continued her passion for dance studying modern, contact improv, ballroom, Argentine tango, dance history, swing, belly dance, choreography, kinesiology, jazz dance -- anything else she could get her feet on. Ruth currently runs Shades of Blues (www.sfshadesofblues.com) and teaches blues dance, Argentine Tango and dance fusion in the Bay area and beyond.

Ted Maddry, Seattle

As a teacher, Ted Maddry has helped thousands of students change their dancing and sometimes even their lives. In his classes, he will challenge you to develop dance technique, experiment & take risks in your dancing all the while maintaining a comfortable & entertaining classroom environment. You will get new perspectives, unique material, & sometimes you will even learn how the same methods you use to improve your dancing can also be used to improve your non-dance life. Book Ted for a dance workshop or teacher training today by emailing ted@beyondblues.com.

-topher, Seattle

topher Howard's first memory of dance is in his grandmother's kitchen. His love for movement and expression launched him into Lindy Hop and Blues in 2000, and teaching in 2001. He studied modern dance at Middlebury College, performing often, and founded the Middlebury Swing Club. As an organizer, teacher and DJ -topher has been serving the local dancers in Seattle since 2004. Guided by an uncompromising commitment to true mastery, he is known for his passion as both a teacher and a dancer.