Vickki Dozier

Lansing State Journal

LANSING - Redbone’s 1973 hit "Come and Get Your Love" is playing on the stereo.

The six couples on the dance floor are practicing dips.The moves are all different. Loosely structured. The dancers are adding their own spin to what’s being taught by their instructors.

There are men, women. Dressed in suits. Some in twirly dresses. One wearing leather shorts. Some in jeans.

Blues dancing, a relatively new Lansing phenomenon, is what everyone has come here to learn on a Friday evening.

But what is blues dancing?

"I always tell people it’s one of the easiest dances to learn, one of the hardest to master," Kent Kovac said.

Blues dancing is a style of dance that originated in the African American community in the deep South. It comes from African rhythm dancing and has a pattern heavily based on a pulsing rhythm.

"The farthest we’ve been able to track it back, as far as documentation goes, is late 1800's in the South during slavery," said Maggie Robinson, a co-founder of Sugar House Blues. "It was during the time when there was some reform going on in the south...so while slaves or servants would have some privilege on a Sunday to not need to work, they would meet out in shacks between properties for dances."

Those dances at that time grew up around an early version of the blues. The dances that you see at Sugar House are more modern, she explained.

"There was a revival in the '80s and '90s in social dances interest in dances like the Lindy hop, swing and eventually blues in the late 2000s."

And that's what they dance at Sugar House.

"I like swing dancing, too, but blues is just like this connection with the person," said Katy Kettles, who has been blues dancing for close to two years. "I love the improv of it as well. You just kind of sync up with somebody, and they start doing a move. You might mirror that. Or you just do your own thing."

The style is fun, freeing, and you can just let go, she said. That seems to be the general consensus among those at the Friday night lesson.

Kettles watches blues shout videos and competition videos and has found a lot of vintage videos floating on the internet.

"It's fun to see the moves they were doing in the 1930s," Kettles said. "I try to emulate people in some of the videos. Oh yeah. I am that person. When I’m in the kitchen making some eggs, I'm dancing. I frequently also dance with my cat," she laughed.

There's a strong blues dance community in Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor. Detroit and Chicago are doing it, too.

After tiring of driving to out of town venues to dance, Kovac; his wife, Janea Schimmel; Robinson and Ryan Carter, decided it was time to start a blues dancing community in Lansing.

"Lansing is like the crossroads of the state, and we didn’t have a blues community here," Kovac said. "It didn’t make a whole lot of sense so we said, well, its now or never. Its got to be us."

Classes started in 2015. Kovac and Schimmel have since moved to Chicago, but are back regularly to teach and dance.

Robinson started blues dancing as an undergraduate at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, about six years ago.

"At the time, the blues community itself was trying to redefine itself and figure out where did it come from, and what are these dances and where are the lines," Robinson said. "We started digging into the historic documentation of it. And so, we sort of rode in on the wave of youth."

To research blues dancing, Robinson travels to multiple, what she calls "exchanges" or workshops, places where people who study gather, kind of like conferences, but they’re not. Because they dance.

"We pool our knowledge together so there are multiple forms," she explained. "We have lectures, leaders in our dance community are continuously researching. There are a number of books published on the jazz age and jazz dance and roots of blues. And in there, there are little bits and pieces on the history of it. We’ve kind of lapped it together to figure out where it all comes from."

Kovac has been dancing in various capacities since sixth grade. He is fluent in standard ballroom like the waltz, the fox trot, those kind of dance styles.

But blues dancing is different.

​"When you think of salsa or cha cha, it's like a quick moving, sexy dance, and, when you think ballroom, you think very poised. Blues is unto itself. It’s expression. It’s not heavily patterned. It’s simple, and being free, funky, kind of silly is a part of this. It doesn't have as much seriousness to it. It quickly became my favorite dance style."

Blues dancing wasn't anything instructor Dan Eakin planned to learn.

"It took awhile, it took a long while," Eakin said. "Maggie, who is teaching opposite of me today, is actually my original teacher from two years ago. Two years ago, dancing in my garage, five days a week, figuring it out, put it together. Now I'm teaching next to her."

He loves the communication blues offers.

"You’re absolutely communicating with your body," he said. "And frankly, you’re having a much more real conversation with somebody, because you can’t lie. You can’t be someone you’re not, right? Your body can’t do something it isn’t actually doing."

Several of the Friday night blues dancers take the Saturday swing lessons.

"Blues is more sassy and sensual, and its slower," said Emma Ashley-Grose, who also comes to swing nights. "It’s a little easier to have fun, to just joke around. You see a lot of tone or personality in the dances. A lot of booty shaking."

Although the dance finds its origins in the African American community, Kovac says they don't see a lot of African Americans in the classes or at the dances.

"It is something I will say that I think the blues community struggles with," he said. "I would love to see more participation on their end. I think it's something that’s kind of new for a lot of us."

The class is open to anyone - come as you are. Everybody dances with everybody.

"We try very hard not to reinforce any gender bias, so you can be a woman and lead or follow, you can be a guy and lead or follow," Kovac said. "There are gentlemen dancing with gentlemen, women dancing with women. There’s no stigma around that."

Word has gotten out and besides the folks who come from around the Lansing area, they get dancers from Mt. Pleasant, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Flint and Detroit.

"It’s a wonderful venue that has individuals at different levels," said Russ Scabbo, one of the dancers that Friday night. "All the people are just here to learn and have fun. Everyone dances with everyone else so there's no need for any type of competitive edge. I’ve done the ballroom dancing in the past, but this is the trend for the future. This is where music is going."

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter@vickkiD.

Sugar House Blues/Sugar House Swing

AA Creative Corridor, 1133 S. Washington Ave., Lansing

Blues dancing lessons 8 p.m. every other Friday, open dance 9 p.m. Next event Friday,

Swing dancing lessons 8 p.m. every other Saturday, open dance 9 p.m.

Lessons free for beginners, $5 for a night of open dance