Swing.Blind - dancing for the blind and partially sighted

My name is Alexey Kalini, and I do plan to teach swing dancing (Lindy Hop, Boogie Woogie, Charleston, Blues...) to blind and virtually impaired people. This project of mine is called "Swing.Blind" and is on the stage of looking for 4-6 persons to form the first free study group. The start is planned on summer of 2022.

Whom is this project for?

If you have vision problems and no serious injuries, this project is for you. If a bland or visually impaired person wants to dance only with his or her sighted friend or family member, the latest can join the lesson too though it's not recommended. In this case sighted person has to cover his or her eyes to avoid "visual" mistakes.

There is no limited age of participants, but recommended is from 14 to 50 without any serious injuries or illness. Overweight or no couple presence do not ban you from lessons.

By whom is this project?

Me, Alexey Kalinin, is a founder and initiator of the Swing.Blind project and I have almost 10-years experience in dance teaching. I have founded my own dance school "Swing.School", developed my own study program, which allows students to learn faster, in both roles, and all of the swing dances - Lindy Hop, Boogie Woogie, Charleston, Shag and others. During study process I do like and often use different exercises with covering students eyes or dancing in the dark to let them feel their body and body of their couples better and avoid "visual" interactions.

How lessons are to be done?

The most important thing for me as a teacher is physical body interactions of dancers and not a "visual" components. That's why on my lessons there is always a lot of theory and practice on leading, following, their characteristics and biomechanics. This is what makes Swing.Blind project unique - I plan to create a group of blind and visually impaired people who will dance with each other and anybody later, not only coupled with sighted people.

There is always a student rotation during lessons to let everbody dance with everybody. It's made to let students feel and understand leading-following skills and specific features of every person, who uses different muscles to dance. In a future it will help them to make their dance adaptive and comfortable for each other.

For the first 6 months I plan to teach students the basics of coupled dances - Lindy Hop, Charleston and Shag. Every new style will be taught in comparison with the previous one, which allows students to understand every style better and use their body in different ways. After that there will be more complicated material and other dance styles (Blues, Balboa, Boogie Woogie...).

When & where are lessons to be held?

First study group is planned for opening on summer of 2022. Every tuesdays and thursdays since 17:30 till 19:00 at Sad Baumna ("Krasny vorota" or "Kurskaya" metro stations). The study will be free for first 6 months. Then it will depend on quantity of groups and students.

If a lot of students will ask for a dfifferent time or weekdays for lessons to be done, mayber other groups will be opened. I will ask every joined student. That's why if you want to learn to dance, but can't attend first group lessons, sign up anyway and tell us the days and time you'd like in the comment sections.