Instructors

JUlie Brown

Julie Brown (any/all pronouns) is a Boston-based blues dance teacher, DJ, choreographer, competitor, organizer, and enthusiastic student. She has been participating in blues dance since 2004 and has since gone on to teach blues dancing around the globe and won many national competitions.

As a teacher, Julie aims to help students connect with and understand blues dance’s deep roots, find their own voice, and connect to themselves & others authentically, joyfully, and respectfully. Julie has taught blues dancing in Austin, Boston, San Francisco, Seoul, London, Chicago, Zurich, and many places in between. They are grateful to have won or placed in many solo & partnered blues competitions, including at bluesSHOUT!, Blues Muse, Mile High Blues, Steel City Blues, Northstar Blues, and more.

Julie is continually reconnecting to their love of solo blues dancing, working on Chicago-style Stepping, headstands, & leading blues, as well as continuing to learn about blues history and its connections to later and present-day Black social dances & music.

For dance videos, pictures, and more info, check out https://www.julie-brown-blues-dance.com/

Bibi

Bibi has been dancing for 27 years (and teaching for 20!), but it is only when she discovered the blues that she found her true “perfect match” and fell in love with it.

The overwhelming passion for blues music and dance quickly became a one-way ticket to the world. In fact, she is a well-known face on the international scene, she travels the world to deepen her knowledge, teach, share and spread her love and appreciation for the blues and African American culture. 

Bibi holds a strong sense of respect for the values of African American culture, and for the importance of researching, respecting and celebrating the cultural roots and history of blues. What she loves about blues are the breadth of blues music as well as the creativity, the freedom of expression and the deep connection and communication with the music and the partner in the dance. She is always excited to talk about blues and can’t wait to dance with you all!
Bibi is also a known Dj, and for her, music is a great, continuous source of emotions, the true engine of everything she does! She has been spinning the decks since 2014, inspiring tons of dancers all around the globe and keeping the party jumping everywhere she went! She DJs with different supports, including Vinyls!

Odysseus Bailer

Odysseus Bailer is an International Blues and Lindy Hop Instructor, Cultural Lecturer, and DJ from NYC. He has been dancing for over 20 years and is a staple in the NYC Blues and Lindy Hop Scene. He is extremely excited to be apart of the teaching line up at this years return of  Express Track Blues. He is also excited to be sharing his knowledge on the dance and the culture. Odysseus’s teaching brings passion to not just teach blues idioms and vocabulary, but to help the scene get a better understand, appreciation and respect for the values, practices, and cultural context for the art form we are all participating in.

gwen bone

Gwen has been Blues dancing for over a decade with home scenes in Boston, Madison, New York City, and, currently, San Francisco. She grew up in a variety of dance and movement traditions and is passionate about crafting partnership and blues music. She loves to explore ways to find rhythm and space for personal voice in her dance. Her dance voice and approach to practice has led to national acclaim at BluesShout, Blues Muse, Signifying Blues, Lindy Focus, Sweet Molasses Blues, Northstar Blues, and more. As a teacher, she encourages dancers to explore the partnership space, their authentic movement, and find joy in movement.

Renée Kanda

Renée Kanda is a dancer, instructor, and organizer currently based in Boston, MA. Heavily involved in community organizing and development for years, their current focus is to cultivate principles of collective knowledge, mutual aid, and stewardship of community oriented values. Further, their focus is to cultivate these principles within all levels of engagement in Blues Dancing, from the first time dancer to the veteran instructor. Renée Kanda's goal is to transition dancers at each level of engagement into the practices of identifying and taking tangible, and easily recognizable steps towards the dancing, learning, teaching, etc. community of our dreams.  A sustainable, effective, innovative, respectful, and wicked fun community with regard to blues music, blues dancing, and the histories and cultures from which they come, is within reach. Let's go for it and reach! 

Erin Boeke Burke

Erin Boeke Burke has been dancing since she can remember. She started with performance dance - from jazz to ballet, modern to Haitian, Hula to ballroom - she’s done it on a stage. She got into swing in college, and after a missed connection in 2005, rediscovered blues and Lindy Hop in 2011 and the rest is history. She teaches in her local scenes (first Washington, D.C., now New York City) and loves helping people discover their joy in dancing.

shawn hershey

Shawn Hershey grew up immersed in music as the son of two professional musicians, surrounded by classical, jazz, and RnB. He studied classical trumpet at Eastman School of Music but had to pivot after a lip injury, which led him to study computer science and become a software developer. After graduation, Shawn returned to music, studying jazz trumpet, and found Lindy Hop as the physical embodiment of the music he loved. This discovery sparked a lifelong passion for dance.

Shawn began teaching Lindy Hop in 2002 and co-founded New School Swing in Boston with Amanda Gruhl and Nicole Zuckerman, running it from 2010-2013 until he left for NYC. His journey into blues dancing began in 2006, teaching alongside Amanda Gruhl, and he soon became a force on the competition circuit, winning numerous blues titles with Amanda Gruhl and Julie Brown. His blues and swing band, The Fried Bananas, (co-led by Josh Fialkoff) played at major events across the country, leaving a lasting impact on the scene.

While Shawn has explored a variety of dance forms, including Balboa and Tango, he is most recognized for his deep expertise in blues dancing. In addition to winning many blues dance competitions, he has placed in and won many slow swing dance competitions, including 1st place at Snowball Slow Swing with Jenn Lee in 2019 and 1st place at the 2024 Slow Dance Soiree mix and match with Idalia Ramos.

Recently, Shawn’s teaching has evolved to reflect his dedication to mindfulness and meditation, cultivating presence and flow. Though mostly retired from full-time traveling, he occasionally teaches in the NYC Balboa, Blues, Lindy Hop, and Fusion scenes. He brings not only technical expertise but also a desire to help others connect more deeply to the music, their partners, the joy of movement, and the underlying presence and flow that enables that. Shawn feels deeply grateful to participate in these historically Black American art forms that have enriched his life in profound ways.

flouer evelyn

Flouer Evelyn is a partner dance instructor and embodied life coach from New York City, currently based out of Turin, Italy. She has been teaching blues around the world since 2010 when she fell in love with the history, music, and movement of these culturally rich dances.  

Through all these years she has, of course, won plenty of competitions.  Her movement background includes an MFA in contemporary dance, ten years of Latin Ballroom, and a lifetime of ballet and ice skating.  And that’s all important, but what matters most is that in the classroom Flouer has a warm, encouraging way to help people learn to move their bodies and connect with others. 

She is known for her values of artistry and personal expression, complimented by her ability to break down any movement into incredibly specific detail. Using imagery, anatomy, rhythm, and embodiment concepts, she will build your dance from the ground up; all the while teaching you about the musicians you are listening to, why a movement evolved the way it did historically, and the cultural context from where it came. https://flouerdances.com