Shake The Change Concept
Shake The Change is an international dance festival that celebrates vernacular jazz dance and dances rooted in African-American culture through movement, music and community
The event aims to bring together dancers and lovers of dance from various personal, social and cultural backgrounds with a shared passion for discovering the historically and culturally rich world of swing dancing and jazz music, as well as other forms of dance and movement in general.
We perceive dance as a powerful artform with the ability to help people (re)connect to their authenticity, their creativity and each other.
MOVEMENT
We believe movement is the fundamental expression of any kind of dance style and should therefore be explored both in depth (quality) and in width (variety). We are attempting to provide our festival attendees with a wide range of options for exploring their authentic body movement and creative expression.
- By practicing SOLO dancing we are able to learn about the functioning and expressiveness of our bodies: how they work and behave, what creative impulses they are generating, how we can use our body to connect with the music, in what ways are we limited and how can we acquire more freedom of movement etc.
- COUPLE dancing enables us to learn about connection, our relationship with others and how to establish clear, respectful and balanced communication with our partner
DANCE & CULTURE
We respect and honor the historical and cultural environments that the dances we love to engage with stem from, and are continuously trying to learn about them with humility, openness and patience.
Simultaneously we are trying to deepen our awareness of the cultural and artistic environment we find ourselves in at this moment in time and are constantly posing the question:
How do we bridge the gap between ourselves & others, between the traditions and values of the dances and music we didn’t necessarily grow up with & what we inherited from our own social and cultural environment? What is the link between ‘there’ and ‘here’ and between ‘then’ and ‘now’?
For this reason, in addition to Authentic Jazz and Lindy Hop we offer classes in African dance, hip-hop, physical theatre and others. We believe dance styles like these help us explore the roots as well as some of the newer forms of the main and most beloved dances offered at our event through classes.
Our desire to learn about the historical background, as well as the current cultural environment of the dances we’ve come to love so much is constantly ongoing. We are life-long students and are here to share what we have learned so far with love and dedication.
COMMUNITY
We are a boutique festival by design and intention.
Our goal is to provide our festival attendees with a sense of community and togetherness through jazz dance and music which is why we have intentionally decided to keep our event a tad smaller in terms of capacity. This way we are able to turn our festival venue – the gorgeous, historical, sun-filled town of Radovljica – into a kind of ‘dancing village’ with a warm, joyful family vibe.
In a point in history where many of us can feel isolated by an increasingly polarized society we want to serve as a reminder that what connects us as humans is far greater and more powerful than what divides us. In this case, it is our common LOVE of music and dance #togetherness.