Class Registration and Info
Classes and events at Dance Underground are independently run by various groups with their own registration format. Please contact groups directly or visit their websites for registration details.
Savoy Blues Underground
Instructors: Lila Faria (she/her), Robin Chow (he/him), Amanda Wanner (she/her)
Class Registration:
Savoy’s Blues Underground (501c3) has been Seattle’s mainstay social Blues dance night since 2005. As a branch of the Savoy Swing Club there have been many who have cared for Blues Underground as directors, instructors, and DJs. As well, Blues Underground brings in world-renowned instructors for workshops, hosts live music nights with local bands, and partners with local organizations supporting Seattle’s Black community.
Blues idiom dances are a family of dances and movements that grew alongside the different styles of Blues music within African American communities, from the mid-1800s onward. Because Blues dance and music are African American art forms, in participating in this dance, Savoy’s Blues Underground honors and surrogates its culture and history.
Lila Faria (she/her)
Lila Faria is a Seattle-based blues dance instructor and organizer with over eight years of experience dancing across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. Her work incorporates elements from her training in Montessori, non-violent communication, CMX community building, positive discipline, and more. Through her teaching, she works to provide her students with informative dance history while simultaneously empowering them to be their true, authentic selves.
Robin Chow (he/him)
Being a dancer who started later in life, and owing much to the discovery of a hip-hop tutorial video at the back of a You Got Served DVD, Robin truly believes that dance is inside every one of us. Whether it's a fully realized passion or a whisper of curiosity, he feels that dance should always be available to us, whatever one's dance experience or familiarity. His dance repertoire is based on solo movement learned from a studio hip hop background, with the journey into social dancing starting with lindy hop and now encompassing balboa and fusion. And since his introduction to blues dancing in 2018, he has become a passionate practitioner and advocate of the form and is dedicated to a continued journey of learning and sharing of blues dance and culture.
Amanda Wanner (she/her)
Current BUG Director.
Amanda began dancing Lindy hop and Blues dance in Chicago in 2004. Having grown up listening to Blues and seeing a wild amount of live Blues music as a child, Blues dancing fit Amanda’s soul.
After moving to the PNW in 2007, she had the opportunity to teach Blues, host dance events, and moderate practices. Since then, Amanda’s knowledge, skill, and focus in the dance have grown and changed, as the wisdom of life will do to the stories our dance can tell.
Through her classes, Amanda focuses on teaching Blues aesthetic, culture, and play. Amanda’s biggest passion in the Blues scene is community engagement. She aims to help reshape and rebuild the Seattle Blues dance community with history, community, and culture as a priority.