Daniel Repsch
Dan is immersed in the music and the movement. As a teacher, his enthusiastic approach brings a focus on innovation, connection, and attention to your partner. As a veteran instructor and DJ, he’s worked for events across 4 continents, for everything from international events to local dances. He’s also organized both locally and for international events, including a Head DJ role in BluesSHOUT! and The Balboa/Blues Experiment. In the end, Dan is most excited to work hard at improving the dance and to see people break through their boundaries.
Jamica Zion
Currently living in St. Louis, Jamica Zion takes pride in being a groovy solo dancer, a dynamic follow, and growing lead. Jamica aims for range, not just in connection and style, but across genres too! Since starting Jazz and Blues dances over 15 years ago, she’s collected multiple titles from contests across top US events including Lindy Focus, Camp Jitterbug, Beantown, and Camp Hollywood. As a solo artist, Jamica has prioritized performance over contests so instead of a collection of solo wins, she has a diverse and abundant portfolio (check some out on YouTube)! When Jamica is not social dancing, teaching, or working on choreography, they are likely reading, playing games, napping, or relaxing with loved ones.
Jamica’s approach towards sharing dance with others includes a critical understanding and appreciation of its history and culture, while simultaneously ushering students to build their own styles and meaningful connections to it. Jamica draws on their professional training from various social justice organizations and a long educational background which includes nearly three degrees in Sociology. This unique blend of experiences, teacher training, and knowledge allows Jamica to deliver inclusive and culturally responsible content that is creative, thought provoking, and original! In the past year Jamica has been proudly collaborating on queer centered history presentations, The Queer Walk of Fame display, community discussions, classes, and event consultations with Adam Brozowski. While this isn’t Jamica’s first time promoting queer history of Blues and Jazz, both in and outside the dance community, this has quickly become one of the most impactful projects they’ve engaged in to date!
Andi Hansen
Hallmarks of Andi’s dancing include playfulness, enthusiasm, and a focus on partnership. In classes she likes to highlight not only the exciting and interesting varieties of blues dancing that you can enjoy, but on being comfortable in your body and dancing like yourself while you do them. Her focus on exploration, musicality, and creativity make classes fun and interactive.
Andi dances primarily as a follow and often as a lead, competing whenever she can, as well as making solo and partnered choreography for events like Sweet Molasses and bluesSHOUT!
Based out of Grand Rapids MI, she enjoys organizing locally, road-tripping to events with friends, and spreading the joy of blues dance!
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/
Charlley Ward
Charlley Ward loves the Blues. Throughout his life he has played the music, told the stories and danced the dances of the people who created it, his Black American People.
He has twice reached the semi-finals of the International Blues Challenge in Memphis Tennessee with the Bull City Blues Band. His unique style is derived from his association with Durham Blues great John Dee Holman and his own eclectic original material that ranges from urban Blues like Albert King to Country material like that of Holman’s. He has DJed, told stories about Blues and African American culture and taught Traditional Black American Dances at events including Mile High Blues in Denver, Brickyard Blues in Atlanta, Big City Blues in Ghent Belgium. He has attended The Experiment (the International weeklong Blues Dance workshop in Corolla NC,) three times. 2022 he won the solo Blues Dance Competition at the Riverfront Blues Festival in Portland Oregon, and in 2024 returned to teach and perform there.
He routinely teaches Blues Dance for his home scene, RDU Blues in The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina. teaching focuses on the fundamentals of the dances and how they can be used to enhance musicality.
“BB King used to say that playing the Blues is telling the truth.” He says. “It’s one of the ways Black Americans survived. We took despair and turned it into joy. We told our stories, we sang and played our music, and we danced. We told the truth. We survived.”
He is now retired from a career as a public-school Theatre Teacher during which his students received multiple awards in juried competitions. He currently lives in (an allegedly haunted) Colonial era plantation house outside Wake Forest North Carolina, with his two asinine cats.
Cynthia Menos
Cynthia has done a mixture between Teaching, DJing and organizing since 2017 and helped found Pittsburgh’s new blues dance scene Blues and Fusion Forge (check out the scene if you’re ever visiting!) She enjoys teaching and tries to provide historical and modern context to her lessons. Other than Blues you can often find Cynthia dancing and/or competing at Solo Jazz, Lindy Hop, Salsa, Bachata, or Urban Kizomba events.
Odysseus Bailer
Odysseus Bailer is a NYC based Blues dancer, lindy hopper, DJ and Cultural Lecturer. He has been dancing both styles combined for over 20yrs and he is extremely excited to be teaching at his first ever Steel City Blues Event alongside some of the scene’s most amazing and talented dancers and instructors. Odysseus brings a playfulness to his class that is exciting, while helping his students get a better nuance understanding of not just the dance steps and patterns but also to the culture to which we are all participating in. Thank you Steel City Blues and I can’t wait to see and dance with you all.
Gwen Bone
Gwen hails from Brooklyn, New York. She grew up in various dance and movement traditions, and has been Blues dancing for over a decade. She is passionate about crafting partnership and blues music, and loves to explore all the ways to find rhythm and space in a dance. Gwen’s dance technique and approach to practice developed her dance voice and has led to national acclaim- BluesShout, Blues Muse, Signifying Blues, Lindy Focus, Sweet Molasses Blues. As a teacher, she encourages dancers to explore the partnership space and bring their own individual voice to each dance.
Zach Brass
It was a (most likely dark and stormy) night in 2011 when Zach Brass wandered into a group of people dancing and accidentally fell in love with it. Ever since then, he’s spent over a decade putting his pure, unbridled enthusiasm into dancing and teaching both lindy hop and blues dancing. He’s danced and taught all around the world, from Canada to Italy to the Middle East, but is passionate about developing the local scene in New York City. As a teacher, Zach is always looking to make sure everyone walking into a class for the first time not only learns, but also relaxes enough to have a great time. As he puts it, “Dancing ruined my life in the best way possible!”