Put on your dancing shoes
A weekend of dance is coming to Queenstown from Friday and it will be packed with workshops, performances, parties, and an underlying message of wellbeing. Jive & Thrive offers events to suit all levels of dance, including those who have never danced, and will support Headlight, which is a Queenstown-based mental health charity.
Started out back in August 2021, Jive & Thrive aims to share the sense of joy felt when partner dancing. Instructors will be coming from far-a-field and around Queenstown. It’s also expected that around 100 attendees will come from around Aotearoa and across the ditch in Australia to take part.
Event organisers and avid dancers, Katie Bridges and Emma Dagg, are heavily involved in the local dance scene. Emma founded and runs Dance Social, which offers weekly modern jive classes at Te Atamira, and Katie was running modern jive events across Asia before coming to New Zealand, where she plans on continuing to run events.
“It’s a dance weekend for adults to learn to dance,” says Katie. “Even those with two left feet, we highly encourage to get involved. We have a community dance class for anybody without experience, or with experience, and any local residents who just want to give it a whirl – it’s really fun for connecting with people and making friends.
“One of our focuses is on the mental health benefits that moving your body can bring. There’s also a community wellness class that’s kindly sponsored by Nadi Wellness, and we’ve got a dance mob/variation on the flashmob, happening outside of Patagonia on the Sunday morning. We’ve got performances at night, which everybody is welcome to come to, with performers across New Zealand and Australia. It’s a really high calibre that are coming to Queenstown to dance what we call modern jive.”
Katie describes modern jive dancing as an easy social partner dance to pop music, and compares it to salsa dancing with different music and without the footwork. It’s a simple and fun dance, and you don’t need to bring a partner as everyone will rotate around with different partners. The benefit of swapping partners is that you’ll be dancing alongside a variety of skill levels, helping you to improve quicker. In addition to the classes, there will also be a themed party.
“We always have a themed party on the Saturday night. In the past we’ve done a snowball dance and a fire dance, and this year we’re going to do a garden party – so everyone will come dressed in green or in their fancy outfits. We’ll also have a lunch on the Sunday at the Bavarian, which anyone can come to, and there’s going to be some cruisy dancing on that day.”
The charity that the event is supporting, Headlight, helps the community to talk about mental health and breaks down barriers to mental health support. They provide mental health workshops and their team of staff and volunteers frequently engage in community events to bring to life interactive opportunities for people to reduce stigma and discrimination relating to mental illness. Gold coin/koha donations from some of the events will be donated to Headlight.
“The reason why we are such fans of social dancing, Emma and I, is because of the human connection. The most important thing for me is that everybody feels that it’s very friendly, it’s not intimidating. Etiquette of these dances is that everybody asks everybody to dance, and you’ll always say yes to at least one dance. It’s very inclusive and we really strive to make sure that people do feel included – the best thing is to see a whole room full of people dancing to music and having a fun time. It’s all about having fun, although we do have a fun competition,” says Katie.
Jive & Thrive will take over Queenstown this weekend from 11 – 13 August and includes a range of classes, performances and events. You can view the full schedule, grab tickets for selected events and donate directly to Headlight at jiveandthrive.com
