The Festival
The Big Blues is the first international blues dance festival in Greece and aims to consolidate and become a meeting point of blues lovers from all around the world, for their summer vacation!
We invite you to Chania (Crete) to share in our love during six hours of quality lessons across three levels from four great international teachers.
Enjoy relaxed dances in picturesque locations, music from six special international musicians in three nights of Blues Parties and side events connecting us with territory!
The Big Blues is the first international Blues dance festival in Crete and aims to consolidate and become a meeting point of Blues lovers from all around the world, for their summer vacation!
We invite you to Chania (Crete) to share in our love during six hours of quality lessons across three levels from four great international teachers.
Enjoy relaxed dances in picturesque locations, music from six special international musicians in three nights of Blues parties and side events connecting us with the territory!
TEACHERS
The greatest students are formed by the greatest teachers:
learn from the best!
Adamo & Vicci
Adamo & Vicci
Vicci and Adamo
Adamo and Vicci started their blues dancing journey together in London, where they nurtured and grew the blues dance scene, setting up two weekly blue dance events – Sin City Blues and Stompin’ the Blues – plus Blues at The Ritzy, a monthly live music event. They created Europe's first blues dance performance troupe, The Down and Outs, and are co-organizers of Espanish Blues Festival in Madrid.
Adamo and Vicci have an incredible chemistry on the dance floor, bringing intensity, elegance and musicality to the dance.
Their passion for blues is evident in their inspiring classes, giving dynamic and energetic lessons with a focus on creativity, communication and connection within the partnership, developing a relationship with the music, and encouraging dancers to find their own blues voice.
Both trained teachers, Vicci and Adamo love to create new and intuitive ways to communicate technical concepts to their students. Their lessons are interactive and interdisciplinary involving drawing, discussions, giant elastic bands and even chopsticks!!!
They believe your body is a musical instrument and your dancing is the music you play, and will help you to discover the way your body moves in a whole new light.
By watching them dance, or joining their classes you will learn to really ‘feel’ the blues!
Alba and Gas
Alba started swing dancing because the swing people were exactly the crowd she was looking for in a new city, with time the dancing on the dance floor led her to ecstasy, and she was really hooked when jazz music found a big space in her heart. There was no way back then!
She started teaching locally in Leeds in 2008 and in London for swing patrol in 2010.
Dancing grew on her and she held the dream to have enough time to train and develop her dancing at the level she wished, to become a full time teacher and an organizer in her hometown Madrid. In November 2012 she decided to fulfill her dream, quit her job and move back to Madrid, where she opened a swing school (Big Mama Swing), alongside a top international lead, Gastón Fernández.
Shortly thereafter, she started receiving invitations to teach with increasing frequency at many international events.
She is eager to share her passion for dance that has taken over her life with everybody.
Gas & Alba
Gas & Alba
Gastón “Gas” Fernández is a professional dancer and dance instructor, based in Madrid, Spain. He specializes in vintage dance styles including Lindy Hop, Charleston, authentic jazz, Balboa, Blues and Tango. As a former gymnast he is known in the swing dance community for his powerful acrobatics and aerials, while his background in Tango gives his blues style drama and strength, grounded in a sensitive connection with his partner. Gastón’s passion for swing has taken him around the world, teaching from New york to Melbourne, he has taught in some of the best swing and blues camps in the world.
Gastón is devoted to promoting and fostering swing dance and culture in Argentina, Latin America and Spain. He has directed two stage productions featuring live jazz and vintage dance in Buenos Aires. He also runs South America’s first and largest annual swing dance festival, LHAIF (Lindy Hop Argentina International Festival) each year in Buenos Aires and the first Blues event in South America, “Careless weekend”.
He has been a major proponent of Blues dance in Buenos Aires and is now is teaching Blues internationally. With intense partner connection, Gas fuses Blues with Tango technique, though always striving to stay grounded in the essence of the Blues.
Gastón is also an avid jazz music collector and a popular DJ. He has DJ’d for swing and blues dancers around the world.
CLASSES
What is an advanced dancer?
A beginner dancer after a few years!
MUDDY
WATERS
You take regular blues dance classes or have attended blues dance workshops and festivals.
If you listen Two Blues song everyday…at least.
You are confident with your basics and have a pot of vocabulary that you play with on the social dance floor. You are here to take your dancing to the next level.
You want to expand your
vocabulary, refine your all important basics, and develop your musicality so you feel comfortable dancing to a range of tempos and different styles of blues music.
BIG BILL BROONZY
You take regular blues dance classes and attend blues dance workshops and festivals.
You are an experienced blues dancer and feel comfortable dancing to all tempos and different styles of blues music.
You listen 4 Blues songs everyday…at least!
You have strong lead/follow skills and understand the importance and role of each partner in blues dance.
You are here to take your dancing to the next level. You understand that great basics make great dancers and would happily spend classes on refining your technique and layering on top of it.
PARTIES & MUSICIANS
PARTIES & MUSICIANS
The Blues is danced in three:
You, me and the music!
Stefano Ronchi
Stefano “Stef Rosen” Ronchi is an Italian blues guitar player and singer living in Berlin. His way of composing and arranging is grounded in old black folklore music from the 20’s and 30’s, from Delta Blues and Piedmont Blues, through old Spirituals, stomp and “swamp” sounds. He looks at the tradition with his personal, modern and respectful attitude. He is constantly touring around the World, playing in blues clubs, Festival, and blues dance events as solo artist or collaborating with other great musicians and bands. He has been constantly touring for the last 3 years, non-stop..from New York to Beijing, from London to Moscow..anywhere people need to dance their blues away! In 2017 he joined an European tour with Tony Coleman, who has been drummer for many blues legends as Albert King, Albert Collins, Etta James, Ruth Brown, and for the king of the Blues himself: B.B. King, for more than 20 years. His latest recordings received enthusiastic reviews from all around Europe and by the international blues dancing scene. In 2019, the record “Soul Mining”, produced by RBB Kulturadio Berlin, has been nominated in Germany for “Album of the Year”, next to giants of the blues scene as John Mayall, Watermelon Slim, Joe Bonamassa and Walter Trout.
He also works at mixing and mastering records of other international artists in the blues and soul scene.
Hot Shots
The project starts in 2017, in collaboration with 'Slow Town Blues', a local blues dance school and association. The band participated since the first edition of 'The Big Blues', an international blues dance festival in Crete, Greece, and continue playing in events in Italy and in the rest of Europe. In 2021 the band found the actual formation with Samuele 'Chico' Di Nicolantonio on guitar, Alessio Boschiazzo on drums and the Tabasco brothers, Boris and Marco, singer/harmonica player and bass player. Their repertoire goes from the blues classics to some blues rearrangements of contemporary pop and rock music, to originals played with a fresh, irresistibile sound to make you dance all night long!es, from Buddy Guy to Ben Harper.
Andrea Bo’ Rasco is a musician, a natural-born frontman and a passionate student of afroamerican music. His great technical skills with the harmonica and a fine musical sensitivity allowed him to spread through the years his blues soul in many musical projects (such as Night Riders Blues Gang, Inside Outside, Fratelli Tabasco). Nicolò “Nic” Piccinni is a musician, actor and filmaker.
As a bass player he took part in several musical formations, travelling through genres, from blues to folk music, from progressive to funk (Night Riders Blues Gang, Ordinary People, Dresda Baruch, Due Venti Contro). As a songwriter he released in 2016 “Fuori dal Giro”, his first album.
The New-tone
An explosive trio with a black matrix. Blues, soul, jazz are some of the colors they bring to their show. A concert of great classics of last century music and new songs for a concert full of nuances.
Tom Newton: vocals, harmonica, guitar
Tom Sorba: keyboards Alessio Boschiazzo: drums
ACTIVITIES
We want to honor all of your five senses:
1. Sight: Fantastic panoramas
2. Touch: Unique connections
3. Taste: Typical Greek cuisine and drinks
4. Hearing: Wonderful Blues music
5. Smell: The scents of Greek nature
All together? Don't be shy...
Swinging ZOO asd
Via Morgari 12, 10125
Torino Italy
C.F. 97835960010
The Big Blues