TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
There are four core values that we would like to promote through the teaching at the Breakaway:
1. COMMUNITY
We celebrate lindy hop for being a universal language that connects people by freeing them from society’s barriers.
“[Lindy hop] is the dance of freedom. It’s what freed us and brought us together.”
- Norma Miller
2. TRADITION AND INDIVIDUALITY
We celebrate both vernacular jazz tradition as well as each dancer’s individuality, because improvisation is quintessential to the spirit of jazz.
“We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.”
- Louis Armstrong
3. INNOVATION THROUGH SELF-EXPRESSION
We believe lindy hop is a living dance and we celebrate its continued innovation through exploration and self-expression, for it was this same spirit that created the dance.
“You blows who you is.”
- Louis Armstrong
“The dancer… thinks with his body the way he dances with his mind.”
- Étienne Gilson
4. BEING STUDENTS OF THE DANCE
We believe everyone is a student of the dance, and we are part of a dance ecosystem that is bigger than all of us.
"It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play."
- Dizzy Gillespie