Welcome!

Because we are in no way done with the pandemic yet, despite appearances to the contrary, we at Boston Balboa are still taking the dance community’s safety seriously. We’re doing our best staying on top of the latest news, research, and data.  We are traveling for dance ourselves again, masking up to keep ourselves and our family and friends healthy. We hope to see lots and lots of you around town, dancing Bal!

Please note: Boston Balboa events require wearing a suitable mask in the studio. Please see our COVID safety page for more detailed information.

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What’s happening around Boston?

Coming up at Boston Balboa:

February 28: 1B Crash Course 

We’ll run a Fundamentals 1B crash course on Saturday February 28, 2026.  Join us at Mango Studio to cover all the content from our Fundamentals 1B class series in one afternoon!  
 

Next Balboa on a Sunday Afternoon practice – March 1, 2026!

The next BoaSA practice will be March 1!  Join us at Mango Studio in Cambridge on March 1 from 3-5pm!  Come on out to dance & practice!
 
We’ll provide a friendly space to practice your Balboa. We’ll start with some guided exercises to warm up and then the floor is open to work on your own stuff.
 
Have something in particular that you’d like to work on? Let us know! Have something interesting you’ve learned recently or been playing with? Come and share! We’ll play music, and July and Stan (and probably others) will be available to facilitate.
 

Balboa Fundamentals 1A and 1B in 2026, plus bonus class March 31

We’ll be running our beginner Fundamentals series in March and April on Tuesdays at Dance Complex, along with a one-off all-levels class on the FIFTH Tuesday of March where we’ll dig into all the fun things you can do with textures in Pure Balboa.   Registration is OPEN on our classes page!

Our Fundamentals content is taught ELEF: Everyone Leads, Everyone Follows. Starting your Balboa journey with ELEF helps you understand the mechanics more quickly and more deeply. Though many dancers do choose to specialize in one role, starting out with ELEF helps you understand how both roles work and feel, so you can choose the one that suits you, or choose to keep dancing in both! 

And because there are FIVE Tuesdays in March, we’ll use March 31 for an all-levels class working on Footwork Textures in Pure Balboa!  More info and registration on our classes page.

 
 

Keep Dancing Safely & Support Our Community

Please do pay attention to evolving recommendations for best practices, as the situation continues to change quickly and we want all of you safe and healthy. We recommend tracking the science through a trusted source such as Your Local Epidemiologist, as the CDC may not always offer the kind of information you as a dancer need to know.

We still also hope you will direct your dancing energy toward solo movement training and your dollars, if you have any to spare, toward the professional instructors and musicians who need your support to pay their bills.

Most of all, we want you to keep dancing, and we want to help support the instructors and musicians whose livelihoods are most threatened by dance cancellations. Here are some things you can do:

– schedule a private lesson, by video
– pre-purchase a private lesson for use in the future
– buy albums, t-shirts, or other swag from bands
– make a donation outright to a teacher/musician/organization
– work on your solo jazz
– do video analysis of your own dancing (you know, the thing you’ve been putting off for years?)
– really dig into some of those clips of original dancers
– strength train
– Couch to 5K (builds core strength and endurance to support your fast dancing!)

Swing Jazz is an African-American Art Form

Balboa, as a vernacular swing dance, is indebted to the African-American roots and culture of Swing Jazz and Swing dancing.  We encourage everyone to explore the history of this dance, the dancers that created it in Southern California, and the music and musicians that made it possible.

Boston Balboa stands in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and against police brutality. In support of the movement, members of the Boston Balboa team have independently donated to Black Lives Matter and to community bail bonds, and we encourage you to do the same.

Our lists are by no means exhaustive, but if you need a place to start, here we present some places you can donate, as well as educational anti-racism resources we are using ourselves to learn more about this important civil rights movement.

Donate/Support

Anti-Racism Resources

Love and Support,
Boston Balboa