Your Instructor
What the Blues lessons are primarily taught by Robin. He will often invite guest instructors, all of whom are passionate blues dancers and well-versed educators who want to share their knowledge and love of blues with the world!
Guest Instructors
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he/him
Founder / Lead InstructorBeing a dancer who started later in life, and owing so much to the discovery of a hip hop tutorial video at the back of a You Got Served DVD (shout out to and rest in peace Dave Scott), Robin truly believes that dance is inside every one of us. Whether it's a fully realized passion, or a whisper of curiosity, he feels that dance should always be available to our selves, whatever one's dance experience or familiarity. His dance repertoire is based on solo movement learned from a studio hip hop background, with the journey into social dancing starting with lindy hop, and over time including blues, balboa & fusion. And ever since his introduction to blues dancing in 2018, he has become a passionate practitioner and advocate of the form, and is dedicated to a continued journey of learning and sharing of blues dance and culture.
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she/her
Lila first encountered blues dancing in 2015, hidden in the back rooms of New York City bars. After eight years of training in synchronized skating and ice dancing (2004-2012), she fell in love with the partner dance, pursuing learning opportunities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
In 2018, she settled down in Seattle, where she took a day job as a Montessori educator and spent her nights supporting the local blues dance scene. After the pandemic, she transitioned to remote work and launched Lila Faria Dance (along with her blues news resource, the “Seattle Blues Dance Collective”). Now, she spends her evenings promoting blues dancing in Seattle. She also travels the world in her free time, learning and teaching wherever she can.
In addition to her movement background, Lila studied alternative education at NYU - a degree that she incorporates into her lessons today. If you look closely, you may find influences from Montessori education, non-violent communication, CMX community strategy, positive discipline and more. Through her pedagogy, she works to provide her students with informative dance history and increased body awareness. She hopes to create an environment where they feel safe, supported, and empowered to be their true, authentic selves.
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he/him
Dillon has been partner dancing since 2007 when his friends bribed him to attend Swing dance classes with cookies, and has been teaching since 2009. He started dancing Blues in 2010 as a way to better understand connection and closeness within partner dance. He fell in love with the way two partners in a Blues dance can feel like a single form, but still retain so much individual agency and expression. As a teacher, Dillon tries to understand dance both from a cultural and historical lens, and as a means of artistic co-creation and connection. His chief joys in teaching are discussing and experiencing dance theory, and helping others find what they love about dance.