Special Zydeco Workshop with Michele & Dan Wednesday, February 1st & 8th - Saturday, February 11th Beginner Zydeco, Part 1 –Wednesday, February 1st, 7:45pm - 9:15pm
Beginner Zydeco, Part 2 – Wednesday, February 8th, 7:45pm - 9:15pm
Zydeco Survival Kit - Saturday, February 11th, 4:45pm - 6:15pm
The Zydeco Survival class is geared toward those wanting to take a review course, repeat Zydeco part 1 and 2 they took on February 1st & 8th – or for experienced dancers who are comfortable moving through things quickly. Price: $5 each lesson per person. RSVP
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What is zydeco dance? Zydeco as a dance style has its roots in a form of folk dance that corresponds to the heavily syncopated zydecoFrancophone Creole peoples of Acadiana (south-west Louisiana). It is a partner dance that has been primarily danced socially and sometimes in performances. * Please note that these classes are not part of Esquina Tango unlimited package and need to be paid separately. Thanks! About the Instructors | 
| Dan Procter grew up thinking accordion music was what they did on the Lawrence Welk Show. Then he heard a recording by Cajun accordion great Iry LeJune. It was a shock. Yoko Ono singing French is how it sounded to Dan. But the Cajun rhythm and the accordion were too powerful. He soon learned some Cajun dance steps from a woman who had grown up in Baton Rouge. Anytime a Cajun band played, he showed up to dance. That’s how he met his wife, Stephanie, dancing to a Cajun waltz.
For Dan, learning Zydeco took a while. He watched but couldn’t get the hang of what dancers were doing with their feet. So, he’d ask them. “Sure,” they would say, “do this.” It was always too fast for Dan to get. It finally “clicked” one night in a UT Informal Class taught by Louisiana musician Marce Lacouture. Later that year when Marce’s dancing partner moved away, she invited Dan to assist her in teaching her class. Dan eventually took on the class himself when Marce had to leave.
Dan says he may have taught more people in Austin to Zydeco than anyone. Not that there are a great number of people volunteering to teach Zydeco in Austin. And if he's not dancing, you might find him linger for a while in front of the TV when Lawrence Welk comes on.
|  | Michele Ramshur got curious about Zydeco in the late 90's. She readily picked up the basic steps, and by the time she returned from a music festival in Louisiana, she was devoted to this dance style. Since then, she has increased her skills by dancing at every major Cajun and Zydeco Festival in Louisiana and all over the other United States. Local clubs were too slow to book Zydeco bands to suit Michele, so she started having house dance parties about 2003. Organizing, teaching, and promoting, these lessons soon outgrew her house and beginning in 2005, she and Dan have taught lessons and held Zydeco Practice nights at the Hancock Recreation Center.
When not sneaking off to Louisiana to dance Zydeco, she can be found dancing C&W and Western Swing at the Spoke and the Continental. Michele continues to promote Zydeco in Austin with the Yahoo Group the most reliable on-line resource for Austin Zydeco news and events.
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