I have waffled about whether or not to post this. Partially, because it just isn’t done in the lindy hop community (at least from my perspective) – where a follower is actively and openly seeking a dance partner for a project and partially, because it feels like high school asking if anyone will take me to prom.

Who am I and what’s the brief?
I teach many weekly classes and have taught a variety of weekend partnered and solo workshops in Canada and the UK. I work with some amazing leaders in London. I currently have plans to go to ILHC, but don’t currently have a partner to compete with (because the people I’d normally work with are not able to go). Ideally, I’d like to compete in the Open Strictly and Open Classic and would be open to a Team Showcase if someone was already invested/subscribed in a project.

Ways this could work (open to suggestion):
1. In London, you either live here or are willing to come visit and crash on my sofa bed for a week or two and we focus on training and putting together a choreography.
2. You live somewhere in Europe that is cheaply and easily accessible and/or a major and easy to get to US city. You put me up for a week or two to come and train with you perhaps the weeks leading up to ILHC.
3. We each cover our own costs at ILHC and split our contest costs.
4. I am willing to invest additional time by coming to Herrang the same week you may be going and/or attending a camp or two in the lead up (depending on cost, but I’m flexible).

You may be the right person if:
1. You are a person who invests in your dancing and is focused on improving your personal dancing.
2. You have a cannon of performance work or at least a couple of performance routines under your belt.
3. You give valued and measured critical feedback and you are open to getting respectful critical feedback.
4. You want to put in 10-15 hours minimum on a performance routine and partnered dancing prep. For me, it’s about polish – but polish can also keep true to the spirit of lindy hop.
5. Your definition of success is creating and producing something original, distinctive, imaginative and truly ‘us’ as opposed to looking like other people.
6. You are self-aware and want to be the best dancer you can be.
7. Optional: You teach in your local scene and are comfortable watching, explaining and breaking down movement.
8. Optional: You are inspired by and have experience in other dance forms.
9. Optional: You have aerials experience and would like to work on this skill set with me.
10. Required: You have a high degree of partner empathy. You respect both dance roles equally and value the conversational quality and individuality of dance. Perhaps you occasionally like to follow, since I do also quite like leading.

If you think you’d be interested in working together and producing a routine that is professional, high quality and daring for us AND love social dancing and would like to train towards a strictly together please send me an email – nancyhitzig[at]gmail[dot]com. I’d love to hear from you.
If you think you may not be ready (either your new or don’t have a lot of dance experience of this kind), but would love to train and see if it’s a good fit – that’s valuable too.
If you are working with someone and want some help making a plan to do some work like this – awesome, email me! Happy to take you through how I approach stuff like this.

And lastly, if you are a person who has a network of dancers where someone may be interested in an opportunity like this, please, I ask you to forward it on, post it, instagram it – whatever.

As a follower without a regular partner, sometimes I feel like my ambitions and vision are impossible with out a regular partner. If it turns out that there aren’t any available or interested leaders, then I can decide if I want to push my leading and compete with another follower who has the same aims and goals. But I definitely wanted to ask you, my friends and peers for your opinions and recommendations first.

I think that brings my ILHC partner job pack to a close. If you share this or respond to it, please accept my sincere thanks. Both roles have their challenges and the desire to make great art always feels scary, but I wanted to be brave and to ask. Hope to see you on the dance floor soon.