Bend Dance is run by Victoria Tolonen :: Instructor, Promoter, DJ, and social coordinator

Victoria has 27 years of experience in hip hop, jazz, ballroom, skating and competition cheerleading. She has danced Salsa since 1993 and was a member of Ritmo Latino, the first Salsa troupe in Oregon, spreading the love of Latin dancing throughout the state. In 1997-1998 she toured the United States and Europe with the international musical Up With People as a principal dancer, performing jazz, hip hop and folkloric dances. She has traveled to Latin America, Asia, and Europe and is recognized as one of the original Salseras in the Northwest. While teaching Salsa at a Congress 9 years ago Victoria discovered West Coast Swing and fell in love with the sexy connection, depth and musicality of the dance.

Victoria is an All-Star Swing competitor and is invited to teach and judge at national Salsa and West Coast Swing events, including Palm Springs Swing Dance Classic and Salsa Extravaganza, Reno Dance Sensation, and Portland Salsa Congress. Her awards include 1st Place Palm Springs Swing Dance Classic 2010, 2nd & 3rd Places Desert City Swing 2009, 1st Place Bridgetown Swing 2008, 1st Place Bridgetown Swing 2007, 1st Place Summer Dance Camp 2006, 1st Place Salsa Reno Dance Sensation 2004, 2nd Place Portland Dance Festival 2008, 2nd Place New Year's Dance Camp 2005, 2nd Place New Year's Dance Camp 2004, 1st Place Nov Country Two Step Portland Dance Festival 2008.

She has been teaching and promoting dance in Bend, Oregon since 2002. Her teaching focuses on technique of social partner dancing, creating smooth leads and silky follows. She hosts and dj's weekly dances, classes and special events throughout the area and she was the manager of the Bend Summer Festival Dance Stage from 2004-2007. Locally she has performed at events such as St. Charles All Saints Gala, Dress Up and Dance, The Center Medical Fundraiser, The Bite of Bend, Taste of the Town, and Bend Summer Festival.

Off the dance floor Victoria is a residential Real Estate Broker with Alpine Real Estate and spends spare time doing disaster relief work in cool places like Indonesia, Mongolia and Albania. (Shameless Plug: If you're interested in anything involving real estate in Bend, Oregon, Victoria is a well-connected realtor and you can call or email anytime with real estate questions or needs. Her fun company, Alpine Real Estate can be found at www.arecentraloregon.com)

Here are a couple of videos of Victoria. The first is with Roberto Villamarin who was visiting the Third Saturday Fusion Dance in October, 2010 in Bend. It's quite dark...sorry! The second is with Ben McHenry after a Chico class in 2009....

 

Dance is like Life. A four minute dance is a four minute relationship. Your goal is to communicate, therefore connecting with your partner is the first and most important activity. How you hold your fingers and hand is analogous to the words you choose and your tone. Once you’ve connected with her physically, by the hand, you can accurately “talk” to her. For the woman's part, she wants to be connected so she can “hear” correctly. In West Coast Swing she can also add quite a bit to the conversation, so he has to be listening to her as well.

Lead and Follow

The man leads and the woman follows. Someone has to initiate or else there’s a collision. The lead happens nicely, respectfully, with your partner’s best interests in mind. When he wants to ask her to do something, he invites her. He doesn’t force her to move down the slot or make her turn…he leads clearly in a way she can understand and with correct timing. He has to be most concerned about where she is and what will work best for her. It’s her choice to follow or not…obviously, she said yes to the dance, so she should accept the invitation and respond. Her response is only possible if she’s listening. If she’s trying to lead, she can’t hear him. If she’s more concerned about herself and what she looks like or what other people are thinking, she can’t hear him. However when she’s focused on being responsive to his requests and he’s focused on moving her in a way that works for her, the relationship becomes a dance that can be magical.

Very few people do any of this naturally. We learn how to lead and follow just as we learn how to communicate and how to be a man and a woman. Technique and styling are both learned. Coming into the dance with no skills is perfectly acceptable!

The Music

Now, if you can communicate perfectly, yet there’s no emotion behind it, your partner senses it and your dance (or relationship) suffers. Not everyone is born expressive, so for the accountants and engineers in the crowd…never fear: this too can be learned. The expression in dance comes through the music, whether it’s funky blues, cool hip hop or sultry smooth music. You can dance, but not be with the music. You can do a bunch of moves and patterns without truly connecting with what the music is conveying. However when you are dancing with the music, when both partners are listening and paying attention and interpreting the music, the dance is amazing. Both partners should be listening to the music as an umbrella over everything else going on. The music tells you how to move.

Culture and Dance

Each social dance has a different personality based on the culture that created it and the music that inspires it. Salsa is Latin – male dominated in the lead and female focused in the style. It was created by Latin culture, which traditionally has a clear delineation of male/female roles, and the dance reflects that. Since the dance is closely tied to the 8 counts of the music, each count is led. It’s fast, it’s hot, it’s spicy and shows off the woman.

West Coast Swing, on the other hand, is American and reflects a more American relationship… communicative, more room for the woman to add input and more room to play since the dance is generally 6 count patterns, done to 8 count music. She can “say” something by letting him know with a movement of her hand or her body. She can’t do it whenever she wants; it has to be appropriate. What she adds to the conversation has to be pertinent, so she has to know how to interrupt without ruining the conversation. Since there are lots of technique rules known to both partners, she knows exactly when it makes sense to play.

What Women Want :: A lead who understands her momentum and how to move with her.

What Men Want :: A woman who knows how to follow a lead so he can give her a good time on the dance floor.

Dance Is Like Golf

Really...they have a lot in common. Get your grip right and lock in where you should be; not too tight, not too loose. The grip is vital. Once your grip is right, you relax, draw back your club and let gravity and momentum connect it with the ball. You don’t control the club: You let it do the work. After your follow through you should be perfectly balanced, which is completely up to you.

In dance your grip is your connection with your partner. Your hands and fingers should be not too tight, not too loose. Once your connection is right, the man relaxes and leads her down the slot. He lets her continue her own momentum. He doesn't control her: he lets her dance. A woman's balance is completely up to her. She doesn't want to depend on him to create her movement or hold her up. Depending on him makes her needy...but when she's a controlled, balanced dancer, she can connect with him in a healthy way that creates a very cool dance connection.