Slow Bal International

Slow Bal is slowly taking over the Swing world. And why shouldn’t it? Dancing to slow jazz music is just as much part of the Swing experience as Lindy Hop and Balboa. Bring Deirdre together with Joost or Giovanni to your Slow Bal event for an inspiring and fun weekend of slow dancing.

Slow Bal at your Swing event

Are you looking for Slow Bal teachers to teach this beautiful Swing dance at your (international) event? Slowfeet Studio is happy to help!

Deirdre is specialised in Slow Bal. She has taken inspiration from oldtimers as Dean Raftery and Ray Cunningham, but also studied and trained in a more modern interpretation of Slow Bal and Slow Swing.

Would you like some Laminu classes at your event as well? No problem! Do you have a specific topic in mind for Slow Bal workshops, like musicality, playfulness, followers initiative, connection or flow? Let us know what you are looking for and we can create our workshops based on your wishes, but of course always with our own personal touch.

What other organizers and students say about Deirdre and her partners abroad:

We invited Deirdre and Mark from Slowfeet Studio as trainers to Hamburg for a Slow Bal workshop weekend. The enthusiasm and passion immediately jumped over to the participants. The two of them were able to convey the fun of slow dance in an excellent way. Although they only had 2 hours each day, the participants were taught much more than "just" the basics of this beautiful swing dance style. At the end there was the wonderful feeling of being able to dance a lot of Slow Bal with what they had learned. In addition, with Deirdre and Mark we got to know two extremely likeable people. They came as trainers and left as friends. We look forward to seeing them again. Thank you for a beautiful and inspiring weekend! New Swing Generation, Hamburg, Germany

I discovered slow dance first time with Deirdre in Valencia in December 2022 in a weekend workshop. I fell in love with slow. She explained it perfectly, beautiful movements and in one weekend she gave us lots of tools to dance and enjoy. I also went to Slowfeet Studio for a weekend class and social twice. I had the chance to take classes again in May 2023 in Valencia Balboa Festival. People enjoyed a lot. And Also Deirdre and Joost, great teachers, travel a lot around Europe to teach in weekends and festivals. I will go to Torquay on May 17th to 19h 2024 for Slow Weekend where best international teachers are always there. Also I will go to Brescia Balboa Festival, The Series on April 12th to 14th. Festival with high level of best teachers. Rotterdam dancers are lucky to have Slowfeet Studio and Deirdre as teacher.

Deirdre taught at our recent Slow Bal weekend in the UK, and we have received glowing feedback. The "all levels" class she taught with Mark was tremendous fun, with clear instruction and useful tips. Our "fundamentals" group made excellent progress, and improved in confidence, with the classes she taught with Beau. All are warm, friendly and inclusive, as well fabulous dancers...

Just finished a Slow balboa weekend in Torquay, where Deirdre and Beau taught me the fundamentals of this beautiful dance. Fantastic classes, I feel I have grown in both confidence and dance ability with their excellant tuition and guidance. Thank you

Deirdre and Joost came to Olso to teach at O´slow 2022 and it was delightful! Slowbal is such a beautiful dance and they made the classes to fit our different levels, so that we could also enjoy what we had learned in class at the social dances during the weekend. They´re amazing dancers and down-to-earth and friendly. I would definitely recommend to take classes from them. You will not regret it!

Slowfeet Studio, represented by Deirdre and Joost, helped us make the perfect slow dance weekend in Oslo, Sept. 2022. I can warmly recommend them as teachers. They came well prepared, were easy to get in touch with, and have a creative and fun approach to Slow Balboa dancing and teaching.

Wonderful teachers during O'Slow 2022 - great energy, music and a lovely mood. I learned a bunch of SlowBal during this workshop 🙂

Highly recommended! We've had Deirdre & Lucien of dance school Slowfeet Studio for a Slow Balboa weekend workshop in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was an immense success, mostly due to their excellent and inclusive teaching. Thank you so much for coming!

What we offer you:

We want to share our love for Slow Bal with the world! What we can offer you for your Swing dance event:

Slow bal lessons Dean Raftery Style / our own style
Slow Bal lessons in Laminu, Ray Cunningham Style
Slow Solo Jazz Workshop to improve our own body awareness and creativity
Switch lessons (leading and following) and how to switch roles within a dance
Private lessons for students who want more personal feedback
Knowledge sharing with local teachers who want to teach Slow Bal

And of course, all lessons will in the end be in our own personal style. Having fun is the core of what we do and how we teach. In our classes we pay attention to creating a save space where everbody can be themselves. We want to inspire our students to explore with us the possibilities that Slow Bal brings to the dance floor.

In the end, it´s all about finding out what works for you. Everyone is unique, and we hope to help you find your own particular style.

Want to know more? Email us!

How we can also help you

We know, from our own experience, that organizing an event is a lot of work. So let us help you where we can! Other than teaching super fun Slow Bal classes at your event, we can also:

Help with writing level descriptions for the Slow Bal classes
Provide you with promotion material like photos and videos
Make personalized video message as part of the promotion
Share your event on the Slowfeet Studio socials
Share your event on the Slowfeet Studio website
Provide you with enough Slow Bal music for several parties

You know what we did last year?

Here are some of our Slow Bal demonstrations during other events in the last year:

Who are Deirdre, Joost and Giovanni?

Who are these crazy people who teach Slow Bal?

When it comes to international Swing dance events, Deirdre is teaching with Joost and Giovanni. Below you will read a little bit more about us.

About Deirdre

Deirdre has been a Slow Bal fanatic since the first time she discovered this beautiful dance in 2014. She was teaching Lindy Hop at the time, when Joost showed her a Slow Bal video. Since then she travelled to many places, watched an endless amount of online videos and trained for hours and hours to master this dance.

She started Slowfeet Studio in 2019, to share here love for Slow Bal with the lovely people from Rotterdam and surroundings. But her dreams were always bigger. “Slow Bal is going to conquer the world”, came out of her mouth more than once.

After 5 years of teaching weekly Slow Bal classes in Rotterdam, she decided to spread her wings. Since then she has been travelling all over The Netherlands and Europe to make people fall in love with the dance. Deirdre is also a very skilled leader in Slow Bal!

About Joost

Starting as a rock and roll man, Joost has always been a dancer. Since the time when he was throwing girls in the air, he danced many dances, like Boogie Woogie for example. In the end Swing dance stole his heart. The energy of the music and the dancers can keep Joost going all night long.

Balboa was for a long time a big passion of Joost. As a real Balboa man he travelled many places to learn, to meet people and to party all night long. In Rotterdam Joost also taught Lindy Hop and Balboa. When he introduced Deirdre to Slow Bal, little did he know that one day he would be travveling through Europe to teach this slow Swing dance, so different in flow from Balboa.

But one thing is for sure. Joost also caught the Slow Bal virus!

About Giovanni

Dance has been his passion since childhood. From a young age, Giovanni found myself drawn to the joy of movement, spending hours mimicking choreography from videos. Jazz music became the soundtrack to my days, its rhythm and melody perfectly matching my mood. It wasn’t until he arrived in Berlin that he finally had the opportunity to dance to this music. In 2017, Giovanni embarked on his Balboa swing journey, and since then, it has become an integral part of his daily, or rather nightly, life.

Immersed himself in the Balboa community, he has attended festivals and competed in European parties, reaching finals along the way. Now, he is dedicated to sharing the joy of dance through teaching weekly classes and weekend workshops in Berlin.

Slow Bal when low on budget

Want to bring Slow Bal to your Swing community, but you are low on budget? Know that Deirdre is both a skilled follow as lead! Together with your local teacher(s) she can bring the slow Swing love across! Don’t hesitate to explore the possibilities and send an email to info@slowfeetstudio.nl .

Where can you find us?

We are never far away!

On the Events page you can find our previous events (if you want to know what we have been up to) and our future classes, workshops and events.

We hope to meet you there, for a lovely Slow Bal dance!

Contact us for your (Slow Bal) event

Want to know more about our availability, rates and requirements? Please send an email to info@slowfeetstudio.nl, and we will get back to you as soon as possible!