Portable dance floor for TM next year?

[Anton Sukhanov]

Hi everyone,

 

As you may have heard, HUB building at UW will be undergoing renovations, so me and Arturo are looking into possibility of hosting the festival next summer a new secret location.  There are not many ballrooms in Seattle with big floor + space for classes nearby, so looks like we may have to install portable dance floor.

 

Is anyone on the list had any experience renting dance floor in the Seattle area?  Maybe someone who came from swing and ballroom communities had experience?  As you can imagine, we need pretty big floor for Friday and Saturday dances and possibly additional floor for classrooms. 

 

The floor has to be good for tango dancing, strong, big and cheap :-).

 

Any suggestions or referrals will be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Anton

 

[Kathryn Krueger]

Hi Anton,

There is a group that has been hosting free dancing in parks over the summer.  http://www.danceforjoy.biz/dancetildusk09.html

I went when a swing group played, and I was impressed at how simple and easy to put down and take back up the floor was, and at how decent it felt for what it was.  I was traveling outside of Seattle by the time they hosted a tango event, but others on this list might be able to give opinions about how well it worked or did not work for tango.  

You could possibly contact the afore mentioned group for futher details about what the floor was, where you might find something similar, what it cost, how well it has maintained, etc.

I know also that, at least some years back, there was a dance in a mall space in the San Francisco area where they put down a floor each week and then took it back up.  I don't remember much more about it, but we could probably get more details about how it worked, how well it worked, how it was for dancing, etc, if we probed some folk in the San Francisco community.  (Or was it in New York?  Now that I think about it more, I think the event I am remembering may have actually been in New York, and that Robin Thomas was perhaps involved with it.)

Sorry I'm not much more help offhand, but these might be starting points at least.

Kathryn