On September 23 the club will be honoring Evelyn Khinoo and Denny Harris at a dance at Swiss Park (8pm at 5911 Mowry Ave, Newark, CA). Instructor appreciation nights are our way of recognizing and expressing gratitude to local instructors, who spend an enormous amount of time learning new dances and then teaching them to the rest of us. These events are also a lot of fun. On instructor appreciation nights, past and present students of the instructor being honored get a discount on the admission fee. (Students should sign in using a separate, ‘students’ admissions list that is different from the usual sign in sheet.)
Evelyn and Denny are an institution in the Bay Area’s line dance community, with a history of line dance instruction stretching back beyond the memory of most dancers. A number of Evelyn’s students are now instructors themselves. She is also a choreographer of note, having produced classics that include: Attitude, Blue Kentucky, Raise Me Up, The Lady & Me, Take a Look, and That’s My Hat. Silk and Satin remains a favorite in the Bay Area even today. Denny may be more at home on a golf course that a line dance floor, but he has also choreographed dances, including Doesn’t Take Much and Days Go By.
The pictures at left show Evelyn teaching at Swiss Park, and Denny with Angela and Belinda.
Evelyn teaches an intermediate class at 7pm on Tuesday nights at the Lucy Stern Center in Palo Alto (1305 Middlefield Road). She has just started a new session of classes, and last night (September 13) we learned three dances that were taught at the WOW festival:
- Melon Heart, by Niels Poulsen
- O-Ye-Me, by Ria Vos
- Proud Mary Burnin’, by Sobrielo Philip Gene
There will be a review of these dances next Tuesday, and then new teaches, possibly more dances from WOW. Evelyn usually posts a list of the dances she will teach on BALD several days before the class. And some of the dances she is considering for future classes are: Party Freak (Kate Sala), Jazzy Girl ( Kinsers), Hold On Tight (Francien Sittrop), Papi (Rachael McEnaney) and Know Me By Now (Craig Bennett).
Correction, Sept 17: The dance on Sept 23 at Swiss Park will start at 8pm, not 7pm as stated in the original post. The text above has been updated to reflect this correction.