|
|
|
|
Barry Durand Bio
The fun starts here! Barry started
teaching dance in Arizona and California in the early 80's. The
reason says Barry, " I really just wanted to meet people." He
may have met lots of people, but he also met the owners of a successful
dance business "Dance Dynamics" that drafted him to teach for
them. Finding he had a knack for teaching, Barry helped
expand social dancing in the southwest and began teaching
country couples, swing, and line dancing. Moving to the
Washington DC area in 1984, thinking he had hung up his dancing
boots, Barry found a country bar in Rockville called Cowboys
and soon was bringing his brand of dance fun to nearly a hundred
people nightly - both couples and line dance. Many of the popular swing or country dance
teachers in the Washington area have either been on his dance
team or been taught or coached for competition by him.
Barry established the team "Dance West" which was undefeated
in competition on the country circuit for 7 years and won the US
Open Swing National Dance championships twice. He also competed over the
years winning many regional and national events including 2 US
Open Showcase Swing titles and 2 US Open Cabaret titles as well
as getting the US Open Humanitarian award for swing. Barry also
won the first Country Dance World Championships in the top
professional level "Masters" in 1993 and won the world championship title
in 2005 in Line Dance Choreography. He has been voted
"Favorite Dance Teacher" in both the Country and Swing genres.
Line dancing has also been a specialty for about 20 years. He brought dances like "Tush Push" and "Hooked on Country", and "Mambo Shuffle" to the Washington DC area years ago. He has choreographed over 30 dances including popular ones like "Funky Cha Cha" and "Mockingbird" which won him the 2005 World Title for Choreography. One of his latest dances - "See You Again" aka the Miley Dance, done to "See You Again" by Miley Cyrus / Hannah Montana is being done by thousands of young dancers around the world and has over 200,000 views on Youtube.
Barry has hosted the
Easterns Washington Dance Challenge dance event for 21 years
and Swing Fling for 14
years. Each dance event has over 1000 attendees annually.
Barry was instrumental in forming the UCWDC (country circuit)
and NASDE (swing circuit). He is a Hall of Fame member of
the UCWDC and just recently in 2010 was inducted into the World
Swing Dance Council Swing Dance Hall of Fame!
Barry is currently performing and competing with Lisa Fay. They compete on the Swing and Country circuit and in Nov 2010 placed 4th at the US Open in the professional Cabaret division and 6th in Showcase Swing. They are also competing in the professional "Masters Showcase" division in the UCWDC country circuit and place 3rd overall at the Country Dance World Championships in 2011.
Teaching (and entertaining) is a passion for
him. He created his own Country & Swing dance syllabus in the
1990's that was even adopted by Fred Astaire International dance
studios. Here's how Barry puts it. "I believe that everyone
starts dancing to have fun and I feel that the "fun" needs to
stay in a class! I like my students to come out of a class
feeling that they were entertained as well as having learned how
to do the moves. Sure, I give them proper dance technique
because I feel it helps them accomplish moves easier; which
makes dancing truly more fun. Many times I "sneak" in the
technique while keeping the class entertaining. Nothing bores
me more in a class than having to listen to teachers that drone
on about technique sometimes just to impress the class with how
much they know. While I do present technique, its wrapped in
the fun of social dance. Remember, its about the fun! Now, if
you come to me to be coached for competition, maybe there is a
little less fun and a lot more action.... but a good time will
be had by all.
email: durand5678@aol.com
|
