Barry Durand Bio

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. His latest dance - "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.

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).

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