We just can’t say thank you enough to everyone who came through our doors to participate in this year’s Portland Dance Festival. We sincerely appreciate your giving up a little bit of your summer to spend the weekend with us ~ you helped make our event special and successful in so many ways. It was truly a great weekend of dancing, camaraderie and FUN. It’s very comforting to read so many warm, happy post-event messages from our Facebook family ~ thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with us. A HUGE thank you also to our volunteer staff and event staff for all of your excellent work, and for taking care of all of our many northwest dance friends! 

The event kicked off with an amazing, energy filled room on Thursday night with our opening social dance and Country Club Pattern and Line contests sponsored by Bushwhackers, Duke’s, and the Midnight Roundup. Friday night rocked with the Pro-Am Jack and Jill ~ this informal competition has become one of our favorite activities of the weekend. The UCWDC competition in ProAm and Couples was very fun to watch ~ we are so very happy to see a resurgence of country dance in our community. The Just Dance Two Step and Strictly Swing divisions were again strong this year, but the Jack and Jill divisions in both two step and swing truly ROCKED the House!!! The energy in the ballroom each day, but especially on Sunday, was truly inspirational. Thank you Portland for coming out in force! Congratulations to all the participants in the competitions throughout the weekend. Please visit our Contest Results Page to see how everyone did.

We’d like to thank Tiffany Lorenzen and all of our performers for putting together an amazing show for us on Saturday night. The dancing was incredible and the “Lifeguard Tryouts” installment was particularly entertaining. Let’s all do it again next year!

We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the Portland Swing Dance Club for your excellent Beach Party inspired decorations in the swing room. Our relationship with PSDC goes back to the beginning of the club and we truly appreciate the continued support the club has given throughout the years. Kudos to you!

Thanks to Jenica Zimmer and the Portland Swing Dance Club for donating cash awards for two of our swing divisions, and thanks to the several regional events that donated event tickets to enhance the prizes in several divisions. They included: SO Swing, BridgeTown Swing, Medford Wine and Dancing, Rose City Swing and the South Bay Dance Fling.
 
Once again, Volunteers!  We couldn’t have done this event without you and we wholeheartedly salute you! If you were one of our amazing volunteers, please join us on Saturday, July 19th for our Annual Volunteer Appreciation BBQ (significant others welcome). RSVP to rlshotts@comcast.net. 

In closing, we’d like to invite everyone to please plan to join us for the 2014 Portland Dance Festival July 10-12, 2015. Have an amazing summer and we’ll see you next year.