Starlight Blues

Blues Dancing Under the Stars in Pittsburgh

Time	Location
Typically Saturday nights starting at 9pm, weather permitting.	Grandview Park Bandstand (499 Bailey Ave, Pitts­burgh PA).

We're Back for 2024!

The 2024 outdoor dancing season is probably over, but with global warming one never knows...

About

Why do we do this? We love to dance! Want to be sure never to miss a dance? See below.

We dance next to the Grand­view Park Band­stand (or in case a light shower pops up, behind, where there is some shelter from the rain). As this is in a park next to a purely resi­den­tial area, there are no nearby facil­ities other than a porta­potty in the park itself, and we dance on concrete. Pre­pare acc­ord­ingly.

When Is a Dance Ann­ounc­ed?

Since this is an out­door dance, the de­cis­ion whe­ther to act­ually hold it is based on the weath­er fore­cast for Mount Wash­ing­ton as of the morn­ing before the dance (gen­er­ally: at least 60°F and less than 25% chance of pre­cip­ita­tion). We'll then up­date the status of a plan­ned dance from "ten­tative" to either "con­firmed" or "cancel­led". The de­cision will be ann­ounced no later than 6pm, and usual­ly by noon.

Getting Notifications:

1. You can ask to be added to the mail­ing list by send­ing email to starlightbluespgh@gmail.com.
   You will receive an email the morn­ing/after­noon of a plan­ned dance if it has been confirmed.
2. You can subscribe to the RSS feed in your fav­orite news reader.
3. You can add the Starlight Blues schedule to your own Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, or other iCal-compat­ible cal­endar by past­ing the follow­ing cal­endar address into the appro­priate "sub­scribe to cal­endar", "add other cal­endars", or "Other Cal­endars: Add by URL" (Google) form:
   https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/starlightbluespgh%40gmail.com/public/basic.ics
4. Or, you can return to this page and check the agenda (click on an event to toggle details).

Getting There

From Downtown: Cross the Smithfield Street Bridge, then follow the directions below.

From East or West: Take I-376 to the Grant Street exit. Turn left onto Fort Pitt Blvd at the signal, then left again onto the Smith­field Street bridge. After cross­ing the bridge, turn left onto Car­son Street, then take the next right onto Arling­ton Avenue. Follow Arling­ton until you reach the Daily Mart (you'll also see a big mural on the right), then bear right onto Warr­ing­ton Ave­nue at the signal. Pro­ceed to the second signal ("Ama­zing" mural on your left), and turn right onto Beltz­hoover Avenue. The park is where Beltz­hoover makes a 45° left turn to become Bailey Avenue.

From the North: Take I-579 into downtown and follow directions to the Lib­erty Tun­nel. Go through the tunnel and turn right immed­iately on exiting. Turn right again onto Warr­ing­ton Ave at the next light (400 feet). Follow Warr­ing­ton Ave until you see the "Allen­town" mural. Turn left at the mural onto Beltz­hoover Avenue. The park is where Beltz­hoover makes a 45° left turn to become Bailey Avenue.

From the South: Take PA-51/Sawmill Run Blvd to Warr­ing­ton Ave­nue. Follow Warr­ing­ton Ave until you see the "Allen­town" mural. Turn left at the mural onto Beltz­hoover Avenue. The park is where Beltz­hoover makes a 45° left turn to become Bailey Avenue.

From Anywhere: Click on the map to acc­ess Goo­gle's dir­ections. Note that Google is likely to send you up East Syc­amore Street, after which it will have you drive 1000+ feet on a street paved with Belgian Block (cobble­stones).

What music do we dance to?

What is Blues Dancing?

• groundedness and athletic posture
• lagging behind the music
• a music-based pulse in the dancers' bodies and steps
• high levels of improvisation

Blues styles include "Jookin'" (Juke Joint Blues), "Ballroomin'" ([Harlem] Ballroom Blues), "Struttin'", "Slow Drag", "Drag Blues", and more.

For more Blues dancing, come to Blues and Fusion Forge on most Friday nights 8:30pm-10:30pm (lesson 7:30pm) at Art in Motion (1001 Main Street, Sharpsburg, Pittsburgh 15215).

Photos

Privacy Policy: This site uses Google's calendar and map­ping services, which are covered by Google's pri­vacy policy. The calendar and map may set cookies, but StarlightBlues.com itself does not use cookies. The web server main­tains standard access logs that record which com­puter accessed which page(s) on this site. Unless you sign up for email noti­fica­tions, we do not col­lect any person­ally-ident­ifiable infor­mation. Your email address will be used solely to inform you of up­coming dances and will not be shared with third parties.