Down 2 Dance

Get Ready for Down 2 Dance!

Dear Dancers,

August 23rd will bring Auditory Ambrosia, a divine drip of orgasmic bliss for your ears to resonate throughout your soul.

This is a Partner Dance Forward and Solo Dance Celebrated event.

Inclusive and Consent Based Dance Party!!! All experience levels and dance styles welcome. Come solo, with a partner or group of friends!

Schedule:

3pm Fusion Dance Class with Bliss: Articulate Articulations
4pm DJ Bae Bay
5:15 Deep Squish (DJ's Sorrel and Jae Starfoxl with live accompaniment Amy Loftus (Violin) and Tyler Gary (Sax/Clarinet) of The Forgetmenauts
6:30 Live Set with Ajiri Michelle Ohwobete on vocals, Ronnie Ray Padilla on guitar and Kevin Njikam on keys.

What is the flow for Auditory Ambrosia?

We begin with an all experience levels dance class, to help wake up your spine and connect spinal movements togther with partner dance.

DJ Bae Bay will start us off in Oakland and hand out passports around the world. Hip Hop us from the states to Europe, the Middle East and Mexico. Cumbia to Afro Beats, Kizomba to Zouk to let your hips sway and undulate. Let's meet fusion to a Bachata backbone into a set of more traditional Bachata. Sensuous sounds from the D.R. & Italy along a French Chilian artist. A tanda of traditional, electronic and Moroccan tango to tantalize your toes. Let's fly. Welcome aboard, caution.... objects shift during flight.

Deep Squish blends improvisational jazz and dub styles with fusion partner dance music. Imagine your favorite dance songs expanded into new sonic landscapes, with live musicians and magical dubbing. Deep Squish creates a journey through juicy hiphop, playful wubs, and a rich palate of tasty beats. DJ’s Starfox and Sorrel bring deep and squishy jams for musicians to weave with improv and dialogue. We hope for listeners to enjoy a feeling in the live music like the connection and communication of partner dance.

This jam features musicians Amy Loftus (Violin) and Tyler Gary (Sax/Clarinet) of The Forgetmenauts.

Follow Us:
www.instagram.com/deepsquish/
https://www.instagram.com/the.forgetmenauts.band/

Listen:
https://www.mixcloud.com/DeepSquish/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/0GFHXlrYzlAHkU2OKypmap

Closing our journey, Ajiri Michelle Ohwobete a Bay Area-based singer and songwriter with contemporary sounds will craft a dynamic, genre-spanning set across R&B, Afro-Beats, and soulfully nestle us home in our bodies.
Instagram:
@ajirimichelle

She will be accompanied by the legendary musicians Ronnie Ray Padilla on guitar and Kevin Njikam on keys.


Bliss She/Her

Bliss is a lifelong dancer and the creative force behind Down 2 Dance. With over 20 years of experience as a fusion dancer, she brings a rich tapestry of partner dance and solo dances to her movement art.

She will be guiding a fusion dance class for flowing movements through our hips hearts and heads. Articulate articulations through the spine will as they say in a yogic proverb, stay as young as our spine is flexible.

Dance on dance fam, dance on.


Sweets Historic Ballroom

Sweets is a historic music and dance venue in downtown Oakland, California, known for its grand Art Deco-era charm and lively past. This spacious ballroom dates back to the Roaring Twenties, when it first opened as a dance school and quickly became Oakland’s premier music venues.

The building itself is a 12,000-square-foot Baroque Revival-style hall, featuring high ceilings, ornate details, and a large hardwood dance floor that has seen generations of revelers . Sweets Ballroom’s rich history and vintage elegance make it not just a venue, but a local landmark that continues to thrive nearly a century after its debut.

Opened by entrepreneur William “Bill” Sweet in the early 1920s as a dance school, Sweets Ballroom became enormously popular in the 1930's and 1940's and was called “The East Bay Home of the Big Bands,” and was the venue of choice for thousands who enjoyed dancing to swing music and Latin jazz.

Seven nights a week up to 900 dancers would pay 35 cents to see legendary perfomers such as Ella Fitsgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tito Puente and Willie Bobo, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Tommy Dorsey, and many more. Frank Sinatra made his Bay Area debut on the Sweets stage in 1941!

Historic Sweet’s Ballroom was also a very important gathering place for Oakland’s Mexican and Latino community. Starting in the 1930s, local Mexican promoter Guadalupe Carlos began organizing Sunday night Mexican and Latino dances known as “Tardeadas.” The house band was Orquesta Merced Gallegos. Latinos in Zoot Suits would dance to the latest Latin musical styles, like Mambo, Cha-Cha, and Mariachi music. Great Latin performers like Perez Prado, Pedro Infante, Lalo Guerrero, Xavier Cugat, and many others played up a Latin storm at Historic Sweet’s Ballroom.

Over the decades, the venue went through various names and management, it was known as McFadden’s, Linn’s, Tropicana and later Sands Ballroom in the mid-20th century, yet it remained a beloved gathering place for music and dancing.

Today, Sweets Ballroom retains its unique character while serving modern audiences. After a period of dormancy in the late 20th century, the venue was restored and revitalized, and it’s now actively used for both public events and educational purposes.

In 2014, the neighboring Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) adopted the historic ballroom as part of its campus, becoming the master tenant to utilize the space for student performances, arts showcases, and community events . This partnership helped ensure that Sweets Ballroom remains alive and accessible, integrating youthful energy into its old walls. The venue’s renaissance under OSA and local event promoters means that Sweets continues to be a “beacon of entertainment” in Oakland – a place where history, culture, and live performance come together for new generations .

It is one of the motherships of Ecstatic Dance, which started on Big Island Hawaii and then came to Oakland at Sweets originally as a Sunday morning dance and then expanded to both Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. This has become a hub for dancers that are looking for radical free expression, consent based culture and music that takes the community on a musical journey arch. With a word-free dance floor, the focus is the music and dancing to ecstatic states while maintaining a sober space.

Few venues in the region can match the vintage ambiance or cultural legacy of Sweets Ballroom, which is why it holds a special place in the heart of Oakland’s arts and nightlife scene.