This unique Afro-fusion dance class melds elemental, poly-rhythmic movement and music into a joyful mix - designed along a cardiovascular curve for optimal fitness. Open-minded movers at all levels of experience are invited to join us in exploring the benefits of integrating rhythm, breath, imagination, and a playful but deep focus.

The choreography is deceptively simple. New students can pick it up with ease. Experienced dancers find new challenges and unexpected depths, even after years of involvement. Participant age ranges from teens to septuagenarians.

"Each class with Wassa is a welcome surprise;
there is always something new, unexpected,
and deeper to work and play with." - Jenny E.

Drop-in dancers are always welcome!

Sunday Morning Groove: all-the-way-live!
This Afro-fusion dance class is suited for skilled movers and playful beginners who enjoy expression and well-being in a supportive community. Explore the depths of African-based movement while tuning your senses to the percussive grooves of a rich mix of the city's finest musicians.
Come see why this is one of Seattle's longest-running live music dance classes.

"Just what I'd been looking for -- movement, spirit,
sweat, fun, and glorious music." - Marilyn L.

Wassa's Lab
These special classes change focus with the seasons and offer dedicated students time to delve more deeply into specific movement / music themes from the regular classes. Lab descriptions and schedule are posted quarterly.

About Lara
Choreographer, performer, teacher: Lara McIntosh has dancer all her life and has been active in Seattle drum and dance communities since for over fifteen years. Lara's Afro-fusion dance classes have been independently run and ongoing since 1997. POSITIVE SWEAT was the first incarnation of her unique teaching style. She also offers residencies in local schools and intensive retreat-style workshops internationally. Lara's community projects include direction ensembles for the Fremont Summer Solstice Parade and Pageants, micro-lending fundraising projects in Africa, and travels for cultural study to Brazil and Mali, West Africa.

...and Wassa
Lara creates Wassa Dance from years of daily teaching and exploration of the roots and movements of the peoples in the African Diaspora. Studies in Mali, West Africa have brought new music and authentic skills to her eclectic mix. Wassa is the Bambara name given to her in Mali, and translates loosely as "one who acts for joy and fulfillment."

Positive Sweat
...was the original incarnation of Lara's vision and development as a professional teacher; classes ran from 1994 through 2007. The name Positive Sweat came from the original ideas behind the slang terms "funk" and "funky," traced from the Ki-Kongo African phrase, Lu-fuki.

"Lu-fuki" means to know someone's spirit by their efforts— literally, by their smell. "Working out" to achieve one's aims identifies a positive energy in a person. (See Robert Farris Thompson's book Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art and Philosophy.)

Why Dance Globally?
"Together the cultures of the world make up an intellectual and spiritual web of life, an ethnosphere that envelopes and insulates the planet, and is as vital to our collective well-being as is the biosphere. Think of the ethnosphere as the sum total of thoughts, beliefs, myths, and intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness. It is humanity's greatest legacy, the product of our dreams, the embodiment of our hopes, the symbol of all that we are and have created as a wildly inquisitive and astonishingly adaptive species."
- Whole Earth, Spring 2002 by Wade Davis