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The BBC's own Strictly Come Dancing show has led to thousands of people taking to the floor over the last few years. But the latest dance craze isn't Salsa or Tango or any kind of ballroom.... It's Blues!

Nathan Jeffries (also known as Stokie) and his wife Essie-Jo founded Stokie's Pure Blues Nights which take place regularly at Sneyd Green Community Hall, because they were fed up there were no decent local venues to go Blues dancing.

People come from all over the country to take part and express themselves to the music of JJ Cale, B. B. King, Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton, but Nathan says it's more than just being a fan of the music.

"If you're not a musician you can miss an awful lot of what's going on with Blues music. When you start dancing it maybe doesn't give you the same insight that a musican has, but it does give you an affinity to the music that you don't get sitting on the couch and just listening to it."

What is Blues Dancing?

Blues dancing started in the deep south in America in the early 1900s growing out of Jazz and Lindy Hop, around about 1912. It's a partner dance where you're in a ballroom position holding your partner in an embrace, but as you might expect from blues music, the dancing is very languid and lazy to match.

Nathan and Essie-Jo show off their moves

"If you can imagine someone who's been dancing the tango all night, and at the end of the night how they may look - hunched down and relaxed," says Nathan. "It's a slow and relaxed dance which obviously suits the music."

"The joy of dancing to blues is that it's music with emotion. If you can tap into that and dance to it, it takes that music to a whole new level. If you enjoy listening to blues music, you haven't really heard it till you've danced to it. It brings out all the little nuances that you miss just as a listener."

Getting started

Nathan and Essie-Jo have now started teaching Blues dance classes at the White Star pub in Stoke town centre.  They happen every Monday night and the pair say they're on the lookout for 'playful musical dancers' who'll use the small sounds and nuances in the music to have fun.

"A lot of ballroom dances are male-led, for example the Tango," says Nathan. "We like to think of blues dancing as being led by the music. The two of you together listening to the music, bouncing ideas off each other. Kind of like jamming but in a dance form but rather than a musical form."

And because the dance is from the early 1900s, Nathan says young people shouldn't be put off getting involved.

"You can dance the blues we teach to anything, right up to the modern R'n'B stuff - Ne-Yo, Rhianna, Akon - that sort of thing. So it is still something the younger generation can get involved with."