Alumni

A long time ago (in the midst of “the resurgence”) I came across a thing on the internet I’ve not been able to find that categorized Swince Dancers by class year (Freshman, Sophmore, etc.). The Alumni were listed as those who’s names you know from the “seniors”, who’s faces you only see at “special” events or when they are teaching a class.

This weekend I realized I’ve become one of them, one of those “legends” who don’t go social dancing, when they do they merely socialize dancing very little, and about the only dancing they do is while they are teaching.

In my defense this fall has been nuts. My wife moved to New York to sing and I commute up there every other weekend. I don’t get in until 11:30 on Thursday nights so there’s no Frim Fram (she lives in Inglewood and I wouldn’t get to Frim Fram from La Guardia until well after midnight anyway) and there isn’t much weekend Lindy Hop with a “reasonable” cover. The only dancing in Nashville right now is on those every other weekends I visit my wife. I didn’t plan it that way, it just happened.

Because of the money and time involved, if I go to a dance weekend (e.g. I’ve missed AVS, Southern Belle, and a few others) it means I’ve chosen to not visit my wife but go dancing rather.

This last weekend (at the Swing Smorgasbord in Cincinnati) was the first dancing I’ve done since early October teaching in Boone, and just like that weekend, the only reason I went is because I was teaching.

I used to feel some resentment towards those who were like this. Now that I am one, I feel resentment about being like this, but mostly because I resented those who were similar back when I was an absolute addict.

Tags: LindyHop, Swing Dancing, Cincy Swing, New York City, Frim Fram, Cinicinnati, Social Dance

Harvest Moon Melee, Conclusions

Saturday night competitions at HMM 2007 included the Lindy Hop Jam, Social Dance (Jack and Jill) Finals, and Non Swing. The non-swing was most definitely the highlight event of the weekend. Hilarity was the m.o. and many a team brought that to the table.

The Lindy Hop Jam was the redux version of the Charleston Jam from Friday night, albeit with more appropriate music. As with the Lindy Hop, there were some very impressive moments. I fondly recall the team antics of OCD, Big George, and especially the Tiny Bunch. After Battle of the Cities I had intended to orchestrate some group play, but completely forgot until the nights of. ah well.

The Social Dance Finals were typical Jack and Jill jam style Finals, the exception being that the couple from prelims were judged and qualified for finals as a couple. The dancing was good and tight, and a who’s who of Atlanta and especially Big George. If I recall right, of 7 couples, 4 had a Big George member and there were 6 total Atlanta representatives.

I most impressed, throughout the whole weekend, with how the non-swing was accomplished. Each team randomly drew a genre of music (a la So You Think You Can Dance). The first round was preceded with 50 minutes of time to work on things, then performance. The second round music was drawn at the conclusion of the first round, and teams had approximately 5 minutes to prepare for that. Creativity was certainly the name of the game, especially for round two as there was hardly any time to put something together - it was nearly contact improv.

The scoring of the weekend went thusly. Teams were given relative placement for each event by the judges. Those placements were then grouped together for the weekend, as relative placements as if each contest had been a judge. And viola - the winners:1st  Big George Savoy Bouncers,  2nd Tiny Bunch, 3rd Swing Blade(s of Glory). We (SBG) were quite surprised and thrilled to have placed at all. We had three goals going into HMM. 1) Have fun 2) Avoid Injuries 3) Place higher than last. We accomplished 1 and 2 as well.

Swing Blade(s of Glory) in all their Glory, HMM 2007

Harvest Moon Melee, day 1

It’s the break between classes and the evening dance, the completion of the first 24 hours of the Harvest Moon Melee in Nashville, TN.  The one thing I hate about competition centered weekends is the lack of social dance time, because even when it’s time for social dancing, many of the competitors are actually working out final details for the upcoming comps, or busy nursing the bruised egos from the previous competition.

Last night was tons of fun, apart from the not enough social dancing time (which for me is also attributable for an hour at Waffle House and then an “early” trip home from the late night).   The evening opened with the Showcase (team routine) division. There are 7 teams here: Big George Savoy Bouncers (Atlanta, GA), Knoxvillians - though they insisted on the pronunciation of Knoxvillains (Knoxville, TN), Swing Blade(s of Glory) - the location of the parentheses is paramount (Nashville, TN), Whitey’s Cindy Loppers - which I think is the best name here (Nashville, TN), Orlando City Dippers - OCD… hehehe (Orlando, FL),  Tiny Bunch (Atlanta, GA), and last but not least - Stomp House (Raleigh, NC).

I’ll get into to routines more once they are posted on YouTube, but everybody brought “IT”! They were all great and they all displayed their teams quite well. Whitey’s Cindy Loppers was by far the most fun and entertaining with their review of the 80’s.

After the Showcase was the Charleston Jam, which unfortunately didn’t really get to truly jamming tempos until near the end. The fault I really found with the tempos was not simply because the songs were slower and so really rocking out was difficult, but because there were so few round in which to dance. On our team for one, not everyone even got to dance because there just weren’t enough rotations because the songs were so slow that a half hour went by with not enough 8 counts. This is not to say that there weren’t poignant moments, there were some spectacular dances during this jam.

The final event of the evening was the Sudden Death Social Dance Competition Challenge. I really liked how the organizers pulled this one off. They did it Jack and Jill style in that partners were randomly paired. All the competitors got a number in their packet. You danced with the other person who got the same number, and each number was given a heat to dance in. Last night was only the prelims and it was 4 heats of 3 songs danced all skate (I wouldn’t want to be the judges). Finals will be tonight and will be jam style.

Classes today were great. I taught a beginning class with a helper (Kristy White) who I’d never gotten to teach with before. It was quite fun and the class went well. Then I jumped in on the performance track and was able to catch a class with Bobby and Kate who are always terrific and have great material. The last class was aerials with Jill and Kerry and that also went quite well.

The Passion of Dance

Thanks to my buddy Ben at Pet Peeving for sending En Tus Brazos. The subject deals specifically with Tango, but it does a great job of capturing the emotions and passions of partner dancing in general.