CHEX Reactions

Man I’m a slacker. CHEX was a month ago and I’m just now getting around to my reactions, so unfortunately, as for ATLX, this is going to be very short and with little to no depth.

I was only able to make about 18 hours of the exchange because when I agreed to dj, I didn’t realize how long a haul it was, and so I didn’t plan for vacation time very wisely. As such I didn’t get down to Charleston until the Saturday night main dance and had to leave immediately following the Sunday afternoon dance.

The Saturday main dance was in a very attractive room with a very unattractive floor, rather sticky, but the CHEX team had powder and what-not to combat it. Their food spread rivaled, perhapses even surpassed that of ATLX – which is impressive. They had a great variety and I spent quite a bit of time snacking in between dances.

The band (Vintage Velvet) was ok, but only ok. What was odd was that the choice of music to play was fabulous, clearly the band has been instructed, and taken to heart, what dancers want to hear. The problem with this band was the way they played; if you didn’t know the music you would assume they were a lounge band. There was barely any swing to them and if memory serves me right, it was actually the pianist’s fault. The bass seemed like he tried to get a groove going but the piano killed any kind of pocket the bass and drum created. And so the dancing could have been much more exciting except for the band.

The Charleston contest was really fun (I got 2nd or 3rd, I don’t recall which), though it dragged on a little long. A slightly different format could have made it much more exciting for the audience (I wasn’t in it, but I felt like it might have gotten a little tedious). The CHEX crew did a great job pulling it off though, and getting folks to sign-up (which is a really tough job).

The late night was good. It had a great vibe (I loved that they kept the room bright enough to see) had a ton of food (including made to order eggs), and some really good DJ’ing.

Sunday afternoon followed traditional exchange tradition and was held in a gazebo (a large gazebo) in a park. The May Pole dance was pretty sweet. The crowd was really small though. I don’t know if that was because of the day it was (Mother’s Day), the Saturday late night, or folks just going home early.

The only other downside (apart from the band on Saturday) was the lack of advanced dancers traveling in. This could have been due to a huge number of factors but the result was that at times, local east coast dominated the dance floor just by sheer numbers. And the advanced dancers that were there hung out in their own corner and danced with themselves when they weren’t sitting.

All in all, CHEX was a great rookie event. It ran very well, the staff was quite efficient and put out an most exceptional effort to give the dancers what they want.

technorati tags:Lindy-Hop, Swing-Dancing, Lindy-Exchange, CHEX, Charleston