Advanced Dancer Weekend

I have just recently begun discussing an idea for an advanced Lindy Hop weekend getaway with a few friends. Ideas continue to spring from the concept of Lindy Hop as Performance Art and I think it would make for an amazing weekend to structure a small event in that pursuit, if only for the laboratory experience of having experimented.

Ideally I want 32-40 dancers in attendance, enough to break into four groups of 4 or 5 couples each. After (early) morning sessions of yoga and pilates one group would go to contemporary/modern jazz, another to african dance, a third to hip hop, and a fourth to tumbling. Everyone would rotate through all four during the course of the weekend (2 each day). Late afternoon/evening would be occupied with choreography; two groups would focus on a lindy hop(ish) routine and the other two would do solo charleston/vernacular jazz and then switch the next night. Choreography would last for a couple hours, and then its time to perform for the other groups and then just dance with each other. Somewhere during the day would come food, and sometime after the dancing would come sleep. It would be oh so grueling and oh so fun.

So who wants to join me? Who can we get to teach?

Lindy Hop as Performance Art?

I’ve recently been on a kick of exploring Lindy Hop as a Performance Art, mostly thanks to my summer infatuation with So You Think You Can Dance. Relatedly (if only just tangentially) Alain Wong has a post about a show by Solid State Breakdance in which a fusing of break dancing and Lindy Hop occurs. Also a major catalyst to this drive is Steven and Virginie, who to me share the most exciting partnership in Lindy Hop today.

I love the whole vintage rock out Lindy movement ala ULHS, but over all I gain more inspiration from the movement of Lindy Hop forward than from the perfection of where Lindy Hop came from. Despite their detractors, what Steven and Virginie do, in my mind at least, pushes the envelope of Lindy Hop more than any other couple. And their pushing is more and more into the direction of art, rather than just social dance.

I started this post last week, and I’ve since completely forgotten about where I wanted to take it.

I would like to see more risk taken in Lindy Hop. And by risk I really mean more controversy, not just to stir up trouble, but to see what the dance can be. It seems to me that there is a very strict line to toe about what is and isn’t Lindy Hop. And this seems to be a constant point of discussion. I remember years of Yehoodi and even Lindy Cafe (don’t look it up, it’s long dead) threads debating what was Lindy Hop and what was really just hard swinging West Coast. What I don’t recall is seeing much in the way of pushing the envelope of the dancing. I can’t see how it would be bad to bring lyrical and contemporary jazz movement into performance Lindy Hop and it would certainly be great to use Lindy Hop inspired movement in those mediums as well.

There was a time when the idea of taking a modern jazz, or lyrical/contemporary (excuse my ignorant nomenclature) gave me shudders because I feared what it might do to my Lindy Hop. Now I’m practically beating down the doors of various studios looking for a teacher with inspiring ideas that I can study with because of what I hope it will do to my Lindy Hop.

Tags: dance, Jazz, lindy hop, Steven Mitchell, Virginie, lyrical