Filed under: General
- 30% of women are depressed; 15% or more of men are depressed
- 54% of people believe depression is a personal weakness
- 41% of depressed women are too embarrassed to seek help
- 80% of depressed people are not currently having any treatment
- It’s a fun way to get some exercise– when you exercise, your body releases endorphins which trigger positive feelings and euphoria; exercise can also increase energy and improve sleep
- Swing music is generally very happy and upbeat– even slower songs are usually expressive rather than draining
- Lindy Hop incorporates lots of positive movements that are associated with joy and celebration, such as jumping and bouncing
- Lindy Hop encourages open, upright posture which improves self-esteem and counters the effect of slumped, depressed posture
- Lindy Hop provides a great deal of social interaction and direct connection with other people. Depressed persons tend to isolate and withdraw– symptoms that exacerbate the illness.
- Social interaction increases the chances that you will make new friends– people to talk to, have fun with, and turn to in times of need
- Dancing and improvisation force you to be completely in the moment, drawing your thoughts away from regrets, sadness, and self-punishment
- Dancing is a wonderful outlet for self-expression, a good way to release pent-up emotions
- Dance etiquette causes us to smile a lot when interacting with a partner, which helps trigger happy feelings
- Learning a new skill engages your brain, builds self-confidence, and encourages creativity
- Setting new goals can provide direction and sense of purpose despite thoughts of failure in other areas
- Beating yourself up for failures on the dance floor or in class
- Waiting for others to ask you instead of taking the initiative
- Focusing only on dancing with high-level dancers
- Becoming obsessed with improvement or climbing the dance hierarchy
- Staying home because you feel too fat to dance in public
- Focusing too much on other body shapes and sizes instead of enjoying your own
- Focusing on image rather than ability
Filed under: General
Jumped into some of the Camp Jitterbug classes this weekend (which is something I should be doing way more often), and it was really interesting to see Lindy Hop classes from the student’s perspective again. The classes I took were excellent, and it got me to thinking about what makes for a great Lindy Hop class…
To preface, I’m speaking specifically of weekend workshop classes that are aimed at the intermediate level and above. It is such a different ball game to teach beginners, weekly classes, one-time intro lessons, or other styles of dance, so keep that in mind when reading the following points:
- Positive, encouraging attitude [Dancing is supposed to be fun, even for the most advanced students!]
- Clear introduction and ending to the class session
- Constant partner rotations [Every person in the room should be able to try new material at least once before you move on]
- Focus on one concept at a time [Make a point, let the students practice, then make your next point]
- Clear, concise explanations of the mechanics involved [yes, CONCISE]
- Understand the mechanics of what you are doing
- Have fun! When you have fun, the students have fun.
My soapbox moment: You don’t become a great dancer by listening to someone talk about dancing, you become great by DANCING.
Personally, I think there is way, way too much talk in Lindy Hop workshops these days. If the goal is to entertain your students, that’s fine, but if people want to become better dancers, the only way to do it is to get them dancing as much as possible. And, of course, to talk them through the process.
So, yes, it’s great to joke around, and it’s really great to include some dance history, and it’s pretty crucial to explain your points clearly and concisely, but save the lectures for your blog:)
For the record, that was not at all my experience at Camp Jitterbug. The classes I took were extremely well-balanced between demo/explanations, practice time, and rotations. It’s great to walk out of a dance class and feel like you’ve learned something and actually danced as well!
Filed under: General
You know them: they’re that couple who shows up at a dance separately and are stuck like glue for the rest of the night. One or both of them is usually a badass, otherwise you wouldn’t notice them… you wouldn’t feel that twinge of animosity when they proceed to dance yet another song together, and then another. At times, you feel like a hawk waiting for that one opportunity to swoop in and feast on your prey. But mostly, it seems pointless to dance with someone who obviously would much rather be dancing with somebody else.
Then again, if you’ve ever been the velcro couple, you know the other side of the story. It’s euphoric to find your other half– to be able to shut off all other senses and just dance all night long without thinking; to feel complete, wanted.
Upon returning to Seattle, the one major change I’ve noticed (granted, in the very few times I’ve been out social dancing) is the emergence of a record number of velcro couples. It’s a pretty disheartening feeling to look around at all the usual suspects and realize that most of them are taken for the night. But how can I possibly judge them, when I have done and will do exactly the same?
The dilemma is, I can’t possibly blame anyone who wants to dance with their lindy sweetheart all night long. At the same time, I can’t help but see how negatively even just one velcro couple can affect a scene or a particular event.
A thought without conclusion.
Filed under: History
(transferred from myspace blog)
“[The Texas Tommy] is the earliest example that we have found in the vernacular of a couple-dance incorporating, as the Lindy did fifteen or more years later, the breakaway, or the temporary and energetic separating of partners…” Jazz Dance, Marshall & Jean Stearns (129)
A brilliant innovation in partner dance, a wild and whirling catastrophe of movement, the mother of breakaway Charleston, the grandmother of Lindy Hop… and now this groundbreaking milestone of jazz dance has been reduced to a simple swing-out variation in our communal consciousness.
The Texas Tommy (vintage slang for prostitute) was born in the Ragtime era, when the hot jazz music of New Orleans had yet to reach the public ear. Though musicians had been playing various streams of jazz since the turn of the century, their infectious music wasn’t recorded and disseminated until February 1917.
This syncopated jazz dance (arguably pre-jazz dance) incorporated many of the innovations destined to reach public ballrooms decades after its extinction. Primarily a performance dance, the Texas Tommy first appeared on the Barbary Coast circa 1910 and made its way to Harlem’s Lafayette Theatre, where its acrobatic exuberance and perpetual improvisation helped propel J. Leubrie Hill’s “Darktown Follies” to unprecedented heights of success.
The Texas Tommy was generally performed by four to six couples, whose circular momentum sent more than one follower reeling into the orchestra pit. The dance itself consisted of three alternating hop-steps and a few beats for improvisations of every kind, all within the framework of opening and closing– much like the Lindy Hop basic. Descriptions of the Texas Tommy even indicate that the dance was airborne at times, all the while maintaining a degree of poise and grace to counterbalance the impression of complete chaos.
Syncopation. Improvisation. Breakaway. Air steps. Nearly two decades before Lindy hopped the Atlantic. It’s good to know your roots…
(transferred from myspace blog)
In the beginning (1998, of course), there was the Swing Revival. Gap was doing it, ska bands were doing it, Christian Bale was doing it… people went nutty for swing all over again. The Lindy Hop was brought back from near-extinction, and in those days you were either “Hollywood” or “Savoy.” This meant your dancing was either modeled after professional white dancers featured in old movie clips and soundies (which you probably hid in a secret vault in your basement), or somebody’s interpretation of an 80-year-old Frankie Manning.
Ah yes, those were the days. If you were lucky, Steven Mitchell might come to your town once a year to teach you just how very white you are, and if you were really hardcore, you would string together all your favorite moves to the tune of “Mildred, Won’t You Behave” and score first place at both Camp Hollywood and the American Lindy Hop Championships.
Like all good things, however, it wasn’t meant to last. As the red-headed stepchild of Lindy Hop– resembling neither the smooth-styled Dean & Jewel nor the balls-out Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers– “Savoy-style” dancers were on an insatiable search for their own identity. From West Coast Swing, to Carolina Shag, to Hip Hop and Breaking, they scoured every available dance form for something that fit. Some of our finest dancers were lost forever to the West Coast Swing world– others were temporarily shunned for partaking in the cult of Lindy Hip Hop– but most of these young wanderers emerged unscathed and with something altogether new and different… the great melting-pot of partner dances: the “Groove”.
Sometimes referred to as Wiggly Hop, Groove dancing mixed the isolations of Hip Hop, the floor craft of West Coast Swing, the subtlety of Carolina Shag, and the Lindy Hop basics to create a dance form that was new, groovy, and ideally suited to mid-tempo jazz and swing music. Groove dancing was epitomized by figure-skating spins, slow-motion backbends, and body rolls– the emphasis being placed on a desperate, spontaneous musicality as opposed to high-flying aeriels and fancy choreography.
In a way, it was the sudden, frantic rebellion against “Groove” dancing (as well as tired, choreographed Lindy Hop) that finally ended the four-year Hollywood v. Savoy “Style Wars.” Come 2002, it no longer mattered what style of Lindy Hop you did, as long as you did it “raw.” To this day, no one really knows what that is supposed to mean. See also: Mad Dog, Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown.
What does all this have to do with “Blues Dancing,” you ask? I’ll tell you.
From the beginning, Lindy Hoppers have been sensual, experimental beings. When the music got slow, they enjoyed rubbing up against each other as much as any other socially awkward young subculture. Like their West Coast Swing counterparts, they also enjoyed dancing to blues music– generally applying a kind of bastardized WCS whip to faster songs and the standard hug & grind for slower, grittier blues.
Not long after the “raw” rebellion of 2002, there was a cross-section of Lindy Hoppers who decided what they really liked doing in a roomful of sexually-charged beings was to dance slow and close, exerting as little effort and actual dance skill as possible. These so-called “Lindy Hop Drop-outs” began to host separate parties and dance events where they could do just that.
As with any separatist movement, these slow-grinders needed a name for their new-found passion. And so it came to be that these parties were called “Blues Parties,” the style of dancing “Blues Dancing,” and, of course, the birth of the “Blues Dancers.”
Now, the Lindy Hoppers never did stop dancing slow, nor did they stop dancing to blues music. In fact, a rebirth of the ancient Slow Drag along with other slow dances and dance steps such as the Mooche, Low Downs, Shake Dancing, and Snake Hips has only intensified the level of slow and gritty dancing within the Lindy Hop community.
If we’re lucky, the Blues scene is already on the path to subdivisions within subdivisions of itself. Much like the Balboa dancers and their frequent, choreographed knife fights over Pure Bal versus Bal-Swing, we can only hope that tensions are already rising between Pure Blues, Micro-blues, and Future-blues proponents throughout the world. As for me, I’m waiting for the second coming of Mad Dog. If nothing else, they’ll do it raw.
Filed under: Poetry
“But oh! they dance with poetry in their eyes
Whose dreamy loveliness no sorrow dims,
And parted lips and eager, gleeful cries,
And perfect rhythm in their nimble limbs.
The gifts divine are theirs, music and laughter;
All other things, however great, come after.”
(excerpt from Claude McKay’s “Negro Dancers”)
