I honestly can't believe how time flies these days. I started thinking about writing a small review of the recent International Lindy Hop Championships the day it ended and next thing you know, we're half-way through September. So now I'm going to attempt to put into words the greatest and yet most disappointing Lindy Hop event I have ever attended.
Did that catch your attention? You don't expect to see the words "disappointment" and ILHC used together do you? It's not really what you might think.
Let me get this out right away...ILHC was amazing. I've been lucky enough to attend some of the biggestLindyHopevents around the country over the past two years. Almost all of them are fun simply because it's next to impossible to gather a large group of Lindy Hoppers into a town and not enjoy yourself. I think it's in our blood to have a good time. But ILHC is more than just fun. It's the perfect combination of talent, competition, innovation, organization and, yes, fun!
I walked away from the first ILHC feeling it had set the bar among dance competition weekends. Everything moved so smoothly and the transition from workshops to competitions to dances was seamless. And never before had I seen as many professional Lindy Hoppers in one room. Well the organizers of ILHC improved upon 2008 (seriously, was there even room to improve?) and made the 2009 version of ILHC even better. This year they had a Thursday night dance at the hotel, great bands, excellent DJs and even more professional dancers than the previous year. Not to mention, there was a crazy increase in the general level of dance talent. It's hard to imagine topping the inaugural event, but they did. I'd say it's safe to assume ILHC is now the premier Lindy Hop competition.
The Disappointment I hope it's clear by what I just wrote, ILHC is in no way a disappointment. No, the disappointment here is within me and my desires to improve as a dancer. I've gone back and forth over writing about this particular feeling. I don't want to come off as arrogant or selfish. And I don't ever want to assume I'm a better dancer than what I really am. But this is my blog, and this is where I can express myself and vent my frustrations. And with some encouragement from The Godfather and ILHC organizer Jerry Almonte, I'm going forward with it.
In 2008, I made the open jack and jill finals and placed 4th dancing with Krista Parrish. In 2009, I didn't make finals. You have no idea how upset I was over this. You see, I've taken to competitions because I see them as a chance to judge my progress, take in some constructive criticism and because they embody what Lindy Hop was in Harlem in the '30s. So when you feel like you've made tremendous progress over a year, you expect to either move up or place higher.
I've had a personal rule to stay in a certain division until I place in the top 3 of that division. Because of my 4th place finish last year, I figured I'd stay in the open level, hopefully place and then move up to advanced in 2010. Prelims are always interesting because you have no idea who you're going to be paired with. And more and more, you're not sure you'll even know the person you're dancing with. I've embraced this idea all along and usually go into these comps feeling pretty good now. That was until I was paired with a few dancers who couldn't swing out and couldn't follow a basic tandem charleston. (For the record, my second dance with Sharlene Choy was awesome!)
Like I said, I've always tried to be modest in rating my abilities as a dancer and understand what level I'm truly good enough to compete in. But not making finals a year after you've placed 4th is pretty hard to swallow. And then watching the finals knowing you could/and probably should be out there really left me wondering. I suppose I walk away wishing more dancers would employ a similar personal critique I use and understand there is a time and a place to compete. And maybe ILHC is not the best time to throw your hat into the competition field when there are basic skills you have not mastered. Trust me, I would love to be out there in the advanced level looking like I belong. But this is a competition. I know my limits. I just wish others did as well.
The Memory For me, there are a ton of memories to walk away with. We'll start with Thursday night, seeing a few of my JCC dance students show up. They sat along the back wall and were mesmerized by the effortless dancing of Carla Heiney. They watched Crista Seipp and Andreas Olsson put on a show - one that was leading up to the two winning the open strictly. Side note on that: you could just tell Andreas and Crista were poised to win. Watching them dance that first night, it was clear they were "on." They carried it all the way through the finals. DC!!!
But I digress... my second memory comes from Friday night, competing in the open strictly with Caroline Seipp on my birthday. When we walked on to the floor, the amount of cheering and happy birthday wishes really warmed my heart. One thing is certain among the lindy hop world, we're a close bunch and I couldn't have asked for a better birthday than to spend it with them.
My third memory and the one that stands out comes from the Champions strictly final. So much has been said about this one particular competition. Putting these dancers on a floor against each other makes for natural excitement and inspiration. But what we saw that Saturday night was more than dancing. It was the entire spirit of Lindy Hop take hold of two couples and engulf the entire crowd watching. The spotlights ended with the standard swing out line. Most of the couples went into their own thing. Skye and Frida and Max and Annie continued to swing out. They didn't stop until a few moments before the end of the song. Each swing out lifted the crowd higher and higher to the point everyone in the room was screaming for them. Watching Skye's face light up in the middle of all this, feeding off the crowd and the music is something I will probably never forget. This is why we dance!
The Summary You know, there really isn't much more I can say about ILHC 2009. If you didn't go this year, you missed out on one of the best Lindy Hop events of the year. Congrats to the winners and thank you to everyone who helped make the event possible.
On Wednesday, July 29th, I returned to Los Angeles, one of my favorite cities in the United States. I've had many people ask me why is this one of my favorite destinations? Surely the cough inducing smog, cluttered freeways and endless miles of sprawl would turn anyone off. But that's not the LA I see. It's not the LA that I fell in love with on my first visit and continued my love-affair with this time around. You see, to me LA is a combination of everything I want in a city.
As you'll see in these photos I shot, LA is photogenic. It's a city that has it all. It has an amazing skyline with fabulous architecture, historic buildings, art-deco influences and modern impulses. It's a city that has grit and glamour. It has walkable neighborhoods with cute boutiques, wonderful coffee shops, and awesome restaurants only natives know about. It has energy, excitement and a spice of chill with the nearby beaches. It's warm. It has palm trees. And the population is made of up virtually any walk of life you could imagine. Trash, sprawl, traffic...they go hand-in-hand with any major city. But try finding the same type of glamorous sun-drenched energy of Hollywood on the streets of Chicago.
But the other reason I'm drawn to LA is for Camp Hollywood and the amazing dancing found in this part of the country. Last year I came to Camp Hollywood only knowing what I saw in pictures and YouTube clips. This year I returned knowing exactly what the event was all about and why I enjoy it so much. We spent 5 days in the California sun enjoying the city, shopping, eating great food, relaxing at the pool and then dancing the night away, sometimes until sunrise.
This year I competed in the Amateur Strictly Lindy and the Amateur Jack and Jill competition. The strictly was a completely last minute decision with my good friend Lora Abe from Las Vegas. We didn't expect to make finals or place because we hadn't danced together in almost a year. But we had so much fun getting out there and winging it just for the hell of it. The Jack and Jill however, was something I had looked forward to since placing 10th last year. After some pretty stiff competition, I ended up placing 5th. On one hand you want to win these things. But on the other hand, I'm honored to have placed at a competition that hosts so many amazing dancers.
I think the highlight of the weekend for me was the Underground Jitterbug Championships. The UJC was started last year by Nick Peterson of Las Vegas and was a huge success because of the no holds barred approach to dancing and air steps. It's an unsanctioned jam format competition that starts at 2 a.m. and is literally anything goes. You'll see kips, waterfalls, pancakes and even people doing the worm. If you can get the crowd fired up, you move on. Lora and I considered entering and just throwing whatever aerials we knew. But starting a comp at 2:30 a.m. has us rethinking the idea and so we figured it was better to just watch and enjoy. The final two couples ended up being Tiffany Wine and Kenny Nelson from Denver matched up against Dax Hock and Max Pitruzzella. It was a full scale battle on the dance floor with Tiffany and Kenny getting the victory. I personally enjoyed seeing Dax toss Max in a lamp post and pancake, but you gotta hand it to those Denver folks throwing tricks right up until the final measure of music. The video is below...
Overall LA and Camp Hollywood was exactly what I expected it to be. It was great dancing, great people and a great city wrapped up into a mini-vacation. Stay tuned for my full Los Angeles photo gallery to be produced sometime in the next week...
Well a small little era of lindy hop in DC has come to an end. And it's a bitter-sweet moment for me after working so hard to build a weekly night of dancing at downtown nightclub Muse Lounge.
After much discussion with the folks at Gottaswing and assorted players in the DC swing dance world, we all agreed to postpone our new series of classes and weekly dances until September. If Muse Lounge is down and we can attract more students, we'll return to this downtown venue before we know it.
But that brings me to the bitter part of all of this. I have to be perfectly honest with you all in saying I'm highly disappointed. Sure, I finally get one night off during the week to myself now. But that's not really the point, nor is it a true silver lining in all of this. The fact is, Tempo at Muse is postponed until September because very few were willing to support it. We started out very strongly with an average of 10 or 12 students in each class and about 30 dancers showing up. The range went from ridiculously good to fresh out of our first class beginners. The venue has a nice, strong air conditioner, a full service bar and a pretty darn nice sound system. Even the floor was pretty nice, soft and above all, clean! There were couches along the wall for people to relax in and you really couldn't beat being one block from 3 metro lines. I had even booked a solid rotation with some of DC's best swing-era DJs.
Our high point was having The Loose Marbles come through town. We had over 100 dancers squeeze into this venue with a bevy of the top names in Lindy Hop tearing up the dance floor right in front of the hot jazz combo. In my opinion, it was one of the better nights of dancing in DC because it was a combination of amazing music and dancers all thrown into this beautiful nightclub. I remember saying to some folks, this is quite literally what the social life was like back in the days of the Savoy in Harlem. Ballrooms were to dancers in the '30s what nightclubs are to so many today. So here we were, blending these two era's into something that really worked.
Fast forward a few weeks. Our dance has a total of 6 people. I can't even remember how many actually paid because I think 2 or 3 were from the class. We couldn't even pay our DJ for an hour worth of time so Lily took money out of her own pocket. How does a dance go from over 100 to 6 within just a few weeks? Maybe it was a just one of those nights? Maybe it was the rain? Who knows???
It didn't get any better the next week. Or the next. Or the next. Finally we book the Red Hot Rhythm Chiefs for the final week of our classes. We get about 30 people to show up. It was fun. The music was great! The venue rocked once again. But it was nothing like the success we had captured before. And clearly there was a large segment of the DC dance scene avoiding Muse Lounge.
At this point I guess there isn't a whole lot to be said other than I'm definitely confused. I'm confused at how a lindy hop scene can sit back so proudly and pat themselves on the back for having such a vibrant scene, yet won't support the majority of dance nights thrown their way. I'm always so embarrassed when people come from other cities thinking DC is "the shit" when it comes to having a dance scene. They know about the Jam Cellar. That's a no brainer. But they're always so surprised and disappointed when there isn't more dancing options throughout the week. Sure, we have CCB. We have Glen Echo. But we all know there is a large number of people who won't support those venues either. And frankly, some times the music leaves a whole lot to be desired.
Such as it is, we have venues. We have sheer numbers that other cities would die for. We have talent between DC and Baltimore that is unreal. But for some reason we can't seem to build upon these things. I have no clue why. Maybe it's politics? Maybe it's personal? As far as I'm concerned, politics and personal beefs have no place in dancing. Dancing should be that outlet to forget all that crap and simply have fun and be moved by amazing music. It's why we do this. It's why Frankie and his crew did it in Harlem.
Hopefully in September we'll return. Maybe we'll have a better marketing approach. Maybe we'll figure out the key to getting more dancers out. Who knows. For now we just lost another chance to engage in one of our passions in this great city.
Some of you have probably noticed the acronym ELHC floating around the past few days and wondered what it stood for. Like a number of Lindy Hop events, it follows the same format other events like ALHC, ILHC, ULHS, etc., etc. But ELHC is not one lindy event. It stands for "Every Lindy Hopper Counts." ELHC is a propaganda video that surfaced at Lindy Focus in response to a daily late night video being shown by some of the Lindy Focus instructors. Let me explain the details...
Like most dance events, Lindy Focus had late nights. Late nights tend to start around 1 a.m. and can last until sunrise or a set time like 4 or 5 a.m. Some are heavy with blues, while others are Lindy Hop til you drop type dances. Lindy Focus had a large room dedicated to Lindy Hop and a small room for blues. To be honest, the blues room was just a place to go to set up your hookups for the night. (it's not really a secret anymore ya know)
So in order to encourage dancers to participate in late night, instructors Dave Madison and Andrew Sutton decided they would hold a count at the end of the night. They would count how many people were from which city and the next day they would announce it at the camp meeting. In the end, the city who had the most dancers at late night got recognition. Dave and Andrew also shot humorous videos each night that parodied the late nights and the things that go down past 5 a.m. The videos were a riot!
Long story short, DC had been killing it each night. We had a solid number of folks in for the event and were representing quite well in the comps and staying out all hours of the night. We also had the reputation for hosting the most parties in our rooms, which always seemed to be ours. So on the third night, we decided DC would take over the late night. We had about 12 people in the room around 5:30 a.m. At one point we were even doing the worm and dancing to Boy's 2 Men. Hey, there's not much more you can do at 6 a.m. to keep going. So at 6:10 a.m., Dave Madison strolls in and takes the count. DC rolled!
The next day we find out the Dave and Andrew came back in the room at 6:30 and said "now that the posers are gone, we're going to take a second count." At the camp meeting, DC was counted as having only 3 people in the room...two were in the DJ booth. As Stephen Grimes said... "not cool man!!!" He actually wasn't that serious, and we did laugh at the movie that was shown that parodied the people sleeping in the counter of the room just to get counted. But as true dancers at any dance event, we decided it was time to get even. So we began to circulate word of ELHC. Some thought it was an underground comp. Some wondered if a new event was happening this year in DC. But others knew it was a viral campaign to turn around and poke fun at our light night counting instructors.
So we got to work early that evening planning our video. We used various characters from the event and pulled off what I think was one of the funniest little ploys I've seen at a lindy event. The next night we showed it to Dave and Andrew and they agreed to show it as that nights "late night" video. The entire Lindy Focus crowd laughed in hysterics at the parody of Dave Madison and his raver pants. And using Davis on his knees as Andrew Sutton (who is decidedly shorter than Dave) was priceless, specially when they held hands. So what you see below is the video that made waves at Lindy Focus and could be the start of a tradition going forward.
Side note: We want to thank Dave Madison, Andrew Sutton and Andrew Thigpen for being such good sports and supporting us in showing the video at Lindy Focus. Seriously, it was all in good fun and I think we all had an absolute blast producing it.
I've been a bit out of the loop for the last week because I've been in Asheville, NC since the day after Christmas for Lindy Focus. LF is a six-day dance camp and competition that attracts some of the best dancers from around the country. This was my first year at Lindy Focus and I was joined by fellow DC dancers Steve Grimes, Manuel Ferdinandus, Ann Mony and Jerry "The Godfather" Almonte. There were a bunch of other DC dancers in the mix, but that would be too many to list.
So we left DC on Friday, Dec. 26th and drove down to Ashville. The drive took about 9 hours because we made a visit to The Green Bean, one of my favorite coffeehouses in Greensboro. By the time we arrived to the hotel we were a bit loopy but ready to dance our butts off. The entire event was absolutely amazing. It was basically eat, drink, and sleep Lindy Hop. Heck, we really didn't even sleep.
I competed in the advanced jack and jill on Saturday evening. I had some great partners but it definitely wasn't one of my better comps. Oh well, that's life in the competitive dance world and there's always next time. Our roomie Ann also competed in the JnJ and the Strictly Lindy comp and kicked some serious tail in a final that included her and Terrace Ellis doing battle with Carl Nelson and Teni Lopez-Cardenas. All I can say is... HOT!!!
The highlight of the camp though, has got to be the creation of ELHC. I'm planning to post about it just after this post goes live but for now here are some photos from the event. Two are from a night when Mr. Grimes and I snuck away from the hotel to shoot the downtown Asheville skyline with the sun setting behind the mountains. The final two photos are from New Year's Eve when myself, Steve, Manny, Amy Tran, Laura Jackson, Davis Thurber, Marc-Andre Vachon and Gina Helf all enjoyed a nice dinner at Table in downtown Asheville. Enjoy...
Welcome to urban marinade...a blog that lets you stew in the cultural crock pot of Washington, DC. I'm here to rant and rave about anything and everything in my little urban world. Generally speaking, that includes nightlife, photography, dancing and DC urban development. So there!
I honestly can't believe how time flies these days. I started thinking about writing a small review of the recent International Lindy Hop Championships the day it ended and next thing you know, we're half-way through September. So now I'm going to attempt to put into words the greatest and yet most disappointing Lindy Hop event I have ever attended.
