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Ball O’ Energy

So a few days ago I did a post on Boston Tea party that I mentioned a couple Maéva Truntzer and William Mauvais which I can only describe as high-energy, fun to watch, and zany. After witnessing their dancing for the first time in person, my curiosity was piqued so I decided to poke around a bit on youtube. Below I will share with you two performances from different events that were entertaining to watch.

William and Maéva at Swinging in the Rain 2011

Here are two videos of the same performance at Swinging in the Rain 2011 in Belgium, using the song “Six Feet Under” by Tuba Skinny.

In this particular version what I like is I feel like I am part of the crowd and it really captures the high energy that these two are putting out. However the lights are slightly overbearing and I think take away partially from the lines they are trying to create.

This version is well shot, i’m assuming by someone who knows how to use a camera by how the two were always in frame and the zooms were timed and not rushed. In this clip I feel like I am getting the whole experience and seeing everything they are trying to convey with the performance.

William and Maéva at Lindy Shock 2010

If you’ve ever wanted to see a couple dance to a song from the Muppet’s Show cast album, your day is about to drastically improve. Below I again have two clips of the same performance, this time at Lindy Shock 2010 which was in Budapest, Hungry. I think this showcase really shows off their background as Boogie-Woogie dancers and their zany side.

This clip of the performance is HD, which is nice. What I also really like about it is you can see the reactions of the crowd to the flashy/zany stuff they do and an excellent view of the floor slide William does at 1:29 under Maéva.

Again like the first clip from the Swinging in the Rain performance, the reason I like this clip is you are right behind the instructors of the event and feel like you are part of the crowd. In addition you get the full gambit of facial expressions both of them throw at you.

William and Maéva at least for myself bring something very different to the table then I am used to, its why lately they have kind of garnered my interest. If any of you readers have opinions or views on their dancing, feel free to post, I am interested in hearing them.

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Event Review: Boston Tea Party

This past weekend in Newton, Massachusetts was the Boston Tea party. The Penn State crew, including myself made the seven hour trek from State College, Pennsylvania to there and were rewarded with a great time!

This was my second year attending the event and I am happy to say I enjoyed it even more then my first time, albeit I had a much different experience.

More Social, Less Class

This year instead of attempting to take every class possible, I took it easy and only took three classes the first day, one the second and none on the third (My right hip wasn’t feeling well possibly due to too much tabby the cat/swivels as a follow).

It was an interesting change because I got a lot more social dancing in and I noticed usually a higher quality of dancers were hanging around the 2-4 AM range. I also felt I digested mentally the material from the classes I took a lot better since I wasn’t getting overwhelmed with information like I usually do at most workshops.

One class that was particularly fun and noteworthy was Andrew Thigpen and Karen Turman’s making the 90’s cool again class. We took moves like the butterfly taps/washer/space-invaders (I find it hilarious how many different names this partner back tap move has), drapes, and the dreaded pretzel. Except modified them so they were less sucky/creepy and actually had technique behind them.  If I could sum up that class in two words, it would be pretzel swingout.

I also want to give a shout out to Naomi Uyama who did one of the classiest things I have ever witnessed. Even though I am an extrovert and I am usually not intimated by people, for some reason she seemed to bring out my closet shyness and feelings of “I’m nowhere near her level, I am going to bore her to death” fears that I thought were long dormant. So to deal with it I asked her half way through a song to dance, she responded by asking if we could wait until the next song so she could get a full song with me.  It was a genuine act of kindness that garnered a great amount of respect from me.

Competitions

I did a bunch of competitions this weekend; novice J&J (follow), intermediate J&J (lead), and the open strictly with an awesome follow from Baltimore. Had no luck in terms of making finals, but had a lot of fun and learned a lot in the process.

One couple really stood out this weekend though, Maéva Truntzer and William Mauvais. They competed in the open strictly lindy and drew each other in the advanced J&J. One word can describe their dancing, “badass”.

 

Photo courtesy of the photographer Lynn Redmile

If you can’t tell what is happening in that photo taken by Lynn Redmile,  William dive bombed in between her legs into a tumble. This is only a small sampling of some of the crazy stunts and shannagins these two pulled out in the competitions they were in. Stunts aside what I really enjoyed about both of their dancing was the fact that they brought a lot of energy to the floor and danced with a lot of personality.

Also fun to watch was the invitational cross-over jack and jill, if you are unfamiliar with the competition they take all the Lindy Hop instructors along with all the West Coast Swing instructors and put them in one competition. This means its either a Westie follow drawing a Lindy Hopper lead or vice versa. I wish I had pictures of some of the costumes, they were priceless. However though I think Marty Klempner won this year costume wise by wearing only an open vest  as a shirt with his upper torso covered in spray on body tan.

Highlights of the Weekend

  • Maéva’s headband falling off in the Advanced J&J finals, William didn’t miss a beat and picked it up. Then preceded to let Maéva lead while he followed.
  • Peter Strom noticing the Penn State student section and giving us a shout out.
  • Michael Seguin leading Laura Glaess into switches right in front of the judges while staring them all down.
  • All the ridiculous Westie parody outfits the Lindy Hopper Instructors wore in the cross-over J&J.
  • One ridiculously amazing dance with Ramona Staffeld. (Darn you lucky Australians!)
  • Meeting Rik and Spuds who run help run yehoodi.com and the yehoodi talk show!

Other Attendees’ Blog Posts

To get some cool viedos and a quick blurb about the event check out Rik’s post!

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My Sole Problem

The Proposal

So this past weekend Dax Hock posted a challenge “The Heel Challenge Has BEGUN! All Women in Heels, All Men in Hard Leather Dress Shoes. Who’s in?”

Of course I wanted in! However I faced two issues.

  1. Functional dress shoes for dance tend to be expensive.
  2. I am a poor college student and spend all my money on eating out at restaurants, hats, liquor swing dance travel and activities.

So I posed the query if anyone had any recommendations for hard leather dress shoes that are affordable for someone like myself. I got a flurry of responses, the ones that I felt helped me out the most I listed below.

While some people posted information to some breath-taking/badass dress shoes, unfortunately I did not list their suggestions here since they were a tad out of my price range.

Response 1:

Max Pitruzzella chimed in first with a recommendation for the Giorgio Brutini company. What I really love about this recommendation is the exotic section for shoes. You can pick up a pair that is unique and will set you apart from the average pair of dress shoes you see out there and have them be under 100 dollars.

From the Exotic section.

Response 2:

Next Dax Hock himself put up a suggestion to try these shoes from Stacy Adams which was under 100 dollars and a good set of shoes to start with.

Stacy Adam Madison shoes.

However he also warned that you get what you pay for and dropped a few other useful hints as well:

  • Just go to a Nordstrom and just go try on shoes. Even a Ross might carry some discounted.
  • Go to a thrift stores and find some oldies super cheap! Don’t think “dance shoe” think leather soled dress shoe and go for a style that is more vintage. Then get a leather heel put on.
  • If you can get a Good Year Welted Double Stitched sole. It is a type of construction, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodyear_Welt. Don’t by a sole with a glued on sole and no stitching leather, it will fall apart for sure.

Response 3:

Speaking of Goodyear Welts, our next recommendation comes from Jesper Andersen who recommended Grenson shoes which are all goodyear welted.

Grenson factory, making high quality shoes.

While normally this recommendation would be out of my price range he also notes that on ebay you can find these cheap and due to the Goodyear Welt process, if the sole is damaged, resoling a shoe is most likely not an issue.

In All…

I’d like to thank everyone who gave a response to my question, personally I think I am going to save up for one of those unique pairs of Giorgio Brutini dress shoes. If any readers have suggestions for affordable hard leather dress shoes, I’d love to hear them in the comments section.

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What the Heel?

What the Heel?

So lately a topic that has been all the chatter over the swing dance online community is a post by Sarah Breck on women wearing heels while dancing on the website Dax and herself share at DaxandSarah.com and a response why not to wear heels by Fenn at her blog shortgirlphoto.blogspot (Edit: Apparently Fenn decided to delete her blog post, but google cache has a version she edited before deleting the post. Link).

Even yehoodi has seemed to take notice in the topics To Heel or Not to Heel and Sarah Breck on Why Women Should Wear Heels.

Logical Fallacies

Just as a background, for my major Computer Science I do an upsetting amount of proofs. Also just when I think I am done with them… they come up again. In my algorithms class, my discrete mathematics class, and now again my automata and finite states class.

When I read or listen to people debate I usually don’t care about the emotional content of their arguments (which gets me into trouble a lot) but the facts they lay out.

What bothered me about the blogged response to Sarah’s post is this issue, Logical Fallacy: Appeal to Ridicule.

Fenn writes,

Today, I found this post in my facebook newsfeed. I was confused, because I thought I had read the title wrong. Surely, a dancer couldn’t be ENCOURAGING women to wear heels. I went over and read it, and my confusion was cleared…to anger. The writer says that women should wear heels because it’ll improve their dance skills.

THIS. IS. TOTAL. BULLSHIT.

 

Capslock is NOT cruise control for cool.

 

This could have been written simply as, “Today I found this post in my facebook newsfeed. I was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that the author was encouraging women to wear heels which I think does not improve ones dancing at all and in fact can be detrimental to their health. ”

Same effect, but does not come off as horribly condescending and hostile.

Points

I don’t have a background in podiatry nor have I spent long periods of time wearing heels so I am not going to comment on the validity if one should not wear heels or not. However what I argue against is the way Fenn presents them. Sarah’s main point her article or (the premise being argued against) of why she wears heels is,

“Because they help keep me in check. I feel like I become a better and stronger dancer when I wear them”

Fenn’s counter-points are:

  1. Shoes don’t improve your feet’s ability to do anything.
  2. Heels will damage your body over time.
  3. They are not necessary for any dances.
  4. Swing dancers don’t spend enough time strengthening their feet like other classically trained dancers do.

I would like to note that Sarah does not write anywhere heels are required for dance. Automatically points 3 and 4 do nothing to argue against the premise that Fenn is attempting to counter.

Point 1 I have a strong issue with because it disregards the fact of something we know and love known as physics.

There is this thing known as friction: the resistance encountered when one body is moved in contact with another.

Can I do slides without shoes? Yes. Will I get much more distance with a pair of slick shoes then barefoot? Yes.

Since Fenn seems so eager to bring up Balboa, here is a move from it known as the Maxie Slide. Named after the late Maxie Dorf.

With the exception of someone who does not have a good sense of balance, I can promise nearly every lead can get more distance with that slide with a pair of slick leather soles/suede then their bare feet.

In addition, some dance venues are not the safest places to go barefoot. As someone who has danced barefoot for an international dance troupe for almost 2 years (Penn State International Dance Ensemble) I know how much it can hurt when someone leaves stuff on our practice space. Imagine the possibilities of foot damage at half the venues across the United States.

Point 2 is the only valid argument I see in the whole response to Sarah’s article. However there is no references cited and I am left to rely on Fenn’s personal credibility, which is greatly reduced in my eyes in the extremely condescending manner that the arguments are presented and the extraneous irrelevant points that are raised.

In short, I agree with arguecat that…

Damn straight Arguecat.
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Running a College Workshop: 2nd Edition

This past weekend I was one of the organizers for a Lindy and Blues workshop we titled Hot and Cool featuring Mike Roberts and Laura Glaess, held at Penn State (The Pennsylvania State University). It was in our usual workshop format and consisted of a weclome dance on Friday, four hours of mixed blues and Lindy Hop instruction with a dance on Saturday, and four hours of mixed blues and Lindy Hop instruction on Sunday.

Logistically it was one of the smoothest workshops we ever had and we got very positive feedback from our locals as well as our out of town visitors. In addition the instructors seemed to have a good time and enjoyed their free cookies/ice cream/frozen yougart/candy the weekend as well.

Classes

Laura and Mike put time and effort into their classes and brought a lot of energy when they taught (Though that could have been a byproduct of the cookies/ice cream provided to them). I’ve taken enough classes over the last three years to generally get the feeling of when instructors really prepare for a class versus just going through the ropes. This is partially because I briefly got to talk to Mike & Laura themselves about it, but I inferred they do try to make sure students get the most out of their classes.

This picture really captures how they are in real life.

Laura and Mike took an interesting approach of  teaching a weekend of Lindy and Blues. They decided to not separate them into two different days (one day lindy, next day blues or vice versa), like most instructors in the past have done.  They instead taught the two topics alternating one after the other.

However they did this in a unique way that each sequence of two Lindy and Blues class had the same class name and used the same concepts, but they were applied differently to fit within the aesthetic of Blues dancing and Lindy Hop.

I think this method worked wonderfully for our club because it allowed them to spend two classes reinforcing a certain idea/concept and helped students more clearly define what “makes” a choice in dance Lindy Hop versus Blues.

My two favorite classes though were probably the two Lindy Hop classes on Sunday. In one they taught part of their routine from Lindyfest 2011 at the 1:19 mark in the youtube video below.

In the other they taught some fun charleston variations. In one variation they showed a creative way to one of my favorite moves of all time, hacksaws.

Things That Went Well

  • As usual we booked the rooms for extra time and it saved us on Sunday when class started late/lunch ran late.
  • We assigned each day for someone to drive instructors around, which worked really effectively instead of arbitrarily assigning it last minute. Especially so the instructors didn’t get stuck at the dances until the very end and could go back to the hotel to rest up/prepare for next day’s classes.
  • Oddly both the local vintage clothing shop Rag and Bone and the hat shop The Mad Hatter were having sales that weekend. I believe around five of us that weekend from the workshop including Mike and myself got new hats. Possibly coordinating something with both of those shops for future workshops could be a good promotional idea.
  • I’ve never logistically had a workshop that always ran so smooth. Usually there is always some kind of issue that pops up, but there were no major hiccups. It seemed everybody just had tons of fun and us as organizers were not that stressed at all.
  • Mike Roberts offering to DJ. It was the first time we had an instructor offer to DJ for us, so we gave him a slot and he played a lot of good stuff  that featured songs I was unfamiliar with, including one of my favorite new songs “Inappropriate Wartime Song” a.k.a. Blitzkrieg Baby by Una Mae Carlisle.

Things That Could Be Improved

  • Unfortunately it was out of our hands due to space being scarce this semester but the smaller room with slick floors on Friday made dancing harder and Saturday made some of the class material a bit more difficult then it usually would have been.
  • Sunday the class lead to follow ratio got pretty bad. We are really unsure how to handle this because we are usually a smaller workshop and don’t really enforce class sizes.
  • Again people showing up late/missing the 1st Sunday workshop. Philly 15 minute policy that if people are late to classes they are not admitted to the workshop until the next class in order not to make the class more difficult for those who did show up on time is getting more tempting.
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A Year In Posting

On How I am Surprised I Didn’t Abandon This Blog

I discovered that I accidentally forgot yesterday was the one year anniversary of my blog. To be candid I am surprised this has gone on this long, like many things in my life I figured I would find it amusing for awhile then move onto some other distraction like bonsai trees.

 

So pretty....

Fortunately I somehow persevered in spite of my easily distracted and flighty nature. I originally started this blog because I was reading Rantings of a Lindy Hopper and thought, “Hey I am a college student and have the unique position of being in an organizational position and dancing on both sides of the coasts of the United States. Maybe someone will find this interesting.”

Refresher

In this year I have written and published 68 different articles (One of them being a repost). Out of all of them though there are a few I am particularly proud of and for those of you who may be newer to the blog I recommend you check them out.

  • Selection of Shim Shams: In this post I made a list (with videos) of the different Shim Sham’s performed in the swing dance community.
  • But All The Cats Like to Shag: This article contains a list of different videos all with instruction on the dance Collegiate Shag.
  • Tabby The Cat: In here I go over the background of the Tabby the Cat step and how it has influenced the modern swing dance community.
  • Nostalgia from Songs: The Caricoa: The Artie Shaw song, The Caricoa is one of my favorite songs and influences me in several ways. I explain why here.
  • Late Night Dancing:In the swing dance community, different venues across the world have their own way of DJing music once it gets to the midnight hours. I discuss that and add in my own personal views on the issue.

Readers

Lastly, to all of you who read and especially to all of you who comment I appreciate you procrastinating from what you really should be doing spending your valuable time here on my blog.


 

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C’est Si Bon

I was stumbling around youtube looking for some examples of swing dance in public media and discovered this on Patrick Szmidt’s youtube channel:

The description translated to english says,

Patrick Szmidt & Natasha Ouimet in the transmission “La Culture Pour ou Contre” broadcast on ARTV in August 2009 to Canada.

Its a fun clip with two Lindy Hoppers, dancing on live television, to a gyspy jazz band covering Django’s Minor Swing.  Enjoy!

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Event Review: Swing Out Under the Stars (Oberlin)

Oh Nostalgia…

This past weekend I received a free pass from awesome follow Beth Hartzel, to go to an event at Oberlin called Swing Out Under Stars.

This visit was particularly nostalgic for me because my first out of town swing dance experience was at the Oberlin Jazz Dance Festival  several years ago where I first saw awesome dancers like Nina Gilkenson and Andy Reid. In result I was motivated to take my dancing more seriously and start traveling to events on a regular basis.

Oberlin has been doing this swing dance thing for awhile.

Being a Follow

One thing I am going to give Oberlin kudos for is as a male who was following in some of the classes this weekend I have never felt more comfortable being a follow then anywhere else in the world. Normally when I take classes as a follow, I usually get a vibe from people in the rotation of “Oh… its a guy following, there is something weird about him.” and odd looks.

However everyone was friendly and encouraging to me. I even got asked to dance as a follow a few times during the dance to the Boilermaker Jazz Band on Saturday!

 

Staying in a Co-Op

During the weekend I was hosted by a lovely girl named Shane in Oberlin’s Tank Hall Co-Op, affectionately referred to as “The Tank”. To quote wikipedia,

“The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) is a $2.4 million dollar non-profit corporation that feeds 630 and houses 175 Oberlin College students.[1] It is located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, and is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College.”

The Tank Co-Op. Amazingly friendly people there.

It is hard to explain what it is like to stay in an Oberlin Co-Op but my best description is imagine several people living in the same house with each of them having equal responsibility of maintaining the home. While I was there I was invited to have meals with the house which were all hand-cooked by the students. The food was vegetarian, different then what I was used to, and most importantly delicious.

Tank food, vegetarian and declicious.

In addition I got to meet other people who were also visiting the house like two French guys who are doing a country tour of the United States and was visiting Oberlin as one of their stops.

The Boilermaker Jazz Band

For the Saturday night dance, they had the Boilermaker Jazz Band who played a fun set and featured a vocalist I hadn’t seen personally before by the name of Erin Kufel. Even though it was a smaller crowd, I thought the Boilermaker’s did a great job of bringing energy to the room and playing some good tunes.

The Classes

The instructors were Falty (Michael Faltesek) and Carla Heiney who were a good fit for Oberlin, especially since Falty as apparently taught there several times in the past.

What  helped them out was the class sizes were ridiculously small. I’m talking like 12-14 couples for the last two classes of the day on Saturday & Sunday, with such an intimate environment I felt everyone got more out of the workshop then most workshops I have attended. In result the instructors were able to give individual feedback a lot of the times. Also Carla was in the rotation in some of the classes as well, which many of the other leads at the event agreed to me was a great help.

Something I would like to note is both Carla and Falty (who described himself in the lesson as a post-modern feminist) put a decent effort at remaining gender neutral when addressing follows and leads.  For the male follows and the female leads in the classes, it was much appreciated.

Overall

I’m not going to say that Oberlin’s swing dance event was the biggest event ever or had the highest quality of dancing. However what they did well is provide a unique experience that was fun for all parties involved. I’d dare you to find another workshop in the United States that features intimate class settings, unique housing opportunities, a safe environment to be a lead or follow, a quality band, and two great instructors. I will leave you with a quote about Oberlin that I thought they really lived up to this weekend,

“Oberlin is peculiar in that which is good.”

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Decision Trees and Newbies

The Problem

One of the hardest things I deal with when teaching newer dancers a.k.a newbies/novices is understanding their need for context-free and defined rules, yet not compromising my personal beliefs when it comes to dancing.

Probably the biggest philosophy I have when it comes to dance is to pay attention and respond to the music and your partner. Ignoring either is a cardinal sin in my book.  You might as well be dancing with a broomstick to a metronome if you forget either of those things.

Yet, newbies on the other hand just want to be able for the most part to get through a dance and not fall over, maybe learn a few “cool” moves if they get past that. The subtleties I care so much as someone who has danced Lindy Hop for years, will fall on deaf ears due to the general lack of context and holistic view newer dancers have.

I’ve found through trial and error when I have tried to explicitly present this philosophy I have it is either is dismissed as “something for advanced dancers/too difficult” or rarely accepted but in a limited understanding.

Rumination

My friend John White over at Black Belt Lindy wrote a post the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition which made me think a lot about how I learned and how I taught lessons. Lately, this has been rolling around in my head even more due to I have been learning about Expert Based systems in an Artificial Intelligence class. One of the difficulties of building them is extracting “expert knowledge” from the experts themselves.

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert myself under the Drefyus model. However it got me to think of the idea, “How effectively am I taking my acquired skills and knowledge of the field of swing dance and translating it to people who are new to it can benefit the most?”

The Compromise

So what I do is give newbies who take my lessons a decision tree, essentially a manual or a guideline of rules in which some require prerequisites and others have priorities to navigate a dance. For example a high priority rule for a lead would be not to send your follow into other dancers or walls.

However the compromise is I hide subtleties in the lesson that allow the newer dancers who choose to stay after the lesson and dance or practice on their own to discover through trial and error. Because without the context of why those subtle ideas or lessons are important, they will likely fall on deaf ears.

Advice

What I would like for anyone who is teaching newer dancers to glean from this blog post is the following : Unless if your explanation for something comes with a funny story or is safety related (a.k.a. engaging muscles to not let arms out and prevent rotator cuff injuries), cut it from your lesson.

The majority of the time the newer dancers will lack a context to understand why those ideas you are presenting are important to their dancing experience.

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Youtube: Event Advertisement Medium (Round 2)

Awhile back I wrote a post about using youtube as a medium for event advertisement. It was no big surprise that Hollywood (L.A.) threw in some amazing contributions to this idea.

Hollywood’s Contributions:

Swing Pit: Back from the Dead…Again! (2007)

For those of you who have never met Sailor Mike, besides being a badass Collegiate Shag dancer (Seriously, who enters a competition in a coffin?) also works in the film biz. He did a great job, this video is hilarious and is a good way to get publicity for an event.

Even though the event was over a long time ago, I know I have linked it to a bunch of my friends just to watch the psycho reference when Mike kills Tip West. I can’t even imagine how much buzz this got when the event was actually in the near future.

Camp Hollywood 2001 – Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Old school hilarity. I could try to explain this, but seriously just watch. Nothing like nationally recognized instructors doing a parody of a movie to advertise an event.

Raleigh Doing Its Part

EBC Good Clean Fun

Aptly named, this EBC promotional video explains what to expect if you attend the event. In addition with hilarity makes sure this one advertisement that will be hard to clean the video out of your mind.

So, if you have a crazy funny idea on how to advertise for an event. Grab a camera folks.