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Back to Square One

Backstory

So this past Wednesday I put myself back in the seat of the “first time student” by taking a hip-hop class, a dance style I have never tried before.

After waiting for my friends, Verionica who usually does this and Logan who was taking his first dance lesson ever outside of the studio, we walked in. It was slightly intimidating walking into a studio that focused more traditional forms of dance. Windows displayed ballet and modern dancers younger then myself, who had a quality of movement I could only hope to achieve. After paying for the class, my friends and I walked in the room and found an assortment of people taking this Hip Hop class.

Shortly after, the instructor as the sheet described him, “The ‘Legendary’ Cu” walked in and gave a short description of the class. Unknowingly my friend and I came in on the second week of a two week series. In result, the warmup was skipped so we could play catch-up. During the class we learned choreography to the song “Love, Sex and Magic” by Ciara featuring Justin Timberlake which went at a pace that was great for me. Cu was a great teacher and I will probably use a future post to go over his teaching methods, which made the class a great learning environment for Logan and myself who were taking Hip-Hop for the first time. Cu also commented to both of us at the end of the class that we both did a good job. Unkwoingly to us, it was not a complete beginner hip hop class but more a beginner/intermediate level. Afterwards Logan was asking Veronica and myself if either of us were watching to see how he did. We both agreed we were trying to focus more on ourselves, then anyone else in the class.

First Time Students’ Experiences

So for organizers who run a scene and trying to attract new dancers or teachers who are teaching absolute beginner lessons, these are the two things I gleaned from going through the first lesson experience again.

  • New students feel much more comfortable going to classes with familiar people such as friends, or even being an acquaintance with someone in the class.
  • Many people come into classes with fears that the material will be difficult for them to learn and can often get self-conscious about how they are doing (especially with partner dancing). A friendly, encouraging teacher goes a long way to create a shift in mentality for students and relax them.

For organizers this means for your beginners classes, first make sure to have a teacher who is friendly and encouraging. Often this first class is the difference between having a new dancer or possibly having someone spread a bad reputation about your dance venue. Also try to create a way that it benefits people attend your classes in a group, or create an insentive for current members/dancers at your venues to bring in friends with them.

For teachers this means when working with beginners make sure to be positive, encouraging, and friendly. Most people are taking their first dance class to have fun and as a social outlet, it is important to keep this in mind.

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It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing

I don’t dig that two-beat jive the New Orleans cats play. My boys and I have to have four heavy beats to the bar and no cheating.
— Count Basie

Recently I have been visiting a lot of venues. These are small scenes that are often somewhat isolated. I have been thinking about the music choices played there by the DJs, which frankly baffle me at times. This post which I read recently over at the blog, The Casual Discourse of a Socially Awkward Lindy Hopper, the author writes about her experience saying some of the things I have been tempted to say in public, but refrained from due to apprehension of the exact situation she experienced.

For those of you who want the quick summary, the author visited a venue she used to regularly attend. In this visit she experienced mostly songs that were simply undanceable. The songs that were danceable consisted of the cliché neo-swing (Big Bad Voodoo Daddy) material that makes most experienced Lindy Hoppers cringe. In result people (including herself) were complaining to other regular swing dancers at the venue about the music. The DJ maturely responded to this by leaving a nasty comment on her facebook wall referring to her friends and herself as “snobs” and defriending her on Facebook.

Honestly, I wish there was a more tactful way of going about this then complaining to the venue organizer/DJ or trying to politely suggest to the venue organizer/DJ something. (Better then handing the DJ what is pictured in Figure 1.0 below) But as I am keenly aware of being a DJ myself, it is often a very personal endeavor and unfortunately we can be quick to take offense to people who criticize our abilities.

[Figure 1.0]: DJing for Dummies

I am not going to write a guide about how to be a better swing dance DJ, that is covered in multiple places over the internet. Just a message for be organizers and people who are concerned for their local venues or scene in general.

What music is DJed greatly affects not just how your dancers at your venue dance, but the reputation your venue has.

Frankly, one could be surprised how fast things via word of mouth can travel in the Lindy Hop community. I know several venues, in different states, that intermediate and above dancers avoid because of their reputation for bad music. There tends to also be a correlation with bad dancing and bad music as well. How can you expect your new dancers to be able to dance on beat if they rarely hear swing dance music with a decent rhythm section or be musical when they can’t make out clear phrasing? It confuses me how some places will go to great lengths to create an inviting and fun atmosphere then overlook this one big aspect of running a venue.

Carl Nelson, a jack of all Lindy related trades (teacher/competitor/performer/organizer) wrote this in his blog which provides some insight,

As a traveling dancer I’ve seen far too many communities on the decline or, worse yet, falling apart altogether.  Why is that?

As dancers we’re all too often misled into believing that a passion for dance is enough, that effective business strategies don’t apply to performance art.  Yet what happens when your classes are empty, your teachers are disheartened by the lack of interest (and a paycheck), and your events are poorly attended.- – Carl Nelson

Carl makes the very valid point that running an effective scene is just like a business. DJing, like teaching is something that should be done by someone who takes the position seriously and is qualified. I have seen many venues let people who shouldn’t touch a DJ booth, do so because they do not want to hurt that person’s feelings or create drama. Organizers, avoid that common trap and have people who know what they are doing as DJs. In result you will foster an environment for dancers to improve and a positive reputation for your venue.

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Dance as a Language: Immersion

When I was at the Caveau de La Hauchette in Paris, the phrase “dance is a language” started to truly sink in. This is due to the fact that when attempting to communicate with in French with follows,  I could barely understand them. But on the social dance floor we could speak volumes to each other without uttering a single word.

1950's Caveau de La Hauchette

While I would like to explore that topic more in the future. What inspired me today to write was reading about for languages on average, how long it takes one to be become fluent. Out of the few sites I read most listed one year if you were fully immersed in the language, compared to anywhere from four to five years if you did not have full immersion.

I believe there is a strong correlation with dancing as well because the people who I see improve the most do so through apprenticeships, paying for many private lessons, or the generosity of time donated by dancers advanced enough to be ‘fluent’ in the respective dance.  In isolated scenes usually the best dancers are those who go out of town for workshops/exchanges.

Now I am not saying you should only dance with the best dancers and ignore newbies because they are ruining your ‘dance immersion’. But in situations where you don’t ask people to dance because they are ‘too good’ or if you are avoiding travel and such because you like the familiarity and safety of your own scene, push those boundaries and converse with those who have more experience or perhaps a different dialect of the language known as dance.

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What Basic?

During the Balboa Rendezvous this past April, I absorbed a lot of new information during the workshops. However the time that I learned the most important lesson of the weekend was not during the actual workshops, but after the Q & A session watching many of the original Balboa dancers during their jam in the Balboa Pavilion.

The one thing that stuck out to me (besides watching a 97 year old man tear up the dance floor) was the fact that none of them used the usual up-holds or down-holds in repetition the way most people are taught during most Balboa workshops, each of them had their own unique steps.

Take a look at this clip provided by onlybalboa.com of Bobby Mcgees, a venue for Balboa dancing a few years back in Southern California to see my point:

One thing I have been doing in result is trying to dance without relying on a certain “basic pattern” for Balboa, constantly switching between different variations of holds.

Sadly though, this had lead to me being annoyed when people claim there is a basic for Balboa or ask me what the “basic step” is.

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PSIDE – How Performance Is A Different Animal

Introduction

This story starts out back about a year ago when I was just finished teaching a lesson for my college swing dance club and I noticed a girl standing by the doorway of the room looking in inquisitively. I walked over and gave her the usual spiel about swing dance club but she mentioned that she was just looking in after her PSIDE practice. Being curious I asked her what it was and she explained it was the Penn State International Dance Ensemble, a performance group that does dances from around the world. I had seen one of their performances before on campus, not knowing who they were when they performed Tinikling. I was impressed being that it was the first time I had seen people of non-Fillippino descent perform it and on top of that they did a great job.  One thing lead to another and she brought the director over who told me to come out to their spring audition because they had the opposite problem of the swing dance club, lack of leads.

Auditions

Its amusing even though I was a seasoned swing dancer of a year and half at the time, the audition process into PSIDE still intimidated me. Besides the Shim-Sham and the Gangbusters Routine I had no real experience with choreography and they were in dances, which in some cases I never heard of such as Bhangra.

Shim Sham
Ohio dancers and myself doing the Shim Sham at Get Hep Swing in Cleveland-Town

In addition once one got past the auditions just to become a performing member, one had to individually audition for each dance they were interested in for the performances. How the auditions worked was for the majority of the dances you had an about an hour to an hour and a half to learn a routine, then you auditioned it immediately after. I remember asking the girl in charge of Tinikling, Kim, for advice before the audition started because it was the dance that originally got me interested in PSIDE and I wanted to be a part of it badly. However the auditions were not as cut-throat as I imagined them to be, everyone encouraged each other and the people who ran the auditions put in a considerable effort to try to prepare everyone for the tryouts.

How Performance Is A Different Animal

The thing about partner dancing is there is this idea of connection between the music and the other person one is dancing with.  However that changed with my experiences in PSIDE where I learned performance is this connection between the music and the other people you are performing with, then sharing that with the crowd watching you. While it’s good having technique of the respective dance, one has to remember most of the people watching do not have extensive dancing backgrounds in the dance you are performing (or dance backgrounds in general). They are not going to notice bad technique, they are going to notice who looks tired,  looking at the floor or doing something different when everyone is trying to do the same thing.

Tahitian Dance
Tahitian Performance, moving as one.

Besides the fact of the different mindset being a performer then a social dancer, another thing I had to get used to was consistent rehearsals and how the lessons were different from the typical lessons I took for swing dancing. In my history of taking swing dance lessons, the majority of them at the beginner and even intermediate lessons were based on more having on fun while learning the dance at hand instead of approaching it as a serious art form and seriously working at it. PSIDE while fun, was not as carefree as my previous experiences with classes.  It was refreshing to be in a room of people who were all trying to seriously work at something. Making a consistent time commitment was a difficult hurdle for myself as well due to my traveling gypsy/vagabond lifestyle of being a swing dancer in an isolated scene in addition to helping to run the PSU Swing Dance Club. Luckily the PSIDE director, Clare was very accommodating of myself missing practices and it worked out for the most part.

How This Changed Me

Before PSIDE I would go to Downtown Disneyland in Anaheim, California when live bands would play, in order to get used to dancing front of a crowd. It helped in the same way that it helped me to be more comfortable with myself in terms of dancing and be fearless in front of a crowd. As odd as it sounds, beforehand I would always feel awkward dancing alone, not just in swing, but in general (ironic considering my dancing origins). Now I can bust out moves with much more confidence regardless of the situation, whether it’s a Solo Charleston jam circle or at a local night-club.

PSIDE also has made me feel more like a “real dancer” and slightly increased my knowledge of what that means. I remember my first few PSIDE practices feeling like the dunce in class during the warm-up stretches because I am not flexible at all, and I could pick out that a lot the people in the class had training in classical dances which I lacked. Through time though I realized everyone in PSIDE had their strengths and weaknesses, what was important is we were using our respective dance backgrounds to help each other as a whole. I got exposed to many different motions outside of my usual range of motion I was used to in Lindy Hop, ranging from hip-shaking and isolations with Tahitian to the extreme body-awareness of Bhangra.

I’ll be candid and admit when I first joined PSIDE it was more to use the organization as a tool to improve my dancing as a whole. But they are a great bunch and I have come to know many of them as my friends. The environment that PSIDE provides allows us to learn from each other and gives a performance outlet for many people who may normally not have the chance. All I can hope is many some of my fellow PSIDE members have learned as much from me as I have from some of them.

PSIDE_Color
PSIDE Being "Professional" Performers As Usual
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What Is Good Dancing?

A quote from an interview of a teacher who I personally admire, Dax Hock got me thinking.

Whenever I teach a workshop I ask my students if they want to get better at dancing, and of course the answer is yes. That is usually why they’re in the class. And then I ask them “so what is dancing?” And many have trouble really answering the question. I then like to ask, “how do you expect to get better at something if you don’t even know what it is?” I think people spend far too little time thinking about dancing. For example, what dancing actually is, what makes good dancing, and what differentiates it from “not as good” dancing?

Many people I know when they describe wanting to improve their dancing say, “I want to get as good as (person x)!” or “I want to be able to do (flashy move y)!”. But I think what is more important is what makes person x a good dancer or what is the movement and technique behind flashy move y that makes it look so cool.

An example of this is the a basic swing dance aerial known as the Frog Hop/Jump, usually the first one most people learn. When done by people who understand the mechanics of the move you can get the follow really high up in the air and it looks fantastic. However if the lead is not a stable base, forgets to switch to the flip grip, the follow loses her frame, et cetera the move becomes this hop that barely gets off the ground and the follow probably would have got more height jumping without the lead.

What good dancing in general is to me is can be described by this term that has been thrown around by different people in the past, which is quality of movement. What I mean is when a person moves to music, what decision did they make, how fully did they commit to that decision and does that decision even make sense in the context of the situation. I’ll talk about each of these briefly below.

How Fully Did They Commit To That Decision?

This phrase alone is often how I can easily tell who newer dancers are. People who do not have confidence in their movement often are tense making the move look mechanical. They either look down at the ground or around the room nervously. Follows who have leads who can’t fully commit are often left playing a guessing game to what type of motion they are supposed to respond with. Dancing without commitment is like the person who gives you the fish handshake or the person who can’t look you in the eye while talking, it just comes off as awkward and not genuine.

Does That Decision Even Make Sense In The Context Of The Siutation?

Would you do crazy aerials to this song?

For me dancing to the music is either going along or contrasting the music appropriately. One of my pet peeves in dancing is people who do moves completely ignoring the music [1]. Ignoring your partner is just as bad if not worse, follows generally dislike leads who strong-arm follows through moves and it usually looks as bad as it feels.

One of the things I really liked about watching the Balboa dancers at Balboa Rendezvous who have been dancing for 50+ years in most cases is they did more with less. Their small subtle movements spoke volumes. Good dancing to me is like good poetry, unique choices at the proper time and place, to stir emotions of those who witness it.

If you have your own view, comment below. I would be interested to hear it.

[1] If you want to a dance that you ignore the music and dance patterns the entire time, swing dancing is not for you.

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Making your Weaknesses Your Strengths

I saw this  comment on Yehoodi a few days ago in a thread about people who improve at the lower end of the spectrum in dance.

I think almost anyone can make a vast improvement by fixing the three worst things they do. Often these are things that are deeply ingrained and take the most effort to fix. – slipandslide

It reminded me of something Mickey Fortanasce said in a class I took from him a few weeks back at Balboa Rendezvous where he said words similar to these,

“Take your weaknesses and make them your strengths”.

This struck a chord with me because often the problem many dancers have (including myself) that keep them from taking it to the next level is either mental barriers or long standing technique issues. In the yehoodi thread one poster commented the difficulty in this is often these problems are often deeply ingrained and take considerable amount of effort on the behalf of the dancer to fix it. I whole heartily agree with this, in the past fixing my more serious problems felt awkward and frustrating because I had ingrained bad technique through so many repetitions that it was an uphill battle trying to get the new technique into my system.

The most frequent problem I see among leads that I teach in my local classes is often they are not confident in their movements and leave follows guessing what they are trying to lead.  Once they have the mentality though of “I know this” the dance becomes much less of a guessing game for follows.  This is just one example of how fixing ingrained issues that can significantly improve ones capability to dance well.

My recent challenge to myself is through video recording and asking around finding my three biggest weakness and fixing them. If you feel up to it do it yourself as well and tell me how it goes.

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Event Review: The Balboa Rendezvous

Growing up in Southern California one of the hangout spots I had was the Balboa Peninsula. With a beautiful beach, a fun zone with rides and respective arcades, and several shops to eat at and explore it was a great place for myself, friends, and family to visit and enjoy. When after a few months in swing dancing in Pennsylvania I learned a dance originated from the same place that I had many happy memories of, I was ecstatic to put it lightly and knew I had to learn this dance.

Normally I would not be able to afford going to the Balboa Rendezvous, but luckily enough this year I won one of the scholarships provided for college students and international attendees.

Classes

At Balboa Rendezvous they have something called Balboa University, which they have six different tracks from absolute beginner to invitational only track. I took the Junior (Level 3) track which ended up being a good fit for me. The majority of the classes challenged me enough but by the end of the class I could get a significant amount of the material. Only one of the classes was an absolute breeze for me and I also only had one extremely difficult class. For levels 1-4 they had in class instructors. They were advanced Balboa dancers that are thrown into the rotation and give people individual feedback. While a great idea in theory the problem was some of the classes rotated so slowly that you might only get one of them once or in some cases not at all. However when I did get them in rotation they often gave advice that was very helpful. Like any workshop they also had the problem of people placing themselves in levels above what they should have been taking.

Q&A With The Masters

Before the dance started there was a Q&A session with as Joel Plys calls them “the masters” but as many in swing dance community refers them to as the “old timers”. They told great stories like how they used to sneak in the dances via the fire escapes and camp on the beach. One of the quotes from the session that stuck out in my head was one gentleman said something to the effect of, “You know you are truly a great dancer when you have moves that nobody can steal.” On a slightly related note this session gave me the privilege to meet Hal Takier, a dancer I look up to who was featured in many film clips such as Maharaja.

Dances

The funny thing is at the dances this year I noticed a large contingent from the usual southern California crowd I run into when I am back home. However I think it is due to this year with Fleur De Lindy, DCLX, and The Hawkeye Swing Dance Festival it would be a tough call for people not close to California to skip out for this event. While the Friday and Saturday night dances were fun, the noteworthy one was the Sunday night dance held in the Balboa Pavilion itself.

The historic Balboa Pavilion
The historic Balboa Pavilion.

Knowing the history of the pavilion and have visited the Balboa Peninsula area many times growing up, dancing inside was a nostalgic and exciting experience for me. Playing that night was the Solomon Douglas Swingtet which featured a killer version of Jimmie Lunceford’s “White Heat”, the floor was on fire when that song hit the pavilion. I am not sure if it was the music, the atmosphere or combination of both but I felt like I danced the hell out of that night and left very satisfied after midnight.

Overall

After attending the event though I would say if you are looking for a unique balboa experience (especially if you are a dance history geek like myself) I recommend you check it out.

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Melting Pot

It is a warm night night at State College, Pennsylvania. I’m enjoying a cool drink after a long day, watching people dance in in a backroom at a dimly lit underground bar. In front of me are a myriad of styles; one couple doing ochos in Argentine Tango, another couples’ hips snapping at the air with fishtails from Blues dancing, and yet another couple gliding along the floor in what appears to be West Coast Swing.

This is the unofficial Wednesday night venue in State College known as The Rathskeller. Usually DJ’ed by a man known as Rob Jones, it is an fun affair. Often due to my busy schedule I don’t get to show up until midnight, where it gets interesting. Before midnight its usually people only from the Swing Dance club are in attendance and music is catered to that crowd. After midnight though, the salsa club’s weekly venue closes and people from the Penn State Swing Dance Club, Ballroom Dance Club, Argentine Tango Club and Salsa Club all show up to drink, enjoy each others company and dance.

What is amazing though is dancers who you would normally never see in a the same venue, dancing with each other and having a good time. What I love about the place is its not about “who’s style is better” but about working together to make something as a whole. Even just sitting back and watching the couples dance is a joy, during some songs you can see four different types of dance each creating their own work of art with the music as their muse.

It is nice being at an event that unities the local dance community as a whole. I really hope to see this trend continue.

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The Need for Speed

This post is written in reference to a blog post written by Neil Figuracion [1] about Jonathan Stout’s recent DJ set at LindyGroove.

If you haven’t already checked it out (which I recommend you do) Neil writes how at Lindygroove, a venue normally associated with… well groovy music had Jonathan Stout (notorious for being a proponent for authentic swing music) DJ [2] this past April 1st and how it brought a level energy to the place that has been absent for awhile.

Neil’s writing reminded me of my own Penn State scene in several ways. That people are there to hear music that they like and are used to. But like him, I want to see people bringing amazing energy to their dancing and tearing up the the dance floor. I’m spoiled enough that when I am back home in southern California I get to dance to live music organized by Jonathan Stout every Wednesday at Southland Strutters Ball. Normally I have to go to a nationally recognized camp or competition weekend back east to feel the level of energy that is brought to Strutters on a weekly basis. I wake up days the PSU Swing Dance club has a dance, hoping for a glimpse of that energy. However I am often left unsatisfied.

However  here in State College, Pennsylvania the problem is that first off anything DJ’ed over 180 BPM starts to clear the dance floor, quickly. Even slamming songs like Artie Shaw’s ‘The Carioca’ or Chick Webbs ‘Lindy Hopper’s Delight’ will make it so I can count the number of couples dancing on my left hand. I attribute this fact due to first off the scene consists of mostly beginner to intermediate dancers, a lot of the people don’t dance to faster songs because they don’t have the technique for it, think its ‘balboa’ music[3] or plain aren’t used to dancing to faster stuff.  Second there is this unspoken expectation in Pennsylvania that for some reason the last portion of a dance “has” to be blues dancing. People start to grumble and even demand it from the DJ’s the thirty minutes before we have to close up shop if it hasn’t been played.

This puts me in a hard place. On one hand one of the things I believe as a DJ is paying attention to the floor and catering to the dancers. On the other hand I do help run this scene and I want to nurture and challenge my fellow dancers and not just maintain the status quo.

So this Tuesday, I have a DJ slot. Normally I dramatically alter my DJ set’s on the fly to stay within the safety 130-170 BPM range, and play slow tunes or hand it off to another DJ to deal with the Blues section. This time I am holding my ground and going to keep em’ flying. I’ll update you folks later this week to tell you how it goes.

[1] Neil runs a fun class called the Lindygroove Technique class, out in Pasadena. What I really like is his class focuses more on what makes the moves work compared to getting a move working.

[2] When I got the email newsletter about Jonathan Stout DJ’ing at Lindygroove, like many people I thought it was perhaps an attempt at humor by the Lindygroove staff because of the knowledge of how Jonathan’s views on swing dance music sharply contrasted the ones’ held by many Lindygroove dancers.

[3] One of my giant pet peeves is how some people believe that all fast music is “balboa music”. While I love Balboa as much as my other fellow Bal dancers, its not an excuse to ignore or neglect the idea of fast Lindy (which I enjoy as well).

Edit: Due to conflicts with my schedule, I was unable to DJ this set but I have it saved. There will be a post when I can finally get a chance to DJ it.

Neil Figuracion