Posts Tagged ‘Charleston’
Remember Me?
Posted on: October 8, 2012
So yesterday I took a private lesson as a follow. As always, I wanted to work on swingouts. And among other advice given me by my esteemed instructor (the lovely and talented Ben White from Seattle), he particularly emphasized that I should “play” more. You know, throw in stuff. Goof around. Don’t follow so robotically perfect all the time.
Thinking about that later, it struck me as odd. Because a year ago I was proudly stomping all over the dance floor, tearing things up with my crazy solo moves and hijacking all over the place. To the point where I began to annoy myself. What’s happened to me?
Add this to the fact that last week I became suddenly and helplessly paralyzed in a Charleston jam. Deer-in-the-headlights bit. Me!
And I realized, you know what? I’ve been working way too hard on leading and following. I’ve been neglecting my solo dancing.
So it’s back to that again.
Here’s my new scheme. Maybe you’ll want to try this too.
You know that bit of choreography called “Mama’s Stew”? (If you don’t, don’t bother trying to YouTube it, you’ll get nothing but goulash recipes.) Anyway, it’s a sort of line dance someone came up with, and the structure goes like this:
AAAA
BBCC
DDDE
FGFG
HIHI
J/K, J/K, J/K, L
Each line above stands for four eight-count movements. Each letter, of course, stands for a different jazz step; one individual letter means eight counts of that step. For example, in HIHI, H stands for boogie backs, and I stands for boogie forwards, and in this instance you do eight counts of boogie backs, eight counts of boogie forwards, and then repeat. Get it? In that last line, J/K means four counts of one jazz step combined with four counts of another to make a sort of composite jazz step; in this case you start to do fall-off-the-log but throw in some hallelujahs halfway through.
What you can do is use this structure to generate your own routine. As you can see, you’ll need twelve different jazz steps, A through L. You can pick these at random from your handy-dandy master list. (At last count, my list has ninety different steps I’m working on! How many do you have?)
I would suggest being totally random with picking these steps. Close your eyes and point, roll dice, or say “eeny-meenie-mynie-mo.” Because remember, the challenge is to combine things in weird new ways and to incorporate the familiar with the strange. Then plug them all into the above structure for a completely new, never-before-seen-on-television line dance routine of your very own.
I’m going to try having a new routine ready to play with when I go out to my favorite venue later this week. I suggest you try and do the same.
So what are you doing sitting here reading blog posts? Get going!
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Raiding the Vault
Posted on: July 20, 2012
How’s your solo Charleston coming along? Awesome, I hope! But once in a while this problem comes up, and maybe you can identify:
You’ve taken a million workshops, watched a million clips on YouTube. You’ve learned a million different steps and variations. You’ve written them down neatly in a little notebook and you’ve practiced them with all due diligence.
Yet when you get out on the social floor, you keep finding yourself doing the same few boring moves over and over. Arg!
What you need is a way to get all those millions of variations out of your mental storage vault, out to where you can access them quickly, whenever they’re needed. So here’s a way of practicing your solo Charleston and jazz steps, and it should help with that problem.
The one great secret of practicing is that there’s amazing power in doing one little thing, day after day. This technique taps into that. Every individual session need not, and should not, be extensive; what’s most important is that you do this every day.
First, dig out your list of jazz steps and variations. Or compile one from all the little notes you’ve jotted down over the weeks and months. Get yourself a nice neat list that makes sense to you. You should plan on adding to this master list whenever you learn something new.
Now every day, what you’re going to do this: randomly select up to eight of these variations, and write them on a sticky note. You can pick fewer than eight if you want, but no more than eight, okay?
The way I randomly select things is this: Start at the beginning of your list, and count down the list as many places as the number of today’s date. Today is the 20th, so count down 20 places on the list. Whatever step that is, jot it down on a sticky note. Keep going, starting back at the top of the list when you reach the bottom, until you’ve got eight items written on your sticky note. The next day, you’ll start with the next item on the list and use the next day’s date. Get it?
This system works well most days. If it keeps landing you on the same item all eight times, then just use your birthday or something. Improvising, remember?
So when you’ve got your mini list, randomly selected from your master list, these are the variations you’re going to work on today. Stick the note up where you can see it, put on your music, and then dance out these moves in any order and combination you like. The trick is that you’re limited to only this short list of moves, and no others.
You’ll find that some of the variations will work well as a “basic” – you can do them over and over again without stopping – while others only really work as a “break.” Some variations will easily work in combination, while others may require a little tinkering to get a smooth transition. Work out all these issues to your heart’s content, but only, I repeat, only using this limited selection of moves.
When you get bored or tired, stop. Throw away the sticky note, and put the whole thing out of your mind.
Next day, repeat the exercise, using eight different moves.
Repeat this every day for the rest of your life.
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Being the Cool Kid
Posted on: June 28, 2012
So here’s one of the ways you can make people want to dance with you: Work on your solo dancing.
This has been mentioned a time or two before in this blog, and lots of the comments agree. Solo dancing is excellent in so many ways, and if you’re having a crisis about your personal magnetism in the dance scene, there are some very specific ways it can help.
One is that it just makes you a better dancer. You learn better control of your ownself, and that’s crucially important. When things go wrong in a dance we so often blame our partners: “He was yanking on my arm.” “She was too heavy.” If people seem to be avoiding you on the dance floor, it could very well be that you’re irritating to dance with. Sorry, and I only say this to you because I love you, but the problem may be you. Maybe you are a bit hard to move, or maybe you are too rough. If you learn to move yourself properly, then at least you can eliminate this one very practical reason why your dance card might not be as full as we’d like.
Solo dancing also gives you confidence. When you’ve done a lot of solo dancing, especially in front of a mirror, or recorded yourself on video, then you can at least feel good about how you look when you’re dancing. If you have no idea how you look, it’s easy to make yourself think people don’t want to dance with you because you look goofy. Practice your solo stuff and you’ll know that at least that isn’t the reason.
But it isn’t just the practice of solo dancing that I’m talking about. I mean that you should actually take your solo dancing out to the floor. I know this is more customary in some scenes than in others, but personal opinion? I think every healthy swing dancing community should be embracing solo jazz on the social floor.
For one thing, if there’s a lack of appropriate partners to dance with, then what are you going to do, just sit around and feel sorry for yourself? You could do that at home and save six bucks. When a song comes on that you love, if there’s no one around to dance with, there’s no reason at all you shouldn’t be able to enjoy yourself. You paid good money to go out and have a good time. So have one!
Besides, doing some solo Charleston off in the corner makes you look like one of the cool kids. You don’t even have to be very good at it. People will give you credit for being out there. You’re demonstrating to the world that you don’t give a crap, and that’s extremely attractive to folks.
It also proves that you’re not just there to pick up chicks (or guys), you’re actually there to dance and have fun. That can really go a long way toward eliminating any creepiness factor that might be lurking, because honestly? People are paranoid sometimes.
Busting out your solo stuff also shows folks a little something about how you dance. Now they have more information about you than just your physical beauty or lack thereof, and your taste in clothing. They have a chance to notice your dancing, and it’s a way of sort of advertising yourself to people who might not have noticed you before.
The funny thing is that nine times out of ten, if you start dancing solo when an awesome song comes on, you won’t be dancing solo very long. Someone is gonna come over and start solo dancing with you. Before you know it, you’ll be in a little Charleston jam. Not always, but pretty often. It’s like they all wanted to solo, but weren’t brave enough until you stepped up and started it. So they’ll be grateful, and again, they’ll start to think of you as one of the cool kids.
Solo dancing is one of my favorite ways, but not the only way, to get to the top of the swing dancing food chain. Tomorrow I’ll talk about another idea.
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The Flappers’ Legacy
Posted on: June 23, 2012
We post-feminists and latter-day Jazz Babies owe a lot to the New Women of the 1920s. To that intrepid brand of vintage female we owe the right to cut our hair, to show some skin, to wear makeup, and to do anything we damn well please with whomever we like without fear of social ostracism. And most indispensably, the flappers taught us to Charleston.
They achieved momentous things for us, and we should be grateful.
But not every habit bequeathed to us from the Jazz Age generation was beneficial. For example, smoking. The flappers made folks accustomed to seeing women smoking cigarettes in public. Thank you, but no. They also had a disturbing tendency toward giving themselves alcohol poisoning.
Nearly as harmful was what the flapper did to our spines.
Here is what fashionable posture looked like a generation before the flappers:
Here, in contrast, is fashionable flapper posture:
And here is what fashionable posture looks like today:
The visual record is clear. As dancers in a culture that places little value on the spine, we need to be flappers with our attitude, but Victorians with our posture.
Also, don’t smoke.
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Say Something New
Posted on: June 12, 2012
Do you ever get totally bored with your solo dancing? I do. Seems like I’m always trotting out the same old tired jazz steps in every Charleston jam. You know what I mean? Blah, blah, blah. Same old stuff.
So let’s mix it up a little. If you want to try spicing up your solo movements, here’s a thing you can try:
First, what are your go-to jazz steps? Since they’re your favorites, they probably already look pretty good on you. I don’t want you to stop doing them, I just want you to take them to the next level.
For each step, look at the way you normally perform it. What does your body seem to be saying?
Maybe it’s saying “Look at me! Look at me!” Or maybe it’s something more like “Go away, you bother me.” Or maybe ” Get over here!” Or “Whatever! Who cares?” See if you can come up with a little bit of dialogue to go with each of your favorite steps.
What is your body doing to send that message? Can you tell? Chances are it has something to do with your arms. Are your arms up and out, or hanging down? Are they moving side to side, or forward and back? Are they doing something symmetrical, or is each arm doing something different? Are your elbows bent or straight? Are your hands open or closed? Are your palms up or down?
Now, for each step, try to say something completely different. If the step normally says “Yay! I’m having fun!” see if you can make it say instead, “I could care less.” If it normally says “Hit the road, Jack,” try and make it say, “Pick me! Pick me!” Try to use the same step to send a bunch of different messages.
Besides the ones already mentioned, here are a few more to try:
- “Eek! A mouse!”
- “I could crush you with my bare hands.”
- “How dare you speak to me that way!”
- “I’m exhausted.”
- “Pretty please?”
- “I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.”
See if you can come up with a new favorite way of doing your old favorite steps.
Of course, if your steps don’t seem to be saying anything at all, maybe that’s your problem right there! But doing this exercise should fix that 🙂
Have fun!
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The Jockeying Step
Posted on: May 10, 2012
I’m fascinated by Mr. Lawrence Hostetler’s 1942 book, Walk Your Way to Better Dancing, and his charming elucidation of lindy hop. Here is what he says about “The Jockeying Step:”
“While this is not the basic lindy step, it is important as a foundation figure, and should be practiced before taking up the single lindy. In fact, the first four counts of this figure form the basis of the single lindy. The jockeying step also develops control of the knees, which is an essential feature of this dance.
“First, practice the following exercise: Step on the L with the knee perfectly straight; hold the other foot off the floor (count 1). Bend the L knee with a quick movement (count 2). Straighten the L knee (count 3). Again bend the knee (count 4). Step on the R while you hold the L off the floor, and repeat the bending and straightening movements. Alternate a number of times until you can do the step smoothly and in perfect rhythm. Then practice with slow fox-trot music played in swing or boogie-woogie style. You can recognize it by the steady, even rhythm of the bass. Give four counts to each measure. Your knee straightens on counts 1 and 3, and bends on counts 2 and 4.
“This knee action was part of the original Charleston movement. Later, two small, quick steps were added, which became a distinguishing feature of the lindy. These are taken on the first two counts as follows:
- Lift L knee and step back on ball of foot.
- Lift R knee and step on ball of foot in place.
- Step L forward with knee straight. Hold R off the floor.
- Bend L knee sharply.
- Straighten L knee.
- Again bend L knee.
- Transfer weight to R with knee straight. Hold L off the floor.
- Bend R knee.
“Repeat a number of times and then reverse the figure by stepping back R. Next practice with a partner. Do the step in the open position – that is, both facing forward. The leader begins by stepping back L while his partner steps back R.
“Many dancers, instead of starting with a backward step, begin this figure on count 3 by stepping forward with a straight knee, and then finish with the two quick steps on counts 7 and 8. While this may be more authentic, it is less practical from the standpoint of learning the lindy in a short time, as it is easier to lead into the dance by first turning your partner into the open position. If the jockeying step is practiced in this manner, it is an easy transition into the basic lindy step, because fundamentally the latter is simply the first four counts of the jockeying step done alternately left and right.”
Alright, dance nerds, I have a question for you all – what the heck is he talking about? I tried for some considerable time this afternoon to follow his instructions, but failed miserably to figure out what this is in reference to. Can anyone help me out here?
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Dance to the Music!
Posted on: May 7, 2012
- In: musicality
- 2 Comments
Why do swing dancers have such a hard time dancing to music?
Latin dancers know what steps to do to which music. If it’s a salsa, they do salsa. They wouldn’t do chacha or bachata or merengue to a salsa. That would be weird.
Why is it, then, that swing dancers insist on doing east coast swing to “Brazil”? Or lindy to “Do What Ory Say”? Or charleston to “Wade in the Water”? Or balboa to “Yakety-Yak”? Or shag to “Smooth Sailing”?
People seem to come out to swing dances with one fixed idea in mind. They just learned tandem charleston, say, and they’re determined to practice it as much as possible. So “Nuages” comes on, and there they are doing their tandem charleston.
Last night we had Alex Yan down from Seattle. He is this really cool DJ who has a video setup and DJs everything from video clips. So there was a greater than normal variety of styles and tempos of music, covering the whole swing spectrum.
But I was watching this one dancer off and on throughout the night, and every time I looked at him, no matter what the song was, he was doing these huge kicking swingouts. Every single song that came on, no matter what, his follows were being yanked into these big swingouts. At first it was agonizing to watch. After awhile it just became very, very funny.
Partially I blame this on the mania for teaching beginners east coast swing. It causes problems in two ways. First, we rarely play songs that are particularly good for east coast swing. So people who only know how to do that dance mostly end up dancing it to hot jazz or whatever. They learn to disassociate the dance from the music. Then second, we teach people in subtle ways that east coast swing is only for beginners. So after people learn other dances, they never want to do east coast swing again, even if the song is perfect for it.
We must never forget that there are very many songs out there for which six-count swing is the only appropriate choice, no matter how expert we are at doing other dances.
I think we all need to calm down on our moves and our fixed ideas, and actually listen to these songs. Remember that historically, it was the music that came first, and then the dancing grew out of it. People had no need to invent lindy hop until the music itself taught them how to do it.
We need to recapture this idea in our own dancing. We need to recreate in our own bodies the history of swing dancing by getting out of our brains and more into our ears, and letting the music teach us how to dance.
The song will teach you how it wants you to move, if you will only listen.
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Lindy-robics
Posted on: May 2, 2012
Here’s a thing I do; you might like to try it.
Next time you feel like working up a sweat, instead of going to a cheesed-out aerobics class at the gym or zoning out on the elliptical, stay home instead. Put on your favorite swingable CD or playlist. Then as each song plays, pick one of the following maneuvers and do it for the duration of the song:
- Hopping step-kicks while pushing forward with your hands, in fours, twos or singles.
- Rock step, kick step, moving all around the room.
- Step, scoot, step scoot. By scoot, I mean slide. Try this in all directions, scooting forward, backward, inside, outside, and in place.
- Happy feet, while making extravagant arm motions, chest pops, etc.
- Plain vanilla Lindy, Balboa, or Charleston footwork, moving all around the room.
- My turning exercise.
- Fall off log with scissors on the break.
- Squat Charleston.
- The ab killer: walk around the room doing swivels.
If a song comes on that is ridiculously too fast or slow for any of these, use that song to stretch or to do any muscle-building exercise you can think of. I suggest squats or holding plank position.
Now how do you like that? It’s aerobics without the cheese!
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I’m Thankful
Posted on: April 26, 2012
Sometimes it just hits me again, how thankful I am.
You need to know that I grew up during a time when swing dancing was absolutely unavailable as an option. In the Seventies and Eighties, people were doing a lot of strange things, but swing dancing was definitely not one of them.
I didn’t know about it, but I craved it.
There were so many places where my life almost intersected with swing dancing:
- When I was ten years old, I had a little portable record player. My dad used to let me listen to his collection of 45s. I’d hang out by myself in my room, dancing to old rock-and-roll songs, twirling around in a swooshy skirt I’d made for myself out of an old tablecloth. This was strange behavior. My favorite song? Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife.”
- At age twelve, my favorite movie was “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” I loved the dance scene in particular – a Charleston-ish choreography dealie – and I was sad that people didn’t still dance that way. That Halloween I made myself a pretty cool flapper costume out of a couple of old pillowcases. No one knew what I was supposed to be.
- In Junior High, I hated PE, except for one semester. That was when we had a unit on ballroom dancing. Everyone besides me despised it, or at least pretended to, but I wasn’t that cool. I loved it. My favorite part was when they taught us six-count swing, and my favorite song to dance to was “In the Mood.” I was a total dweeb, and I didn’t even care.
- At around the same time, I was big into Abbott and Costello movies. Remember, children, this was before cable TV. Channel Twelve used to show “Abbott and Costello Theater” every Sunday afternoon. My favorite movie? “Buck Privates.” Especially the big dance number.
- Once during high school my parents, knowing my love of anachronistic music, took me to an outdoor Big Band “concert.” Lots of middle-aged people sitting around on the grass, politely listening to this music that made me want to get up and jump around. They just sat there. It made me really sad.
- In college, I liked going to dances. These consisted of a lot of inebriated people stuffed into a dorm basement, jumping up and down to really loud music by the Sex Pistols, Devo and the B-52s. It was fun, but I couldn’t help feeling that something was missing.
- My freshman year, I spent the summer with some friends in Southern California, and I went to see The Smiths at the Hollywood Palladium. Now in the Forties, the Palladium was a popular swing dancing venue, and it has recently been renovated, but during the Eighties, when I was there, it was “in decline.” A real dump, actually. And I practically got my leg broke in the mosh pit.
I just think it’s miraculous that today I live in a culture where I have the opportunity to go swing dancing as often as I wish. I’m thankful that everything came together this way. I’m thankful for everyone who participates in this with me. I’m thankful for the community of swing dancers who make this possible.
From the bottom of my heart, everyone, thank you.
(P.S. Read Rebecca Brightly’s post here – her “unthinkable” situation describes the world I grew up in. Kids, don’t let this happen to you.)
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Randomness With Limitations
Posted on: April 9, 2012
Improvising seems to come naturally to some dancers, while for others it’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma. If you are happy with your improvisational skills, then keep doing what you’re doing. This post isn’t for you.
If you have low self-esteem about your improvising, what you need to know first of all is that improvising isn’t just doing random things off the top of your head. In almost any pursuit, to improvise meaningfully means to contain your randomness within rather strict parameters. Having limitations means freedom for the improvising artist. Here’s a dance exercise that will help you explore randomness with limitations.
First of all, find a song that makes you feel like dancing the Charleston. I want you to listen to it a few times first and make sure it’s structured in chunks of four eight-count phrases. See my posts here and here if you don’t know what I’m talking about. If the song is based on six phrases instead of four, or if it varies from the pattern a lot or changes tempos too much, pick another song. (I could just give you a list of songs, but I want to make you work for this.) Got your song?
Now, once the song gets going, you’re going to do three solo Charleston basic steps during the first three phrases of every 32-beat “chunk,” and then on the fourth phrase you’re going to do some sort of jazz step. (If you need ideas, here’s some: apple jacks, suzy qs, messaround, crazy legs, hangman, sailor kicks, or any part of the shim-sham. You probably know a lot more jazz steps than you think you do.)
Don’t worry about the steps too much. The most important part of this exercise is not the choreography. What I want you to focus on is not thinking about what you’re going to do until you do it. As much as possible, I want you to practice not planning out what you’re going to do on that last phrase. While you’re doing your three basics, think about your basics and make them as nice as you can. On that last phrase, let whatever happens, happen.
And then get over it. You’ve got to get right back to doing those basics again, and you don’t have time to worry about what just happened. This is the whole key to improvising: don’t go back and try to fix things, or admire things. Stay in the moment and keep going.
Even if you freeze up and can’t think of a thing to do for that last phrase, let it go. Maybe the next time around you’ll come up with something. Or try freezing intentionally, that’s cool too. Just don’t stand there thinking and miss the beginning of the next chunk. Get back to doing those basics right away.
See? It’s randomness with limitations. In this case, it’s three-quarters limitations (Charleston basics) and only one-quarter randomness (jazz steps). Of course, the song itself is the main limitation, as it always must be in any dance. Freedom exercised responsibly is the secret to meaningful improvising!
The Dancing Bug 