Posts Tagged ‘travel’
- In: misery
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So I’m in DC for the Lindy Exchange, and perversely, this post isn’t going to be about the exchange at all. Isn’t that just like me?
See, my sister is a local resident, and since I’m staying with her, I figured it was only right I let her talk me into checking out her preferred form of dancing while I was in town. My sister is addicted to salsa dancing, so on Thursday night we dropped in on salsa night at Dance King Studio in Leesburg.
Now, I’ve done a little bit of salsa, just like I’ve done a little bit of practically every other dance that’s going these days. I’ve even had a little zydeco led on me. Never tried contra, but whatever. I figure if you can follow at all, you can pretty much follow anything.
And that’s generally true. Following is following. You may not follow pretty or look like you know what you’re doing, but at least you won’t get your arm broke off or do anything really embarrassing.
Which pretty much sums up what was happening for me Thursday night. I was managing to get through most of the turns and make it from point A to point B in one piece.
But you know what completely eluded me? The aesthetics of the thing.
First of all, as a lindy hopper, dressing up to go out dancing means something different to me than it does to a salsa dancer. I wore the only heels I had with me, a pair of black Aris Allens that are vintagy-funky-cool at a swing dance, but at a salsa dance they could not have appeared dorkier. Girls dressed up for salsa wear tall, tall spindly spiky things on their feet. Salsa dancers cover the stylistic range between elegant and slutty, but they all appear to be aiming for sexy. This is in no way the aesthetic for swing dancing. And even though I wore the closest equivalent outfit I could throw together, I’m sure people were wondering why I was dressed like someone’s grandma. I felt like a total doofus.
Secondly, there’s the music. Oh, the music. I think that in order to be able to dance convincingly, you need to be moved by the music. And salsa music does not move me, unless it’s out the door. It sounds like circus music to me, and it was way too loud. But my sister, and here’s the important point, my sister listens to that stuff IN HER CAR. Enough said?
Finally, though, salsa dancers just seem to have a different idea of what dancing is actually FOR. As an outsider, it appears to me that they’re really hung up on the whole gender-role difference thing. The men are really manly, and the girls are over-the-top girly. And when a lead approaches me with that Magnificent Beast look on his face, well, it just makes me want to laugh.
Which I actually did, periodically throughout the night. I laughed. Swing dancing makes me laugh a lot, which is why I do it. But salsa dancers don’t seem to like that so much. As a matter of fact, the highlight of my evening was when one of these magnificent beasts led a turn on me, and accidentally smacked me right in the forehead. I about died laughing. I had to stop and have a short fit of hysterics. And the man just stood there, wearing that Mask of Zorro look, not even cracking a grin. Just stood there waiting until I had recovered and could proceed with the serious business at hand. If you don’t think that made me feel like the Special Child, think again.
So basically, salsa dancing, blech.
But I will say that salsa dancers do seem to be enjoying themselves every bit as much as I do when I’m at a swing dance. So I’m not disrespecting the dance itself. It may very well be that I am just way too awkward and unwieldy for this much more adult-seeming form of dancing.
Whatever.
In fact, I’m just perverse enough that I might for the hell of it buy myself a pair of those spiky things and give it a try again next year.
(P.S. Had the honor of meeting fellow dance-blogger Jason from “Dancing Past the Godzilla Threshold” at the lindy exchange last night, and if he’s reading this, he better get ready because I intend to ask him for a lotta more dances tonight!)
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Why We Bother
Posted on: March 6, 2013
- In: community
- 2 Comments
It’s Wednesday, and I’m almost recovered from the Portland Lindy Exchange this past weekend. And like every year, I have to ask: why do we do this to ourselves?
An exchange is a ton of work. Not just for the organizers, promoters, volunteers, hosts, venue operators, musicians, sound technicians, caterers and cleanup people. I mean just to attend one is a big deal. You travel by car, boat, bus or plane from wherever you come from to stay with strange people and live out of a suitcase for three days, risking no sleep, sketchy food options, and unfamiliar mass transit while you trust google maps to get you to random, out-of-the-way dance venues, often in the scariest parts of town. And all this for the privilege of paying a hundred bucks to dance with strangers for twelve hours a day.
Normal people would look at that list and say, “You’ve gotta be kidding.”
But we never claimed to be normal, did we? We swing dancers look at that list and say, “Aw, hell yeah!”
There’s always that one Christmas moment during every exchange that reminds you why you started this crazy dancing lifestyle in the first place. Mine usually happens at the Sunday afternoon dance, and it happened that way this year.
See, I’m normally kind of a middle-aged sort. On my non-dancing nights I’m usually in bed by ten. Pulling all-nighters is something I do only infrequently, reluctantly, and under extreme duress. Like if someone is in the hospital, or if there’s a lindy exchange going on.
So this past Saturday night, I’m eating something that seems like dinner at around twelve-thirty a.m. And I’m half-loopy from exhaustion. Between dancing outside all afternoon and then subsisting on a quick snack and a nap in the car, my resources are severely depleted. And I’m looking down from the second floor balcony, watching the dancers below on the dance floor, and the music is getting louder and faster, while the dancers seem to be dancing in slow-motion, and there are tracers of light following them all around, and all the colors are running together, and I’m thinking, people pay their drug dealers good money for this sort of thing.
And then a few hours later, after a couple more rounds of dancing, getting a second wind, hitting the wall, collapsing and dying, and then dancing some more, I’m amazed to notice that I’m vacuuming. The dance is over, and the band is dismantling their equipment, and it’s daylight out. And I’m so crazy tired that my brain taps into some weird college-era neural pathway and I find myself craving Egg McMuffins.
After a long drive home, we finally fall in bed and sleep for a blessed couple of hours. Literally, just a couple hours, just enough to not die, before we have to get up, shower, and drive back to the dance again.
It’s the Sunday afternoon dance, and despite my crazy exhaustion, I know it’s going to be incredible.
I approach the venue, and I hear that distant music and the shuffling, stomping, creaking noises of dancing feet and the murmur of people trying to talk over the band, and it’s like coming home. I walk up the stairs, and there’s all my people. Some are sitting in the lobby with sweaty faces, fanning themselves. Some are dolling themselves up in the bathroom. Some are standing around guzzling water. And lots of them are dancing. I push my way through the clumps of lollygaggers up to where the band is playing, and someone waggles his eyebrows at me, and we’re dancing, and it’s so crazy hot in the room it’s like dancing on the sun.
The Sunday afternoon band this year was the Two Man Gentleman Band, and they were amazing. So funny and so danceable. I’m with all my old and new friends in this crowded, sweaty room, dancing Balboa the way it was meant to be danced, because there’s no room to dance any other way, in a swirl of faces and arms and legs and vintage dresses and sweat-soaked t-shirts and sloshing drinks, trying not to kick over chairs and tables and speaker stands, like it’s some crazy acid trip, only instead of Jimi Hendrix there’s old-timey dance music playing, and no actual drugs are involved. It’s desperately confusing and sort of nauseating, and I haven’t had this much fun since… the last lindy exchange!
And it suddenly hits me. THIS MOMENT, this crazy moment when I feel like I’m dancing better than I ever thought I could, with people who are healthier and nicer and better-looking and more talented than any other people I know, to this crazy band like no other, this one crazy moment is why we go to all that trouble. And it’s totally worth it.
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Best Dance Weekend Ever!
Posted on: September 11, 2012
So let me tell you about the fabulous weekend I just had! What happened is, I took the Bolt Bus up to Seattle for a dance workshop weekend with instructor Nathan Bugh. And it totally fixed my dance depression!
By the way, have you seen this Bolt Bus? Apparently, it’s a fixture on the east coast, and last year they brought it out here. It’s an express bus that only stops in Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver B.C. Their thing is that they’re super cheap; their slogan is “Bolt for a Buck,” and it seems that every trip includes at least one fare that’s only a dollar. But it’s not just cheap, it’s really nice and convenient, the buses are new and really clean, with wi-fi and electric outlets everywhere, and it doesn’t stop in the seedy part of town like Greyhound does. I took the bus from smack dab in the middle of downtown Portland, and it dropped me off right outside Uwajimaya in Seattle barely three hours later. I highly recommend this mode of travel to and from dance events!
I gotta say, the dancers in Seattle are awesome. I finally got to meet and hang out with dance blogger extraordinaire Rebecca Brightly, and she’s every bit as cool in person as she seems in her blog. And Jenna Applegarth, who organized the event, was extremely hospitable and super chill about getting me rides back and forth to things. Everyone was just really nice, and by the end of the weekend I felt like a kid at the end of summer camp, sad to say goodbye to my new friends.
So Nathan Bugh is a fairly frighteningly good dancer. I’d never met him before, and whenever I first meet instructors I’ve seen on YouTube, I always feel super awkward until we get bonded a little bit. Well, Nathan is kind of New Yorky, whereas I’m pretty much a middle-aged housewife from the sticks, so I didn’t actually bond with him. But he stopped terrifying me after awhile, and I learned a lot from the workshop.
And I’m proud of myself, because I took the whole workshop as a lead! That was a new thing for me. Usually I’m extremely reticent about leading in a workshop, especially if there are already extra leads. I never want to be that bad lead that holds everyone else up. Which is ridiculous, because there’s always way worse leads in the class than me anyway. But I guess it’s because I’m a girl, I feel like I’m usurping someone else’s place. You know what I mean? But this time, I really wanted to lead.
So I asked Nathan if it was okay with him if I took the workshop as a lead. “I mean, is it going to be super difficult?” I said. And he looks me up and down, all New Yorky-like, and goes, “I dunno, can you lead?” “Well, kinda,” I said, feeling like a middle-aged housewife from the sticks. So he says, “Uh, do you lead often?” Totally not thinking I know what I’m talking about at all. So I led him in a couple of swingouts and he conceded that I could probably manage.
And it was great! I learned some stuff and got a lot of practice at leading, lots of good feedback from the follows, and took tons of notes. Of course, a lot of the instruction went right over my head too, it always does. But I’ve learned to just take what I can from a workshop, and not feel bad about the stuff I don’t understand. I figure it will always be there when I’m ready to hear it.
Finished the weekend by taking the bus back to Portland and going directly to Mindy’s dance at the Scottish Rite. It was the eighth anniversary of Stumptown Dance, and she hired the Bridgetown Sextet, best dance band ever. The energy in the room was incredible, and I had the greatest time – the perfect end to a perfect dance weekend!
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Wish I’d a Gone
Posted on: June 26, 2012
- In: videos
- 2 Comments
I got no controversy today. No blathering. But here’s the highlights video from All-Balboa Weekend 2012. And I wish I’d a gone. That’s all. See you tomorrow!
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Challenge #6: Pull In Your Chin
Posted on: April 27, 2012
Happy Friday! So how did smiling work out for you? I’ll bet you a quarter that if you tried last week’s challenge, you might not have danced any better, but you had more fun. And I bet your partners did too.
You can’t go by me – I was at the DC Lindy Exchange last weekend, and I couldn’t help having a big grin on my face the whole time. It wasn’t really a fair test, you might say.
So anyway. I’ve been looking at pictures of myself dancing. Ugh.
And one thing I notice is that my chin is always sticking out. Also, I’m always looking down. Super awkward. I’ve got that whole forward head thing the yoga folks talk about. Looks like I spend way too much time on the computer.
So I’ve decided that this week I’m going to try keeping my head balanced on top of my neck where it’s supposed to be.
Wanna try this with me? If you’re not sure how, try this:
- Put your finger on your chin. Now pull your chin back, away from your finger. Not enough to squish your throat, just to the point where your head is on top of your spine, rather than in front of it.
- Imagine that your head is a big helium balloon, and your body is dangling down from it like a string.
- When you turn your head, rather than turning your face toward the thing you’re looking at, think about turning the back of your head away from it. Like you’ve got a big handle sticking out the back of your skull, and someone’s using it to turn your head for you. If you compare the two ways of turning your head – turning your face versus turning the back of your head – you’ll see that the second one allows your neck to turn more freely.
Well, that’s what I’ll be obsessing about this week. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Now that I’m somewhat recovered from the weekend, here are a few differences I noticed between DC’s lindy exchange and ours in Portland:
Food: They served a variety of do-it-yourself snacks. Sandwich makings, vegetable and fruit trays, cookies, chips and dips, coffee with the trimmings were all laid out on different tables and people ambled around and assembled their own thing on paper plates. We had hot catered food – burritos or wraps or something – more like a meal. I don’t eat bread, so I actually preferred the flexibility of their snack-type approach. I don’t go to exchanges to eat.
Drop-ins: I didn’t show up in time to see how they did their drop-in lessons. But I did observe that at several times during a dance they would announce that so-and-so was available to give a quick lesson to anyone who didn’t know how. Wonder if you could use that approach to eliminate the drop-ins completely?
Late-night: We had DJ’d music before and after all the bands, so there was no gap between the end of the main dance and the beginning of late-night. Their late-night dance was scheduled an hour after the end of the main dance, and on Saturday it took so long to set up that there was actually an hour and a half between the two dances. That means that between 12:30 and 2 am there was all this time to hang around drinking, eating, being bored, falling asleep, and deciding to give up and go home. I was not a fan.
Bands: I would just like to observe that they must have spent a million dollars on music. No band appeared at more than one dance, and all their bands had lots and lots of members. The music was great, but sheesh. I thought WE spent a lot.
Flyer table: There wasn’t one. At one venue I saw a little stack of flyers for some out-of-town exchange, so I put my flyers there. The next night they were all gone, like someone had thrown them away. Grr.
Registration packets: Not just the obligatory information papers and pack of gum stuffed in a manila envelope. There were buttons, a water bottle, and other goodies in an actual fabric shoe bag. Pretty nifty. Again, I think their budget must be roughly twice what ours is.
Outdoor dances: They had an outdoor dance on both Saturday and Sunday, at different venues, which is cool. They also had an in-case-of-rain backup plan. They announced several times on Friday and Saturday nights not only what the outdoor venue was, but where the dance would be if it rained, and where to tune for news and official information. They announced over Facebook, Twitter and on their own website by ten a.m. whether or not the dance would be moved. I thought this was very well done. We always have our outdoor dance on Saturday, rain or shine – some years it’s been snowing or hailing and we’re still out there dancing. Cool or insane, I’m not quite sure.
Anyway, that’s just some thoughts. If anyone wants to comment and tell me their favorite and un-favorite things about exchanges, I’d love to hear about them!
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DCLX Report: Day 3
Posted on: April 23, 2012
Well, sorry to say it, but other obligations forced me to miss yesterday’s barbecue as well as the main dance with the Boilermaker Jazz Band. But I did make it to the afternoon dance, so I can tell you about that.
It got rained out! It was supposed to have been at Dupont Circle but it got moved to the annex of the Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo instead. All this rain, you’d think I was back home already. A bunch of wet clothes and socks dancing around in a small ballroom made it pretty clammy, but it was still fun.
The high point for me was when the Bitter Dose Combo played “Swing 49” and right in the middle the vocalist started singing “I Will Survive.” Sang it right through, in fact.
I was deliriously tired anyway, so I’m afraid I was rather giggling like an idiot. My dance partner was nice about it though.
That’s all I have the energy to report right now. If anyone reading this attended the exchange and can add any details I missed, please feel free to comment here, I’d love to hear about it!
(P.S. Oops – I mean “Minor Swing.” I guess I really was delirious. Here’s the video.)
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DCLX Report: Day 2
Posted on: April 22, 2012
Bothering celebrities: swinging out with the Father of our Country
Wow. So many good dancers out last night! My head is spinning.
The Band Battle at Glen Echo was incredible, of course. With the Tom Cunningham Orchestra and Glenn Crytzer’s Blue Rhythm Band it couldn’t hardly be otherwise.
But I totally didn’t realize that Meschiya Lake was going to be there! I saw her standing off to one side of the ballroom – you can’t mistake Meschiya for anyone else – and before I knew what I was doing I barged up to her and said, “I didn’t know you were going to be here, I’m totally stoked!!”
She looked at me a little bit like, who the hell is this? And then she smiled, turned her head away slightly and said, “You and me both, sister.” She was so elegant; I felt distinctly like a doofus.
So I decided that as long as I was going around bothering celebrities, I might as well barge up to the lovely and talented Andy Reid and make his day too. I asked him to dance – one of the braver things I’ve done in my life – and we had a very nice time. Or at least I did. With these friendly, cheerful types, you can never really tell, can you? Anyway, he was very gracious.
I saw a couple more celebrities there, but I was too scared to ask them to dance. I did have a whole bunch of really great dances with some non-celebrities, or at least if they were celebrities I didn’t know about it. I tried to get all their names and remember them, and of course I forgot. So thanks, everyone who danced with me, whoever you are. I had a great time!
The downside – everyone was dressed up but me. All the girls were cuted up in their little vintage dresses, and here I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Duh! Must remember to dress up next time.
The Careless Lovers were delightful as always; nevertheless, late-night defeated me once again. Although I did stay until three, so that beats my former record anyway. See you all tomorrow!
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DCLX Report: Day 1
Posted on: April 21, 2012
So I survived the first night of the DC Lindy Exchange. I’m pretty tired, though, so I’m just going to brainstorm some observations here, in no particular order:
Glen Echo Park is lovely. It’s an antique amusement park in a woodsy setting; feels just a tad bit like the Oregon Country Fair, but without the nudity.
The dance last night was in the Bumper Car Pavilion, an open-air structure with a wooden floor that would have been just marvelous except it had recently been treated with linseed oil. So it was a bit on the gummy side. Didn’t seem to slow anyone down much – people just wore their second-best shoes and didn’t worry about it. Lots of good energy, and the band – Craig Gildner’s Blue Crescent Syncopators – was swinging in a most respectable manner.
Only saw one other dancer there from Portland, my pal Christina. We’re really just very slightly acquainted, yet we greeted each other like long-lost relatives. Had a fun dance together. But it was kind of embarrassing: here we are, representing the beautiful Rose City, and nary a tattoo between the two of us. In Portland, most people are covered in them from stem to stern, and folks tend to look at you funny if you don’t sport at least two or three.
I always find it amusing, when I travel, to discover that dancers everywhere tend to fall into types. Everyone I dance with turns out to be the exact equivalent of some individual I dance with back home. Someday I’ll have to make up a catalog.
The late-night venue was super chill – a proper ballroom with a very nice floor. Only downside was the huge mirrors everywhere I kept having to avoid being obsessed by. The food was perfect. The band, an organization called Bruce Tegler’s Joy of Sax, featured three saxophones and totally rocked the house.
Even though I tried to pace myself, I’m afraid I did get a little carried away. So I didn’t make it much past two a.m. Maybe I’ll do better tonight. Gonna miss the afternoon dance and tour Mount Vernon instead, but I’ll be back at Glen Echo for the main dance, and I’ll try to go the distance at late-night. Let you know how it goes.
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DCLX Ahoy!
Posted on: April 19, 2012
I can’t even think straight today. Just flew all night from Portland, Oregon to Washington DC. A murderous trip with two layovers, but I made it! Gonna hang out with my sister and go to the DC Lindy Exchange this weekend! Yayy!!
Now, I gotta stay cool about this. Last few exchanges I went to, I got overexcited, danced every dance the first couple of hours, got totally exhausted, and then had to leave by two a.m. Weak! This time I swear I’m gonna pace myself. I’ll sit out a few early on, and maybe I’ll manage to be one of the last bleary people stumbling home at five a.m. That’s my goal.
My other goal is this: I swear I’m gonna dance with every last lead there. Every single one of them, without fail.
But not all on the first night!
The Dancing Bug 