I’ve discovered that one of the barometers to measure the quality of an event is to see how many videos, how high quality they are and how fast they’re posted after the event is over. On all counts, Lindyfest from a few weeks ago wins. It took a little while for me to sort through them all because they’re all really good. There's at least three videos of every performance and jam. I recommend going over to Jo Hoffberg's blog where she posted the Houston Swing Dance Society's own videos from the event. They had a a few camera's going and were able to pick up the performances from some cool angles.
Frida=Awesome and Other Performance Observations
The reason why I like watching good dancing is because there's so much room for interpretation of subtleties and details. You can watch the same thing over and over again, but still see something new. Bad dancing just just gives me a headache from the the static of unclear intentions. My friend Ann Mony (who's website is imminent according to my sources) pointed out an interesting tidbit at 2:00 in this recent performance by Frida Segerdahl and Skye Humphries at Lindyfest last weekend. At 2:00 she waves for Skye to come over and join her.
Event Promotion Amusingness
I'm a little backed up writing wise. I have a couple of Philippine travel posts to finish. Plus, I've been doing a lot of research on Lindy Hop events recently. I'll be sharing the the reason for that in a future blog post. In the meantime I thought I'd point out a couple of amusing little things I've found. This is probably the most unique theme I've found from the Vintage Swing Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Although the prom king and queen thing may be a bit much.
Weekly Video Review: Crazy Rhythm Challenge 2010
Those crazy French put on the Crazy Rhythm Challenge in Toulouse France a couple of weekends ago. Lot’s of good stuff posted by Teedee Hop. You can find more videos over on their YouTube page here.
Flashback with Ramona Staffeld: Minnie's Moochers at the 1998 ALHC
This is the first of hopefully many installments of a special feature that I’m doing with Ramona Staffeld. We’re going to be looking at some very old school clips of her past performances and getting her reactions. Like a DVD director’s commentary except for Lindy Hop clips. The first one is from the 1998 American Lindy Hop Championships. Everything after the video below is written by her with a few hopefully helpful edits from me. Enjoy!
Feeling My Way Around
The idea that roosters only crow at dawn is a damn dirty lie. They pretty much crow whenever they feel like it, which seems to be any part of the day or night. It's something you notice when you're trying to sleep at any part of the day or night. It took me a little while to notice that my sleep schedule pretty much resembles what it's like when I'm at a dance weekend. I start to crash at about 7:00-8:00 pm local time which is about 6 or 7 am EST, and I wake up about 5 hours later which is roughly the early afternoon back in DC. I don't get comfortable sleeping in strange places and I'm usually attuned to getting up early for work anyway. The result is that there's a big chunk of time when I'm awake and no one else is around.
Weekly Video Highlights: Rock That Swing
This week's highlights come from Germany's Rock That Swing Festival 2010. Kelly Arsenault and Mickey Fortanasce
Nicole Rochelle
Shim Sham w/ Chazz Young
Videos courtesy of
http://www.youtube.com/user/SwingVideos
Going on Vacation is a lot of Work
The smell of the air as took me back to the last time I visited the Philippines when I was in 5th or 6th grade. I was exiting Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila after a 21 hour flight a couple of nights ago. (I'm having a pretty difficult time figuring out what time or day it is now) My first and last visit was such a long time ago, but it didn't take long for things to look and feel familiar. I should have been overwhelmed by the holding area outside of the airport. They don't let anyone meet you inside after you disembark from your plane. The Phillippines' biggest export is labor. So there are huge numbers of people coming and going from the country at any one time. Even larger numbers await them when they return. In order to keep everyone from overwhelming the airport, they set aside a large outdoor waiting area. On the airport side, you set yourself up under one of many signs, which easch one corresponding with the first letter of your last name. Across the street of taxi's for those with no one to greet them, is a huge, barred holding pen filled with friends and relatives.
Talk Amongst Yourselves
I'm going to be offline for the next week for my vacation. So if you post a comment somewhere, and it doesn't show up, rest assured that I'll get to it when I return. I'm sure you won't miss me especially with so many other online disctractions to keep you occupied. You can still come back and be entertained since I finally figure out how to time delay posts. So you should see some new content pop up this week while I'm away.
Retro Video Review: Hop The Millennium
In a previous post I said that I’d put up a few clips from a tape of Hop the Millennium but then decided that the whole thing was too good and uploaded the whole thing. The event took place over New Year’s 1999/2000 in Mexico City Ensenada, Mexico of all places. There’s a lot of dancing goodness featuring the Rhythm Hot Shots which is the team that begat The Harlem Hot Shots. Southern California represents with a piece by Rusty Frank & Peter Flahiff and another by Peter Loggins & Lisa Ferguson. Keep an eye out for a pimpin performance by the father and son team of “Moke & Poke” a.k.a. Chazz Young and Frankie Manning.