Weekly Video Highlights: The Manzari Brothers

A little something different this week as I'm trying to find time to sort all the awesome Lindy videos from the past couple of months. The Washington Post recently did a wonderful spotlight on up and coming DC tap talent, John and Leo Manzari.

The two brothers are both in high school but are currently in a local production of Sophisticated Ladies, a musical based on the music of another DC native, Duke Ellington. The show is headlined by Maurice Hines, the brother of the late great tapper Gregory Hines. Here is is talking about discovering the two brothers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhxi4JrTiwY

And a couple more videos of the guys dancing. Here's John by himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KepwUib39to

Battle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QepHEMGUzvY

Sophisticated Ladies is produced by Arena Stage but is showing at the Lincoln Theater and is running until June 6th.

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. VI

I grabbed a radio and headed upstairs to check out how everything was progressing. That’s when I found out that we were in more trouble than at any other time in the festival.

Visionary Project Interview with Norma Miller

With all this talk about Frankie, I don't want to overlook one of his surviving peers from the old days, Norma Miller. Fortunately, I randomly found the recently uploaded clips of her doing an interview with the Visionary Project. Here Norma gives some interesting background on Hellzapoppin’. It's a very sobering reminder that those days weren't just about dancing.

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. V

George Henik reminded me that the Saturday night didn’t end with the live music. Anyone paying attention will note that the Saturday late night was the only time when we featured an extended DJ set. The reason was simply because we didn’t want to put the pressure on musicians to try to follow the show that preceded it that night. However, I think we left the night in the good hands of Jesse Miner and Rayned Wiles.

They kept the crowd going so well that they didn’t want to stop dancing even after they left the ballroom after 4:00 am. This was obviously not late enough for the 100+ dancers who loitered in front of the Manhattan Center until someone got the bright idea to just start clapping hands and get everyone dancing again.

Weekly Video Highlights: The Ninjammerz Invade Asia

The Ninjammerz hit up Japan and Korea last month brought lots of new material with them, and were greeted with an equal amount of creativity. Thanks to these YouTube users for posting these videos

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. IV

You would think everything would have gotten easier after we settled into the Hammerstein Ballroom, our home for the last half of the event, but not so much.

Saturday was the first day of workshops. Theoretically, over 1000 people were eligible to take workshops. According to a survey we took a month before, closer to 800 had plans on taking them.

Random DCene(s): The Lion or the Squirrel?

Anyone that lives in DC for any amount of time has a squirrel story. I have several including one where I was pickpocketed by one and another that involves the word threesome. I’ll save those for another day.

This weekend, I was walking through the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial when I ran into some very friendly squirrels. Or hungry. It's usually the latter, but like a lot of people in DC, they've learned to mask their true motivations behind a thin veneer of furry charm. My camera phone documents what happened next.

Frankie95 Highlights and Observations Pt. III

On Friday we did it all over again because we had to move everything from the Grand Ballroom to the Hammerstein Ballroom downstairs. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to skip out on the memorial service and the dance at Central Park. It was a tough decision especially after David had detailed the line up to me earlier in the week. The speaker and musical guest list was loaded, a testament to Frankie's influence.

Everyone is Doing It.

via Obamarama. Check out the caption there. That's right. Even Obama wanders and ponders. That's how we roll in DC.

It's Monday. Boo-Ya!

Weekend Video Review: The Harlem Hot Shots Go Old School

This frees me up to talk about the Harlem Hot Shots' huge week. Last weekend they performed in the show “The Last Bounce” which is supposed to be the last show featuring the Stockholm based dance company Bounce. As you’ll see from the video, it was a huge arena sized show in front of thousands of people. According to the website they did five shows in front of a total of 54,000 people!