We Go....

He and She Goes;

Ok, we admit it. Summer has distracted us, and so we'll be taking a break until September.

For those of you able to make it, however, Spoon is putting on a one-off night (and it's her birthday too, shhh!) and the more dancers who can make it, the better!

The info is on facebook but as it's an event open to the public anyone should be able to see the details. If the link doesn't work for you though, just comment and we'll post the info up.

https://www.facebook.com/events/180170098824433/

Herrang; Taking Steps With Care

He Goes:

I don't know if I've got F(ear)O(f)M(issing)O(ut) so much as FOB(eing)O(ld). When your facebook feed is full of people eating banana cake in Herräng or gelato in Como or Fish and Chips in Lowestoft or whatever the hell dancers eat in the infernal heat of Thessalonica, it's hard not to think of yourself as past the good days. I know people considerably older than me are going to be/have been at all of those events, but I have always been a terrible traveller and I'm only getting worse as I age. I never normally recommend people to be like me, but in this case I shall make it explicit. Don't be like me.

I'm going to have a little pity party now, with slightly deflated balloons. But it'll soon be over, and then I'll play Dipsy-Doodle ten times and try to get a few more phrases into the Tranky Doo. Have a spoonful of something sweeter while I'm gone.

No, not this. This ↓

She Goes:

Ah man. I hate to add to anyone's FOMO but seriously? If you even have the smallest thought that you may enjoy going, then GO! GOOOO!

Camp veterans will probably smile in a knowing and indulgant way at this post. Ahh, the enthusiasm of a first time camper. And I'm not ashamed of it. I discovered Herräng while it was happening last year (much like Swing Crash in Como), and was unable to go. Oh, how desolately unconsolable I felt!

So this year I decided to tackle it with full-spoons a'blazing. (You should know straight away that one week does not feel like enough. I will do at least two next year.)

I did week 2, and the Slow Dance track (around the intermediate-advanced level). The teachers were Skye and Frida (she is amazing), Peter and Naomi (My swing crush knows no bounds), Stephen and Sara (interesting ideas), Sugar and Barbara (all about the lead molestation!) and Daniel and Åsa (Divine dynamics through and through)

Herrang are quite particular in their musical remit, which was explained to us by Peter, and that is probably why the track was termed Slow Dance, NOT blues/lindy/ballroom. It's the first time the track has been run and all teachers were welcomed to bring their own ideas of what was what to the classes.

Daniel and Åsa's classes were more slow lindy and ballroom flavoured, and encouraged us to think about the dynamics of the dance. Contrasting speeds of figures, contrasting clean and smooth with a dirtier vibe. Although when I write that it sounds a little suspect- they showed that it is possible to have a sensual, almost raunchy slow lindy dance WITHOUT it getting vulgar or gratuitous- which I think a lot of people immediately assume happens with the slower BPM songs. They encouraged us to be a little more laid back, lazy even, with what we did, but not to lose sight of the emotional content of the dance. The main thing I took away from their lessons was to not be afraid to show my personality on the dance floor or to lose myself in the music. Also I learnt, amongst others, a nice move involving a double turn send out, double turn return and lean. Mmm.

Skye and Frida. Wow- to be in the same room as them is to finally understand what all the fuss is about. She is very much in the driving seat when it comes to the teaching, and rightly so I think. I'm sure they both practice for hours a day- but their style- especially hers- is so smooth and fluid it looks as natural as breathing. Who wouldn't want that in their life?! So it shouldn't sound surprising that they wanted us to be focused on momentum (which I was already spending a lot of time thinking about as my only means of transportation was a single speed bike!), and keeping it going even where there was not much to be done. We learnt a lovely two-phrase piece of slow lindy choreography, the majority of which is totally leadable socially. I took from the lessons a heightened awareness of my steps- as Frida so rightly said, 'If you're going to take a step, take it with care'

Peter and Naomi were great fun- him in particular. I've admired his leading from afar (meaning I've got a lot of his stuff saved on youtube) because I was immediately struck from the very first time that he seems like a lead I could click with. And it turns out we have very similar musical tastes too, after a natter after one class. He's a soul brother at heart- and that is just my cup of tea. I particularly appreciated the teaching style- stopping everybody and saying 'no, that's not right, and we're not moving on until it is' was something I actually found to be very positive. There more discussions in their classes, discussing what made a difference in a move and the subtleties of emotions conveyed. As a blues dancer himself he shared some humourous insights- and I agree with him that every dance shuld be nice but not every dance should be sexy! We did some slow lindy figures, and what I took away with me was to remember my sense of humour, and be responsible for my own footwork independently as well as in response to my leads' signals.

Sugar and Barbera were hilarious. Of an older school of dancing, their approach was more along the lines of 'we'll demonstrate it and you work it out for yourself', which was hilarious if a little frustrating. The style was mostly lindy based with some showier elements- and Barbera took special care to make sure the leg of her lead was stroked in a particular move as often as possible. I think that's something we can all get on board with! I think the main thing I learnt from them is to remember to enjoy what I'm doing and molest my lead as much as possible....!!

Stephen and Sara were the teachers I found I didn't get on so well with. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they're excellent in other formats but I found it difficult to get some of the ideas they were trying to convey, and I wasn't the only one. Being asked by a series of leads what it is they needed to do while I was trying to figure out my own steps was particularly frustrating. However, Stephen is very musical and I liked the fact that they were coming from a more ballroom-y aspect. Foxtrot, waltz, polka and tango steps all popped up in this soulful melting pot of ideas. I took away from their class the confirmation that I want to try tango this year.

I think it's also fair I mention Dawn Hampton. What a lady. She reminded us that we are dancing because we love it- and to be more mindful of that. Dancing without feeling the love is just stepping in time with the music. I got up and danced with her during the lecture I was in of hers. I'm sure the pictures will confirm what I suspect: that I was beaming from ear to ear the whole time. What a lady.

I hardly need add how fun the social dance element of this was. I was rarely in bed before 5am most nights. And oh how I miss it now.

Next year, just you wait! 

"Business"

He goes

"Business" is the term that old vaudevillians used to mean a bit in a script that was left open to the performers for general slapstick. Some bits of a script would be set, some left up to the person on stage to handle as they saw fit. I was thinking last week about whether sometimes it might be better for leads to consider their footwork as "business" or not.

Now obviously the open nature of some moves in lindy hop mean that either partner can just improvise. The extended steps of a swing-out, for instance, are notorious spots for putting in fancy footwork that might have nothing to do with the "normal" steps, or what your partner is doing. So once you're comfortably social dancing you can to some extent do what you like with your feet. I don't have anything more to say about that that isn't super-obvious.

Also, I'm not going to argue that it isn't better for us leads to learn both our footwork and our lead if we can. That would be madness.

But what I am thinking - and I don't know why I'm only really understanding this now - is that if I can only learn one part of a move in a class, it should probably be the lead. I should do the lead, and just tell my feet: business.

I've always (which is to say, before I was swing-dancing) been keen on learning how to properly lead rather than just going through a choreography, but it's only in classes with swing-style partner rotation that you realise how important it is for the poor follows. If I fail to learn my footwork it just means that I can't do a particular move. If I fail to learn the lead, there's a whole bunch of follows that get nothing from me, and I have to hope that some other lead is doing better than I am.

There are moves where the lead and the footwork are the same thing, and in those I guess I just have to suck it up and learn, but they tend to be simpler leads anyway. And footwork is quite an important part of keeping time with the music. But in general in a social dance people aren't looking at my feet, they're looking at my partner. If I give her everything she needs to dance, I can probably just forget about footwork. Indeed, late in the night when my legs are tired I can still dance, but if I'm so tired my lead starts to get lazy, everything falls apart..

Nothing profound, and I guess there will be quite a few leads reading this who roll their eyes and murmur 'well duh', but it was on my mind a bit this last week. Now over to Spoon, who is probably dancing giddily in Sweden as I type this...

"I don't know what I was expecting"

She Goes

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The One Where Keith Takes The Lead (Or Not, Arf!)

He Goes:

Since I'm predominantly a lead, for me learning to follow is largely about empathy improvement - that I'll get better as a lead if I understand what it feels like to be a follow. I guess some men (Apologies: I'm going to be a bit gender role normative in the next few paragraphs, but I hope not offensively so) do learn to follow simply because they want to be able to enjoy the follow experience, some because they feel that learning only one half of the dance is somewhat unbalanced, and some out of solidarity with their female friends who are often made to learn to lead whether they want to or not. I don't think those are bad reasons to learn - in fact, I think they're all probably much better reasons than mine. But I think it's reasonable to say that most men who learn how to follow do, like me, justify it with the thought that it will make them a better lead.

So has the little following I've done helped me, and how? Well, the first answer is simple, if unsatisfying: I can't say - my follows will have to be the judge. The second is less simple.

First of all, it's given me an acute (and perhaps uncomfortable) insight into how being a man helps with being a lead. Now, this is not to say that I think the lead role is essentially male! Just that the way I lead and therefore expect to be led is helped by the fact that I'm bigger (taller possibly, certainly more massive) than most of my follows. It's really easy to lead someone into a turn by just moving your arm if your follow moves with you because she doesn't have a choice. My mass makes it easy for me to lead people in fairly simple moves, but it also lets me off learning how to lead subtly, I think. When I'm following my leads generally don't have the same lazy option I do, so I end up missing leads or misinterpreting them. That's made me appreciate how hard following is if you have to move between leads with forceful and gentle leads, and it fills me with admiration for how leads who are much smaller than me can do the same job (and in many cases a much better one) without the benefit of sheer weight to help them lead. It's also important to remember because there are plenty of follows who can't do their best work if they're not given a light lead occasionally.

Second, I've learnt how important it is to give the right signals as a follow, and perhaps sometimes why it's impossible to tell the first time you dance with someone how good they are. When I'm following and I'm led into the open position I sometimes think it might be worth trying out some swivels.

Mistake.

I'm no good at swinging-out as a follow. I can kind-of, maybe, just-about do the steps if I really concentrate, but most of the time I can't, and styling? Forget about it. So doing swivels instead of a rock-step isn't just a bit of harmless fun, it's my hips writing a cheque my feet can't cash. When a lead (particularly a lead who can follow well her-/himself) sees that, what she's really seeing is me making a promise: you can lead me into a swing-out.

Now, I'm not saying that I get false-signals like that from follows myself - in fact, it's more the opposite: that sometimes follows understate how capable they are, possibly to avoid getting led into complicated moves before they've figured out whether the person they're dancing with is capable of them. As a lead you can try moves out to test your follow and work out what moves you should be leading (e.g. I find a lead-in-front promenade is often a good way of scoping out if I can safely lead someone into a swing out). As a follow you can't do that, so you have to get your information about your partner's ability as it comes to you, and hope that enough pieces of the jigsaw are delivered that you can build up a usable picture.

Last (for the time being) - I realise how difficult it is to keep time if your lead is off. It's not impossible, but it's quite an effort of will, and since most of my brain when I'm following is already dedicated to not doing a lead's footwork, the whole thing sometimes disintegrates into a furious mess. Now, most of the people who are willing to lead me are good enough that this isn't a problem, but it does happen, and my god is it hard to dance when it does! Next time I'm dancing to some crazy jazz song with an obscure beat, I think perhaps rather than manfully struggling to find it I might just turn to my partner, make my apologies, and ask her for a little help...

She Goes:

New job. Newness. Herräng. Packing. Dancing. Dancing. Can't focus. Bleurgh!