You're Not From Around Here, Are You?

He Goes:

Kiam mi parolas kun homoj en Esperanto (kaj tio okazas malofte), mi-

Hold on, let me start again:

When I (and it happens very rarely) converse with people in Esperanto, I am always amazed how quickly they can work out that I'm a native English speaker. Face to face it's obvious, of course, as I flap around blindly trying to work out the word for the sun:

Me (pointing at the sun): La.. uh... the sun?

Esperantisto (with "can you believe this guy?" expression): La suno.

..but even when I'm chatting in IRC, where they're getting plain text, people can still pick me out as English by my idioms. 

So it goes with dance - I'm pretty sure that people who are long-serving members of the swing community would be able to pick out where I'd learnt (possibly even who from) by watching or dancing with me. The default direction a follower is sent in a swing-out, for instance, how people lead into a back charleston, whether a follow does all the travelling in a swing-out or whether I need to meet her halfway. There are moves that - while well-known all over the world - are so rarely danced that they come to represent a micro-accent where people have learnt them. I learnt Frankie's cha-cha move in Dublin, for instance, and dance it all the time. No-one else here does, so only follows that dance with me regularly go into it without surprise.

Even on a fairly overt level there are clear differences in basic Lindy behaviour and style from one country to another. People everywhere will congregate for a Shim-Sham, obviously, but beyond that preferences in group routines differ: In Reading they're keen on Sing Lim's Charleston Stroll. In West London it's the Tranky Doo. In Dublin they do the Jitterbug Stroll, which I've only once ever seen in London - interesting, because that's where it comes from.

The choreographer of the Jitterbug Stroll, Ryan Francois, recently spoke at TEDx Albertopolis, giving a potted history of the Lindy Hop in which he was... well, dubious about the long-term effects of the internet, his fear being that the ready availability of videos on YouTube would lead to a homogenisation of style across the world. He has a point, but I think his fears are misplaced - mainly because the facts just don't support that at the moment. There are simply too many styles, too many moves, too much music for that to occur. My feeling is that if it were true that exposure to too many other dance-cultures did reduce local "accent", then the whole revival would have been a terrible blow to the diversity of the dance.

This is just my opinion, of course, but I think the benefits of easy exposure to other dancers and their ideas is such a benefit that it would outweigh the risk of homogenisation anyway, and that in practise the downside isn't even happening. When I've danced in Dublin people dance with a faint Dublin accent. When I dance in Reading a faint Reading accent. When in London - well, mostly with whatever accent they came to Britain with! ;) For the moment, at least, it's all good.

She Goes:

Someone once said to me that they could tell who London dancers had learnt with, and which groups they mainly social danced with. Although at the time those remarks got my back up, I can now see the validity in them. My irritation did give way to smugness, as they were unable to tell in terms of my dancing. (see, being a dance floor tart has its perks!)

I very much enjoy dancing in not-London. And not just the big events, I'm talking about the regular social nights for the local scene.

I recently journeyed to a southern not-London to dance with a favourite lead (one of the ones from the list a few posts back), and the local accent there actually left me physically aching! Not for more, but because there was a very surprising amount of arm-leading going on. I'm not going into the rights or wrongs of arm leading versus body leading here, I just have a preference for and following responding technique for the latter. 

I also saw a few moves being busted out that were being styled out in a way I hadn't seen, and witnessed some cool variations. What had tickled me was that the people there had heard 'a dancer from London' was coming (a flattering simplistic description if I ever heard one), and I thought it fun that we could all take delight in each other's norms. If that makes sense.

I was jealous about how well they danced together- familiar with each other's vocabulary and pronunciations, able to anticipate one another. I felt like a newbie again, especially when combined with the social awkwardness that comes with being the stranger in the room.

I was in NYC last week and whenever in town I go back to my spiritual dance home- the studio where I first started to learn. Because of my familiarity with the accent of dancing there I found it easier than the previous example of not-London. But, the most exhilarating dances I had the entire time I was there was with a man who reminded me of dancing in Mecca (Herräng in Sweden, duh/fyi). He didn't have a dance accent although his verbal one indicated his origins from the Czech republic.

I feel like I'm rambling a bit now, but this edition of HGSG was never meant to be am arguement with a final point. But it's interesting, eh! (and supports my favourite metaphor of dancing as language :) )