The missing ingredient

I woke up yesterday morning wishing that the music at LindyGroove were more exciting. When I say that, I mostly mean in reference to the music. Most dancers at LindyGroove, from my observations at least, appear to go and hear songs that they like. I would hope that the dancers at LindyGroove instead went to hear and dance to music that brought out some level of fire in their dancing. I long to see the dancers at LindyGroove have more than just a good time. I want to see the dance floor explode!

I had been talking with a new student the last week and he felt that the music was pretty flat.

What I almost always crave to hear and am almost always disappointed to not hear at LindyGroove is good ol' fashioned swing music. More on that later.

Then I read on Twitter that Jonathan Stout would be doing a DJ set at LindyGroove. It being April 1st, I questioned for a second and then I tweeted my own little April Fool's joke, about Jonathan Stout's all blues set. If you don't get the joke, then you should probably listen to one of Jonathan's CDs with his combo The Campus Five. Heck, apparently you can listen to their tunes from the link.

Jonathan has DJ'd at LindyGroove in the past, but for me this would be a rare treat. In fact, so many amazing swing dancers showed up for the set. Many folks who generally avoid coming to LindyGroove were out in full force. Add to that what appeared to be a large spring break bump in population and we had a crowded dance floor. It rightly kicked ass!

There was swing music on at LindyGroove and the floor wasn't decimated. I'm sure there were grumblers. Considering how often I grumble at LindyGroove, I'm sure they will get over their frustrations. Most of these dancers haven't been challenged to dance above 200 beats per minute in months. This is the kind of kick in the pants that LindyGroove needs. And it needs it a lot more often!

One new dancer told me that it was happy music. In fact later, I was so overjoyed that I hugged Lance Powell awkwardly and thanked him for bringing Jonathan back.

Jonathan pulled out his own little April Fools. As soon as I heard Wade in the Water I knew something was up. The song didn't even reach its first chorus when the scratch of a needle brought on a jam. Couples who have been working on their material and folks who just grabbed each other on the spot went in. In the past I have more often than not just ignored jams when they have happened. Something about this one just drew me in. I watched the eyes of the crowd as Minn and Angel pulled out their tricks. There was that unmistakable "wow" moment as well.

Sure, some of the dancers might have gotten a little tired. It's like going from a game of putt putt to a full game of golf, I imagine. But watching the crowd, there was definitely something in the air. Many advanced dancers might say that the crowd didn't know the difference. All I can say is that what I saw was exactly what I woke up wishing for.

****

On a related but separate note, I remember one New Year's Eve. I was in St. Louis with my friends Ed and Jenny from Kansas City. We had driven across Missori to find a decent dance. I noticed after a few moments that I was feeling somewhat deflated. What I found there was that there was no swing music at all. Most of what was played was blues or blues-related music.

The distinction I realized at that moment was that blues music has a downward inflection and that swing music had an upward inflection. I asked the DJ for an up song. He asked me why I wanted to hear a fast song. I explained that I didn't care if the song was slow or fast, just that it be up. I'm not sure he got it. I explained it to another dancer there that night. We found that there were plenty of fast songs that still have that down feeling. That's not what I was hoping for. I realized then and there that at least some of the music that I dance to in a night should have that upward inflection.

That upward inflection doesn't really seem to exist outside of swing music. Modern listeners and new students often don't have a context into which they can fit those sounds. It's not like being a teenager in the 30s and being surrounded by those orchestras and bands. I could go on for hours about West Coast Swing having lost that connection to swing music. This isn't meant to insult any dance or any movement in the dance. All I know is that a Lindy Hopper must in their career take the time to learn to feel swing music.

***

I take this advice from the late Willie Desatoff: if you want to understand swing, you should listen to Jimmie Lunceford and Chick Webb.

Please don't think that I mean that you have to only dance to the classics. I was the rebeliously diverse DJ who broke Diana Krall, the Real Group and Oscar Peterson's Night Train at the old Memories. Just know that if you don't learn real swing music then you won't learn real swing dancing.

You are now free to move about the dancefloor.

Nasty Habits

The homework I gave last week was to make a list of goals - goals for the coming month and goals for the year. If you have already started work on this, please feel free to click on the "homework" tab on the right to see what other students compiled last year.

Some postulating has been done on the notion of habits on the interwebs lately. You'll see the word habits mentioned a few times in the responses to my No Account Count postings. Click on the "8-Count" tab to read those. The theory goes that if one teaches the Lindy Hop using by numbers, then students will tend to learn the dance in discrete chunks, forming 6 and 8 count habits. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the comments. Please feel free to correct me if I have mis-characterized the argument.

With that argument in mind, I have to ask whether teaching beginning leads "left-right-triple-step, right-left-triple-step" and follows "right-left-triple-step, left-right-triple-step" as a basic is also objectionable. Certainly in the long run, no dancer needs to use those specific footwork patterns. However, if a teacher doesn't teach discrete patterns, then what should they teach?

Certainly it could be said that the old-timers varied their steps, however by the time Frankie Manning was teaching there was certainly a specific definition to the timing being used. I can't speak for what the Swedes learned from Al Minns. However, I have to question whether the teaching itself didn't create habits regardless of whether the teachers were counting or not.

Learning requires repetition; in repetition habits are formed. That's my theory and I'm sticking with it.

I studied a small bit of Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method when I was in college. Both have to do with the un-learning or re-learning of habits. Specifically those habits relate to alignment and breathing and over the years while the exercises grow more distant, I remember using them to reconsider the habits in my thinking as well. Yes, it takes work to grow beyond a habit but it's certainly possible and even more enlightening.

I'm actually excited for the Yoga/Feldenkrais Fusion workshop at Mission Street Yoga coming next month. Come join me in South Pasadena!

The No Account Count Part II: Connect the Dots

Let's start this week by congratulating everyone who participated in and donated to the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon last weekend. Over $180,000 of donations were collected for the City of Hope, which sets a record for the highest grossing donations to date. All I can say is that I'm excited for next year already.

Secondly, I'd like to plug two Lindy-centric blogs I've been reading lately:
Black Belt Lindy, by John White
Swungover, by Bobby White (no relation)

Both of the above blogs feature thoughtful consideration of the Lindy Hop. I'm especially loving John's Bruce Lee and Madd Chadd entries and Bobby's The Old Timer series.

Okay, now on to the topic of the day. A few weeks ago, I had posted about a school of thought that has arisen amongst some teachers that seems to suggest that counting is something that shouldn't be taught. Recently I got involved in a Facebook discussion on a similar subject. Bug Brockway asked in question of the day whether follows should count or not. I'll post here my own responses to the question:

This has been a subject of debate lately, and while it's easy to say that no dancer actually needs to learn counting, I'm leaning toward the opinion that every dancer at some point is better off for having learned the skill. I believe that all beginners can benefit from understanding numbers, and that numbers are one step towards actual listening. Others have different approaches.

An eight count is a fundamentally grounding element in dance. That is to say that if both partners have an feel for the eight, if not the down-beat, then at least they have ONE thing in common. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I like to look for common groud with my partner and having a count (especially in the beginning) can be a key element in finding synthesis.

In the long run, we always transcend our dogma. My only care is that I and my partner find each other. Any tool I use in aid of that is worth knowing.

A few others post responses, but without permission, I'll just sum up that some folks insinuate that use of numbers might completely remove a dancer from the use of their own sensations, and others agree with my assessment of counting as a tool. Bug herself does not seem to specifically state that numbers are bad in general, and in general I think we agree that students need to let go of numbers, but this is the internet and subtlety of communication is occasionally lost. In my mind I'm talking about the argument that I've been posting here. I would imagine that on her end she's essentially suggesting things I discovered long ago, that letting go of numbers is quite important. I'm reacting to the arguments of others that numbers are bad in general:

Many students in middle school question the need to learn Algebra. If they don't ever plan to use it in future life, why will it be important to learn in the 8th grade? It's confusing and it has all these letters and maybe they weren't doing so hot with the numbers as it was. They can sort of figure out how much it costs to buy a slice of pizza. Why? It's a very common hostility that seems analogous to the arguments I've read here and elsewhere. My response to the question of why is "because it is helpful to learn to see the world in more than one way."

To me it is beyond merely helpful, it can be quite beautiful. So while it doesn't take a course in Calculus to be able to catch a ball, my understanding enriches the experience. It may not seem that way to some, but I personally find it to be true.

With regard to the dance, I have used many math and physics terms to reach my students. A student who understands vectors and momentum will have little trouble envisioning the same in their body. They still have to bridge the notion from their head through to their bodies but at least an image has begun to form for them. Other students need to physically encounter the situation. There's a different way to deal with every student. Some students are so in their head that you have to break them. Even for these students, giving them an abstraction can allow them enough comfort to trust a teacher that bit.

No, the Harlem old timers didn't count. I've heard that. I think of the developments in the time since. I've spoken to old timers who have seen what has come since. Not necessarily the Harlem old-timers on this subject but other folks who were around in the period. There are old-timers who believe the dance has gone so far beyond what the originators have done. I believe it too. I'll never stop thanking the originators for their primal gift. That said, I know I can feel, and I'm not them. The world of Lindy Hop is still growing and changing and evolving. That's something beautiful to me.

As for improvisation, as long as I've studied it, numbers have never gotten in the way. The first key to real communication is saying "yes." The second step is expanding upon that.

The numbers vs. no-numbers thing is starting to remind me of the Savoy-Hollywood mess. A lot of dogmatic rhetoric. No, strictly speaking no dancer needs to count. Yes, in a very true way, every dancer must learn to feel. If I were to boil down my statements, I would say that not only are numbers and feeling not mutually exclusive, they can actually enhance each other to a very real extent.
...

Connect-the-dots is not the same as drawing. All the same, anything that gets a kid to put pen to paper ain't bad.

I spent some time talking to folks at the Dance-a-thon last weekend. One prominent teacher's response to the question of whether counting was good or bad was "it depends on the student." Students have very different ways of learning and it is helpful to have methods to reach them all. An engineer is going to have a very different reaction than a musician for instance. That's a generalization, since I know some engineers are also musicians, and also one can't assume that all engineers think or learn in the same ways.

A last event, I was working with a student recently who had only had one beginning class at a dance venue and who admitted that he was terrified of the dance. He couldn't put together the "one-two, one-two-three" counts that the teachers in that class had used. It didn't make sense to him. Add to that a lot of anxiety about asking partners to dance and he was quite terrified. Within seconds of using the very simple "One Two Three-and-Four" count, those elements of fear dissipated. He actually developed a working swingout that felt really good within minutes of losing that fear. We made clear that in the long run, the numbers were only a step along the way, but having something as simple and repeatable as an 8-count added to his sense of safety.

It seems like this kind of discussion doesn't just happen in swing dancing. This morning, Scott McCloud posted an article on Twitter about a new device for fledgling comics creators: How Do We Feel This Morning?

Watch those videos and read the comments. Tell me your thoughts about the uses of technology in art.

And inspired by Bobby White's exploration of Old Timers on his blog, I think I will spend the next two weeks exploring my own roots as a front-line peace-nik in the Savoy/Hollywood War. I'd like to spend the next couple of weeks exploring the so-called Savoy and Hollywood Swingouts. I'm feeling nostalgic. Go study the clips already now.

edited to add:
I was re-reading an article on Fayard Nicholas, of the Nicholas Brothers, in Dance Teacher, from the July 2004 issue. In an interview with Paula Broussard, Fayard gives an overview of his career. This passage is particularly cogent to the discussion:

Unlike most dancers, Fayard doesn't use counts. "He sings the steps," say [New York Tapper Jennifer] Lane. "He scats them out so that you get the whole musical feel, not just the parts of the step." Katherine [Hopkins-Nicholas, Fayard's wife] usually provides the counts for those students who still prefer to break down routines into bars of eight. "We make a good combination," she adds.

I actually really like this approach.

To everything there is a season...

Turn, turn, turn.

It occurs to me that it has been a while since we've done a class on turn technique. I was watching A Day at the Races the other day and there's this one dancer in the non-Lindy dance sequence who does the most amazing set of turns I can remember seeing. She's spotting so fast that it looks like she has two faces, and she just continues turning for what feels like three minutes. Unfortunately, I couldn't find that on YouTube, but this is a really nice demonstration of Baryshnikov's pirhouettes from the movie White Nights.

So, this week we're going to talk about turns. Not just talk about, we're going to work on our turns.



Also, in order to raise money for the dance-a-thon this weekend, I will be selling short private lessons for donations this Thursday at LindyGroove. If you want to be involved, there's still just under a week to get cracking. There might still be spots on Team Old School left. Here's my write-up of last year's event: What a Difference a Day Makes.

Swing the wing and whip the hip!

The title to this post is a quote from The Groovie Movie, which is one of the shorts that Los Angeles dancers found inspiration in during the late 90s. The quote refers to Jean Veloz' hip action during her swivels. Since one of the topics we covered last night was swiveling, and since I asked the follows to watch for examples of swivels, you should check that video as well. The Groovie Movie can be found elsewhere in this blog, if you'll just click on the tag marked "Groovie Movie" you'll find it.

We mentioned a few names to check out on YouTube. I don't have time to post links of them all. Alice P. will probably be happy to do that over on Rantings of a Lindy Hopper. At the moment I have time to post one clip, which features the hips of Jewel McGowan, possibly Dean Collins' most watched partner. Dean Collins is often credited with bringing Lindy Hop from the Savoy Ballroom to Los Angeles. Whether or not this is strictly true, it can't be denied that he's a very important figure in the Southern California Lindy Hop world, and a pivotal figure in the evolution of Swing Dancing. Jewel McGowan was his partner for quite a while, appearing with him in several movies. The clip below is from Buck Privates, featuring Abbot and Costello.



You'll see Dean and Jewel doing their thing around (1:36), but overall this clip has been a pretty influential one.

While we're on the subject of swivels, we are asking for the follows to check youtube for the following names: Nina Gilkenson, Frida Segerdahl, Freda Angela, Jean Veloz, Sylvia Skylar... There are probably so many names to mention. Follows, your work is ahead of you!

Any regular posters have suggestion on dancers to watch? That goes for Leads and Follows. Who would you recommend watching for pure style?

Pop(turn) will eat itself

We've had a recent influx of new students over the last month, so we've been more focused on mechanical issues and leading/following fundamentals. Since most of the class is quite new, I plan to bring back the class on pop-turns tonight. It follows from our recent class topics pretty well and brings some light to the basics of the lead/follow dynamic.

Mechanics are important, vital even. However, I'm even more excited for the day that all these students understand the way their bodies interact and are ready to explore topics about enriching the dance: playfulness, music, improvisation. I think some of the questions are starting to be asked. A few days ago, I was asked how a follow could discern the lead's rhythm. Phrased the way it was asked: "how can I tell when my partner is on One?" I didn't really address the rhythmic cues in the pulse between the partners, mostly since we discuss it so much in class. I answered with regard to music. We were listening to CDs on a laptop computer, so it was especially tough to hear the bass line. I'm really looking forward to the day that I can explore this with the new students.

There are many more thoughts to consider, but thumb-typing is not conducive to long blog-thoughts. Anyone have input on their discovery of rhythm and partnering?

The Rantings of a Lindy Hopper + The No Account Count

Here's a link to Alice P's Lindy-centric blog: The Rantings of a Lindy Hopper. Alice has been one of my assistants in class for the last several months.

We had a lot of new students in class last week. We took it back to basics, did a few leading and following exercises. It seemed mostly that people needed to iron out the swingout more than anything else. I admit that the class feels like it is taught by committee. Alice, Charlotte and I have pretty distinct points of view. Alice and Charlotte have both been recently excited by a recent workshop with Dax and Sarah. I'm typically skeptical.

After class Charlotte and I had a brief conversation about counting the basic. When she was learning from Dax several years ago, he did not use any counting, but rather the scat-rhythms like those that were popularized by Stephen Mitchell and others during the 90s. So rather than "one two three&four five six seven&eight" teachers might use a rhythm like this "boop doo doop-dah-doo, boop doo doop-dah-doo" or some such. Charlotte suggested that she would love to compare a theoretical Lindy Hop culture that never learned counting to another that learned from the numbers.

The thought of removing the numbers doesn't really bother me, but it does remind me of this sort of hostility toward math that many folks have. I tend to blame this sentiment more on teachers than anything else. I certainly agree that learning numbers changes the way one thinks (in the dance and in the world), however, I also believe that one can learn one paradigm and then transcend it. You can learn how to count and then learn to abandon the count. You can always keep the numbers in mind for a rainy day.

So I put it up for debate: what are the strengths of beginners counting and of beginners not counting? What is to be gained by either approach? Is one way superior to the other? Can't we all just get along?

By the way, I don't mean to criticize Dax & Sarah or Charlotte at all. I'm mostly hoping to open up and interesting conversation.

This week I plan to teach a class about balance. Feel free to click on the balance tag and see the previous posts on the subject.