Hal bal 2001

Jeez, this was like a decade ago.

Shine

There's a notion I learned about way back when called Shine. Shortly, that is the way a dancer is able to make themselves stand out, to radiate, to make themselves be seen.

This comes up because over in my other blog, I've been discussing improv and in improv, I've been teaching notions of how to share focus.

As I remember it I was in a talk with the late John Mills and he brought up the notion of shine steps. He suggested that there were three ways to shine: she shines, he shines and both shine.

Since I've been working in improv more recently, it occurs to me that shine steps take at least an ounce of listening. Each dancer might want to consider their partner, if at least to discern, whether there will be a shine opportunity.

There's certainly more to this, but I'd rather just open the door.

Since I mentioned it last week...

We had a class on rhythm last week and to say the least it was challenging to everyone who took it. Since we've been ramping up the difficulty over the last month I promise that we'll go back to basics next Thursday!

As it occurred to me, we had discussed how rhythm is felt before it is heard. I'd even mentioned that there were at least a few deaf lindy hoppers and that the ones I have watched were more rhythmic and musical than some would guess.

This afternoon I read an interview on Swungover with Tim Vail. Seems cool and topical to bring it up here!

Here's a short section:

In a sense, dancing should be music made visible, and in that sense it is probably more accessible to deaf people than most people realize. What is really different is we pick it up, and sense it in a different way. In that sense, figuring out how to convey the rhythm to deaf people without relying on hearing (remember a lot of the vibrations can be felt) is probably the only barrier there really is.

I'd recommend reading the whole thing!

***

Edited to add:

Here's some footage from the International Lindy Hop Championships!



Everyone please start ravaging youtube to find as many clips as you can!

Goals - August 2011 edition

We've been having enough of a new regular crowd that I've started assigning homework again. The first assignment was to list five short term goals, five goals to achieve within a year and five long term goals.

Here are the latest lists that some of our students have generated:

Molly
ASAP
1. Be easier to lead
2. Fix Charleston
3. Fix Swivels
4. Resolve up-bounce issue
5. Learn more swivel types

1 year
1. Shim Sham, Big Apple, etc.
2. Find shag people to dance with + practice shag and improve
3. Undo wrong muscle memory in team choreo
4. Get better at lifts
5. Be less nervous (especially dancing with good leads)

5 years
1. Get crazy beautiful fast feet like I see some pros have
2. Keep dancing and have fun!
3. Compete?
4. Be able to follow anything
5. Be able to lead?

Matt

1. Comfort slow dancing
2. Get dance shoes
3. More comfort with height
4. Learn those jazz steps
5. Comfort with shadow Charleston

1. Advanced class
2. Learn better how to follow
3. Enter a dance competition
4. Never be caught off-guard by new footwork
5. Good at "feeling the music"

1. Beat Neil in a dance off
2. Win a dance contest (choreographed)
3. Teach a class
4. Aerials comfort
5. Mix in Tango/others

Rick

1. Be able to read the way my follow needs to be lead
2. Develop a more adaptive lead
3. Smoother lead
4. Reduce head bounce
5. Be able to dance faster

1. Competition-wise, go from 8 out of 9 to be in the top five.
2. Be more balanced
3. Be consistent with my swing out
4. Improve spins
5. Learn to follow

1. Competition-wise, go from 8 out of 9 to be in the top three
2. Learn Balboa
3. Learn Shag
4. Help teach a dance class
5. Learn west coast

***

Love it! I'm going to start working on material to deal with the short term goals and I'll start using material over the next couple of weeks.

Do these give you any ideas of goals you might want to set?

8 Bit Lindy

Camp Hollywood was a blast. The most common questions that I was asked was "why aren't you at Comic Con" and "why aren't you competing?" More on either of those questions will not be read here.

Meanwhile:



I love these guys. Thank you Morgan Day and Emily Wigger for earning my favorite Golden Budgie to date!

Props to the Funky Monkey!

One of my first students was a kid named Ryan Hitchin. When we met, he was still in high school and really just starting to get it together in the neo-swing scene. I remember one day giving him an assignment to help him find his core and that by the next time I saw him he told me that he walked miles from school to home by the rules of the exercise. He grew tons.

Obviously, he learned a lot from other folks as the years went on, competing with teams like Supercalilindylicious and working on stuff with friends.


Supercalilindicious


Here's Ryan competing with Bella Viramontes.

Anyway, Ryan recently moved away from Los Angeles to become a dance instructor in Austin. I have to give this guy props. Hard work always pays off!

Go Funky Monkey!

A bit on Viewpoints

I took a workshop with Eric Hunnicutt during the Los Angeles Improv Festival a week ago and really enjoyed it. He taught a shotgun class about Viewpoints which really seemed to mesh with the things that I understood about movement.

What's the essence of this Viewpoints thing? From my two-hour exposure, I'd say it's a technique for teaching students different ways of describing, seeing and interacting with the world around them, broken down into chunks like "Space," "Shape" and "Time."

This technique seems like the kind of thing I could learn to apply in my dance classes. It's a really cool set of techniques that I'd like to learn more about.

Also posted on: Glow-in-the-Dark Thoughts