New Year Dance Postcards

Celebrating the dawning of a new year has been a part of human culture for a long time. Fortunately, dancing fits very well into any sort of revelatory event. Remember the Yuletide dancing chickens? For the New Year's Eve ball below, I give you...dancing cats and dogs!!! How egalitarian!




An elegant affair, I'm sure...




Technically these two are skating, but skating is a form of dance, after all.



An enchanting scene in the moonlight before or after the dance.




Me neither. :-) Kidding. My dances all belong to Gary.

Masquerade New Year's balls were common way back then.

Another masquerade party.

Sweet and old fashioned.

The New Year's kiss...especially nice at the end of a dip. I'm very much looking forward to mine.

Frosty The Snowman

Another arctic blast from the past...

Suzy Snowflake

Possibly the creepiest animation I've seen!

The Bop - Part I

The bop. It's funny, you hear a name like 'the Big Bopper' and you don't link it to an actual dance. The other night, while pouring through Flickr feeds for dance pictures I stumbled across the insert from a Ray Conniff album entitled Dance the Bop and there were the steps distilled down into words and pictures. Now, I have a theory that you have to know how to dance before you can learn verbally but that might just be me. None the less I thought I'd give the insert in the eight pages in which it was originally printed.

Page one is a typical cover sheet. I feel for the poor Siamese cat that got roped into being the 'cool cat' for the album art shoot. I have to wonder if the animal belonged to Conniff, Art Silva, or some plebe at the record label. Probably a fifty year old teen who, in the middle of a concept meeting, piped up with something like, "So there's this cat and we print 'the cool cat says…'but see, it's a real cat…" Shortly after that he found himself parking at the back of the lot and getting a lot of looks while he ate his lunch alone in the cafeteria.

Cool Cat informs us we should use the book as a study guide - damn and I'd planned on using it to sort seeds and stems. That's probably evidence that the authors of this guide were less hep than they'd like to have thought. Mastering every step before proceeding seems a bit unproductive. I mean, to be a master don't you have to absolutely and totally grasp a step to the point where you're a resource that others come to for instruction (i.e. a master)? Waiting until you've reached that Zen-like level of dance sensei-ness could result in never getting past page one of the instruction manual. I also question step three of the 'To Start' section - ever try to read a book while dancing? Not sure about you but I'd puke. I'm pretty sure a true master doesn't puke on the dance floor.

The author of this instructional guide, pictured staring dumbly into the middle distance, is Art Silva. Art seems like a real authority figure in spite of his apparent youth. He comes off like a James Dean-esque Marlin Perkins, expanding in definitive tones on the habitat and customs of teens of the era. He knows the kiddies well enough to tell you what they approve of wherever they congregate. The byline claims Art's a dancer, actor, and instructor. Dancer - I'll buy that, instructor - sure, but actor? IMDb would differ; it has zero references to Mr. Silva. Possibly an oversight, maybe he worked in films too small to be noticed - history has a way of erasing people from existence.

Ray Conniff, on the other hand, has withstood the test of time. I took a moment to listen to some of his music - good stuff, but so help me I can't imagine 'bopping' to anything the man performed. Saying Ray Conniff and Bop in the same breath is a bit like saying Lawrence Welk and Jitterbug together. There's a slight possibility the encantation will rip a hole in the fabric of reality and you'll be attacked by flying monekys. I mean, can you really think Rebel Without a Cause and hear the strains of Tico Tico playing in the background? Go on, try. I'll dial 911 for you.

Hair Flair

Warning: girly post.

As I’ve stated before, dancing is an unusual activity in that it is athletic, but also artistic, and therefore most dancers want to look good when they dance. This can pose various problems. Makeup must not run. Clothes must stretch. Shoes must be comfortable. And all jewelry must be secured.

Speaking as someone who has had earrings fly off in the middle of a fast Lindy, reminded of said fact by the man the earrings had flown into, the last is perhaps the most important. Drippy mascara and a giant rip might cause one embarrassment, but it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Sparkling missiles do.

And that goes for hair adornments as well as the more traditional jewels. As much as I love my rhinestone clips and bands, they won’t stay in my hair. At least, the way I wear my hair; I don’t like it to be lacquered within an inch of its life. But I have found something fun to add a bit of dance safe sparkle to one’s hair…hair on a clip.

These things are called various names…if you do a search for “clip in hair” you will find them. (I like easiLites for real ones, Clarie’s for synthetic.) Both real and fake have their ups and downs. Real hair has an inherent creepiness…just whose hair was it? The up side is it looks, well, real, even when it is dyed wild colors. You can put them in and curl them as you would your own.

The synthetic kind is plastic. It looks it. However, since it isn’t real, you can find pure colors and tinsel not ever found with real locks. Another down side is you can’t use a curling iron. Trust me on this one. I wasn’t stupid enough to do it on purpose, but one evening I was in a hurry and…let’s just say I ruined a perfectly good iron.

Both are easy to put in, stay firmly in place, and are easy to remove. For the holidays they are especially nice. New Year’s Eve I’m wearing a glittery rainbow top and hair flair to match. Ahhh, New Year’s…where too much sparkle is never enough.

Stepping and Sweets

'Tis the season - as Lucy Van Pelt would say, "Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents for pretty girls." Well, she left out Christmas parties. This past weekend we attended the Brickyard Boogies Christmas get together and I tossed my culinary glove in the ring for the annual cookie contest. I didn't win but I had a great time trying. Here's the recipe I used in case you're interested:

Chocolate Mint Wafers

1C AP Flour plus more for dusting
1/4t Baking Powder
1/2C Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/4t Salt
6T Unsalted Butter
1/2C Sugar
1 Large Egg
1/2t Vanilla Extract
12oz Semi-Sweet Chocolate
1/4t Peppermint Extract

1. Wisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Cream butter and sugar with an electric blender. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 1 hour (or overnight).
3. Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with parchment. Form balls of dough (approximately 1t each) and place on prepared sheets 2 inches apart. Dip the bottom of a glass in flour and flatten balls into 1 1/2 inches round (1/4in thick).Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until slightly firm to the touch - about 8-10 minutes. Immediately transfer to wire rack and cool completely.
4. Combine chocolate, peppermint extract, and 1/8t salt in a large heat-proof bowl and set over simmering water. Heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth (2-3 minutes) and remove from heat.
5. Replace parchment on baking sheets. Holding each cookie across the tines of a fork, dip in chocolate to coat completely, then tap underside of fork on side of bowl to allow excess chocolate to drip off. Place on parchment and repeat until all cookies are coated. Decorate with nonpareils if desired. Refrigerate until chocolate is hardened (at least 1 hour).

The cookies were a hit among my friends and family, but as I said, they didn't bring home the prize. The winner was a great batch of almond sugar cookies. When the whole subject of cookies and dancing comes to mind I do have one bit of advice: dancing and over-indulging in cookies don't mix. I advise sticking to the sugar buzz stage!

The Hatfields and the McCoys

I apologize in advance for going on and on about our ballroom struggles, but since this dance blog is supposed to be our complete dancing journey, Gary and I both feel we must report what we are thinking and experiencing. I also believe Gary and I are fair people. We will never blast anyone, but we realize this is our opinion, and opinions are just that, no more, no less.

Dancing, in many ways, is a microcosm of human behavior. There will be different opinions, usually around those who want to maintain the status quo vs. those who want to change it. Within dancing this manifests itself by the push and pull between ballroom studios wanting to codify and preserve, and club/street dancers wanting to expand and evolve.

Take swing dancing. Before the Internet and before traveling was commonplace, every city had their own swing; west coast and east coast of course, but also more intimate city/area dances like the Arkansas street swing, the St. Louis imperial swing, and the Detroit bop. Each locale reveled in their own style. However, when folks did come together, dances merged and spawned new variations. The swing styles of the 1940s therefore, didn’t look anything like 1950s styles.

Then came studio swing. The formally wild and free dance was captured, roped, and gentrified. They had to…how else would they teach it in large numbers? Now everyone could learn to swing, not just young city hipsters. Ballroom studios also preserved the dance; who knows how many wonderful swing varieties faded from existence because people stopped doing them? The swing taught in ballroom studios might be a bit stiff, but at least it exists. Also to ballroom’s credit, many people don’t live in the areas street swing “evolves”. Or perhaps they are too shy to “get out there” and learn on the fly…maybe they need to learn by prescribed steps. And maybe, just maybe, learning by dance experts is not so bad; a little ballroom technique never hurt anyone.

But of course, as with many large institutions, what was once one of many ways to learn to dance became the only way. Ballroom swing, with its formal movements and codified steps, began to think of itself as the holder of the dance chalice, as it were. Only they could interpret and teach the correct expression of swing; any variation was wrong, sloppy, or silly.

Street swing dancers revolted. Some even formed their own studios. And many became just as high and mighty as ballroom studios; only we can teach swing. Ballroom studios kill the natural expression and evolution of dance. Ballroom studios are exclusionary and pretentious. And so on.

Swing dance is only one example, unfortunately. The latin community feels much the same way about salsa and other latin street dances now found in ballroom studios.

Ultimately, we need both. If club/street dancers didn't exist dances would become stale and old fashioned. Without ballroom studios many dances would die because there would be no one preserving dance styles and teaching the masses. What I don’t like is the assumption …from both sides…that the other is wrong.

There are studios where the old and the new happily co-exists; someone, for example, knew the tango before he or she combined it with west coast swing, creating swango. And that someone probably had ballroom instruction. In previous posts I’ve stated that these egalitarian studios are mostly found on either coast, not in the mid west. That’s a shame, but Gary and I are determined to create our own virtual eclectic studio.

Heck, perhaps by the time we’re done we can all have a big party. With dancing, of course. :-)

PS. Check out the Galaxy Studio, not on a coast, but in Texas! Their motto is “there’s a dance style for everyone”. It doesn’t look fancy, but then, they want to offer low prices so everyone can learn to dance. They teach all styles of dance including Break Dance, Hip Hop, Ballroom, Sexy Stiletto (don’t know what that is but sounds wicked and fun), Zumba, Ballet, Classic Strip Tease, and more. Cool. A waltz class down the hall from a strip class. Gotta love that. One two three, flick those panties. I think I shall call it…saltz, hee hee.

http://www.galaxydances.com/galaxy_dance_studios_home.html

My People

Check it out...tango blended with west coast swing!!! It's called swango. I'm thinking Argentina tango...look at those leg flicks. I LOVE this!!!

Close and Move On

Ever have a dentist appointment that you dreaded? Maybe you had a cavity that needed to be filled and you knew the drilling would hurt like - well, a lot? So, for hours before the appointment you tried to figure out if - just maybe - the pain was imaginary and you could just go on like nothing was wrong. In the end though, painful or not, you got the tooth drilled and filled and eventually felt a lot better for it.

This week's been that way. The dust on our doomed routine has settled, the initial shock and disappointment (though still present) has faded into clarity, and it's time to move on. Well, it's time for us to move on.

It's not surprising that a ballroom studio teaches ballroom style and values ballroom priorities. When Kelly and I first started dancing we had no idea that there'd be any difference between a place teaching ballroom and a swing-oriented club. I mean its all dance, right? The short answer is yes and no. Yes, swing is a dance just like any of the ballroom dances. No, the core philosophy of swing and ballroom aren't the same.

In my heart I'm a club dancer. I love swing in all its variations from South Carolina Shag to Arkansas Street Swing and from Rockabilly to Bop. That doesn't mean I've given up on learning and dancing the Fox Trot. My heart beats in a certain ardent way when I think about listening to a romantic Goodman tune while I circulate around the dance floor. In the final analysis, though, I don't need medals, trophies, or ballroom strictures to tell me I'm a good (or bad) dancer. I feel it.

2010 will start with more exploration and more fodder for our blog. We're going to take on Latin dances from Afro-Cuban instructors, we're going to plumb the depths of Swing instructors, and we're going to try to capture the elusive Fox Trot. Raise a glass to the new year and strap on a fresh pair of dance shoes. The band's warming up and it's almost time for the ball to drop in Times Square.

A Red Ryder Official Carbine-Action Two-Hundred Shot Air Rifle

I looked for this old Chicago Sunday Tribune story (and a better image) but came up empty. The first thing that struck me about the cover was the way the fellow is dressed - but then, that makes sense. A dude ranch wasn't a working ranch, it was a kind of tourist setup where bumbling city folk from the east could come west and play cowboy with real horses. The picture also reminds me of Ralphie in Christmas Story - poised with his trusty Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two Hundred Shot Range Model Air Rifle dressed head to toe in drugstore cowboy finery. Of course Ralphie opted for Woolies instead of regular old leather chaps but that's a minor detail.

What dance are they doing? Texas Two-Step, of course!

Change

Change can be many things both good and bad: it can be chosen or forced, planned or unexpected, sad or exciting. But, even if the change is something you want, need, or is all around best for you, it isn’t ever easy.

Gary and I are changing our relationship with our studio. There. I said it. It isn’t easy. It’s very very sad, and I’ve cried over it. Someone reading our blog posts may think this decision stems from the fact that we weren’t able to have input into our routine, but upon further contemplation, that just pushed us sooner into this eventual outcome.

Because deep down, Gary and I both knew this would eventually happen. I fought that feeling with tooth and nail. So did Gary, although he recognized we weren’t getting everything we needed long before I did, being more perceptive and wiser than I. Even after the Routine Incident, as Gary is now calling it, I held on. It will all work out. Everything will be fine.

But after a long discussion late into the evening, we decided we have to make some changes. Why? In a nutshell, our vision of dancing doesn't match theirs. There is not a “right” and “wrong” here. Gary and I didn’t know what we wanted when we started, and a ballroom studio is a good place for any dancer to begin, even if eventually you decide ballroom style and rules are not for you.

What we need and want now is an eclectic approach; a place where ballroom instruction lives down the hall from a hip hop class. A place where dances can blend and evolve. A place where experimentation is appreciated and celebrated. There are indeed such studios…on the east and west coast. None, alas, around us.

But that just makes it harder, not impossible. What we are going to do is find different studios that teach different things. Our current studio for fortrot, swing …and the rockabilly. Our teacher learned that dance for us, and we appreciate that she did. But we will also investigate local swing dance clubs and conventions for street swing. And fortunately, Indy has a huge Latin community, so there are two bona fide Latin studios we can get salsa, hip hop, and other club Latin dances from. We are also wanting to learn Argentina tango, and believe it or not, Indy has a studio that specializes in that…who knew? We want to get out there and experience dancing taught in different ways. Again, we don’t think our approach is better than ballroom…just another expression of dance.

For those of you who are beginning your dancing quest, here are some words of advice. Don’t just sign up at a studio. Go in and ask them questions. Find out their expectations and yours. Ask other students…those that attend, and if you can, those that left. Ask them why. Also, ask yourself how creative you are. If you have any artistic blood in you, know that ballroom dancing and subsequent instruction (and in our case, routines too) are exact to ballroom specific standards. Nothing wrong with that, but understand that experimentation and ballroom dancing usually are not used in the same sentence.

Ballroom dancing is very popular, but there are other ways to dance, and to learn how to dance that are equally valid. That is our quest for the coming year.

We appreciate everything we have received from Melissa. I hope she would take this as a compliment, but it is because of her we want to broaden our scope...we wouldn't be where we are in our dancing without her guidance. We value and respect her and her expertise. She learned and taught us rockabilly when no one else would, and we will never forget that. Gary and I still believe Melissa is a fabulous, wonderful, teacher and we know we will continue to learn much from her.

Dancing has become more than a hobby; it has become a way of life. And that means expressing ourselves completely through it. We can no longer get everything we need from our studio. That has been a gut wrenching realization. But perhaps, in the end, all works out the way it’s supposed to. I’m sad, but I feel free. Excited. And a little scared.

The adventure continues.

Disappointment

"The theater, the theater, what’s happened to the theatre?
Especially where dancing is concerned
Chaps who do taps aren’t tapping anymore
They’re doing choreography
Chicks who did kicks aren’t kicking anymore
They’re doing choreography
Heps who did steps
That would stop the show in days that used to be
They’re doing choreography
Through the air they keep flying
Like a duck that is dying
Instead of dance its choreography"

Choreography
Danny Kaye
White Christmas

Yes, as Kelly said the routine is a thing of the past. Last week we decided to discontinue our quest – probably making it the shortest lived quest in quest history. Unfortunately, brevity isn’t equivalent with ease. We’re both unhappy and disappointed – but we come out of the experience with a better understanding of what it is to be involved with a routine.

Kelly said it all: we expected one thing and our studio had different ideas. There were miscommunications all around. We expected collaboration and the studio was offering to choreograph a routine for us to perform. Yes it make sense that the studio wants the end result to be a good advertisement for their business and their instructors. It all makes sense but making sense isn’t the same as the reality feeling good. To be honest, it feels pretty rotten.

Those of you considering a routine should ask two questions. Firstly, ask yourself what level of involvement you want to have in the construction/choreography – for some people the answer is you’d like to have a routine designed for you and for some, the answer is you want to have an integral part in creating the routine. It’s important to know the answer to this question before you take on the second: what level of involvement does your dance studio or instructor allow. If your dance instructor requires total creative control over the routine and you want to play a large part – you’re not likely to be satisfied with the outcome. In our case, we wanted a high level of creative involvement and our studio would allow none. Hence, for us, no routine.
There was a little tense discussion with our instructor, then we ditched. I hate to get all poetic and big-headed but dance (for me) is about self expression and having fun. That wasn't what a routine would have been and so it wasn't for us. The music goes on and the experience hasn't dampened my like of dancing. I'm still jazzed when I get to spend an evening with my girl and a good swing band in a fine old dancehall. There's still magic in a hardwood floor massaged by decades of dancing feet. Kelly and I are fond of saying that dance is a form of athletics; the athlete has to be resilient – even when things don't turn out as expected.

Miscommunication

I remember right before my freshman year in college I went to a new hairdresser. It was a hip, funky place smack dab within the hippest, funkiest spot in town. I saved up for months…wasn’t cheap. I wanted to make a good impression on…stop. As a good friend of mine says, who am I kidding? I wanted to meet boys.

So off I went, hoping to get a new do pretty enough to cause young men’s hearts to flutter. I slid into my seat. What were you thinking, said the neon-haired man. (That should have told me something.) I don’t know, I said airily, something cute. Something swingy. What I got was over permed and colored, not swishy at all. When I said “cute” I meant Farrah. The hair dresser obviously had something else in mind.

Which brings me to our dance routine. What Gary and I wanted was collaboration between our wonderful teacher and us. We knew we couldn’t do the whole thing…we have no experience with choreography, and of course she knows way more steps than we do. What we did want, however, was the freedom to create our own story line and work out some of our own steps, and in fact, had started that process.

Unfortunately, there was miscommunication. Our dance studio wants control over all choreography. I get that; every showcase is a representation of their studio. What Gary and I had hoped for was that collaboration would be acceptable, since our teacher would have been part of it. But that was not the case; either our instructor designed it entirely, or the routine was not to be. And since Gary and I do want input, we are not going to do it.

Sigh. Miscommunication happens all the time, especially when both parties are vested in the outcome. Looking back, I think we both heard what we wanted to hear; I know our teacher was as disappointed as we were.

I think this has been a very good lesson. Communication is always important, but especially so with someone you see every week in a business setting. Every week is the key. Most professional people you see only once in awhile, so you don’t have to remind yourself that if you are paying someone to do something, it is a business relationship. Duh. But with someone you see every week it becomes easy to forget that. You get sloppy. You communicate in half sentences like you would to a best friend or sister.

Not to say you can’t mix friendship and business…you can…but whenever you are paying someone it is first and foremost about the business. We thought we explained ourselves to our instructor, but we did it very quickly after a lesson. She’ll get it, we thought. She knows us. She understands what we want.

But she didn’t.

Learning to dance is an intimate experience. You are touching. You see each other every week. You are exposing your weaknesses. It is easy to fall into a belief that you’re all just hanging out. But you can’t expect a business relationship to be like one with your mom, your sister, or your best friend…they are not going to be able to fill in communication gaps. Again, not that you can’t mix friendship and business, or that you can’t have a friendly business relationship, but ask yourself this: if you are not seeing that person socially other than within the setting you are paying them, then what you have first and foremost is a business relationship.

So like that hairdresser, you have to be very clear about what you want. Anything less isn’t fair to them, and it can only end in what happened with us… disappointment on both sides.

Saying that, we of course will continue our lessons, sadder and wiser. Because Gary and I both still feel Melissa is The Best Dance Teacher In All The World.