Curtains

No, not curtains to our dancing. Or anything else bad. Curtains as in the ones I had in my bedroom growing up.

I remember a lot about them: they were colorful, silly, and were filled with animals. My mom gave them to me a few years before we started dancing. I figured I’d make something out of them someday.

So I was thinking about them the other day and dug them out. Everything was exactly how I remembered except one thing: the animals are dancing! Highly recognizable and specific dancing, like the cha cha and the swing. And just in case observers can’t recognize the steps, the names of each dance are clearly labeled. I looked at the images and got chills.

I decided to frame one panel. But plenty of material remained. I cut some of the animals out and sewed them onto a skirt.

Once again I’m reminded what a wonderful childhood I had and how grateful I am to a mother that, perhaps even without her knowing, keeps inspiring me.

Ain't Got No Home

March is the time for all things green...so here's the Frogman!

Terry Lee, Single Swing, and Zydeco

Sounds like a stew, huh? It is. Dance stew.

Gary and I saw our fave band Terry Lee and the Rockaboogie Band Friday at Mike’s Dance Barn in Nashville, IN. As always, they did their usual great show. This time they added in some waltzes, 50’s rock and roll, and even some surf music. Very cool. Especially the surf music. Maybe next time some Dick Dale. But anyway, a good time. We even did our cross step waltz.

We’ve realized…again…that for the lightening fast numbers there really isn’t any substitute for single time swing. Unfortunately, I’ve never liked STS…to me the basic is bonky, and for the really quick tunes lindy timing becomes, well, too fast for me. But…if you take out lindy timing, double turns, and intricate triple step moves, what have you got? Not much, in our case.

So. I’ve been doing some trolling around on Youtube and found Zydeco dances. As with most dance genres, Zydeco dancing covers a whole lot of territory…there’s even a Zydeco waltz. These dances, like the Cajun culture, reflect French and Afro-Latin influences. We found two styles we really like. The first is fast…very fast. See the video below. What we’re going to do with this variety is take some of the moves and put them into single swing. This Zydeco dance is meant to be fast, and so depends more on fancy footwork, free spins, and non-led bling.



But…we also found another Zydeco style we liked. This one is slower and groovier…you can really see the French courtly dance influence in this one. We’re taking the bows and the beautiful arm stylings and putting some of that into our WCS. Take a look…really pretty.



And maybe at some point we can make it down to Louisiana for some true gator stomping. The Zydeco community seems free, spirited, and a whole lot of fun.

Scratchin' Circles

Ah, February and March wear on a fellow here in the gray Midwest. The first quarter of the year is all about the cold wind, snow, and skies that might as well be made of concrete. Couple that with doing seven days worth of work in the span of five and you got a recipe for misery. By the time the weekend arrives a fellow needs a little time - time to blow of some steam, time to shake the blues, time to pick himself up.

Tonight we're heading south to Mike's Dance Barn again. We're going to spend some time with Terry Lee and his Rockaboogie Band. It's a much needed pick-me-up. There are too few things in the world that can make you forget your troubles and listening to Terry happens to be one for me. There's something about Rockabilly music, some kind of magic booze for the soul. Like a good stiff drink, a good rockabilly band can make your troubles fuzzy and forgettable. All the woes of the workplace still exist, they'll be there in the morning (along with a few extra aches and pains), but for the moment they sink to the bottom of your priority list.

Music can do a lot of things but one of the most important seems to be to act as a salve, to ease the weariness the soul. We're not talking Land of the Lotus Eaters here - trouble informs good music so listening to good music means taking in the troubles of the world. The thing is good music transforms the trouble of the world, metamorphoses it into rhythm and harmony which the dancer turns into motion. Like a voodoo ceremony, the music inhabits your body and you're moved to a transcendent state. So when JD McPherson sings about Scratching Circles, he might just be talking about magic circles.

I Won't Dance

The thirties were a time of musicals. Maybe the Great Depression drove people to escape from reality and there's nothing more unreal than the musical genre. While the guys who used to put up skyscrapers are standing on breadlines, for a nickle you could watch chorus lines, extravagant costumes, and thinly defined plots reel out in black and white.

In 1934 one such musical came out in London. The Three Sisters, written by Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, had only 72 performances. However, one of the songs featured in the play, I Won't Dance, was reused in the highly successful 1935 film Roberta. That version of the song, the one commonly sung thereafter, featured heavily revised lyrics by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. Otto Harbach had had a hand in writing the lyrics for the original version with Hammerstein. Kern's music remained the same for the film rendition.

I Won't Dance originally was intended as a duet, portraying a dialogue between a woman and man, the former telling him what he is missing by not dancing with her, while the reluctant man gradually caves into her charms. The version of I Won't Dance I first encountered had been rewritten for solo vocalist and possibly the best known version is by Frank Sinatra. Regardless, I get swept away by the music and lyrics and find myself singing along (with various degrees of lyrical accuracy and little or no ability to carry a tune) every time I hear it.

I won't dance, don't ask me

I won't dance, don't ask me
I won't dance, Madame, with you

Say, you know what? You're lovely
You know what? You're lovely, but oh, what you do to me
I'm like an ocean wave that's bumped on the shore
I feel so absolutely stumped on the floor

When you dance you're charming and you're gentle
'Specially when you do the Continental
But this feeling isn't purely mental
For heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos

And that's why I won't dance, why should I?
I won't dance, how could I? I won't dance
Merci beau coup, I know that music leads the way to romance
So if I hold you in my arms I won't dance