Saturday, June 22, 2013
Do's and Dont's of Dancing - 1950's Style
During a foray through the trove of YouTube I came across a lovely little advice video for dancing - in the 1950s. Some of the advice is really good and some is, well, just kind of strange!
Monday, June 17, 2013
And The Beat Goes On...
Gary and I attended a fun 60's dance last Friday. The band was Twisted Gold, the event the Whiteland, In. Barn Reunion Dance, which is held every year to commemorate the Whiteland Dance Barn, long since torn down, but whose hallowed halls once held the sounds of many famous acts. We've never danced to a complete night of 60's tunes, and found it very danceable and fun. The band was great, the crowd even better. Here are some pictures...a trio of young boys whooping it up, a pair of young ladies cutting a rug, and a parade of pink feathered ladies dancing in a huge circle. After that two of Gary and me.
We needed a fun evening. Last week we found out our beloved Melissa has moved away, probably never to return. Her circumstances are her own and of course we respect them and her, but oh, it was a very sad Gary and Kelly who drove away from the studio that night. We've always wondered what we might do if we didn't have Melissa...just in case...but now that the inevitable is here, we're see-sawing. Take another instructor at the same studio? We are fond of a number of people there.Try another, maybe less formal, place? Find people who teach specific dances? For the moment we are letting things settle in our heads. We can progress by teaching ourselves from you tube and vids, but having an expert is something we want too.
Melissa has been more than a coach and instructor; she has been our dance lab partner and our friend. We will miss her very much and wish her only the best. I know we will find someone or a couple of someones to teach us, but...sigh. In the end, we will never stop dancing as long as we are able, and things will work out...they always do.
The beat goes on...
Monday, May 27, 2013
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Daleks and Terry Lee
Terry Lee knocked it ought of the park as usual last Friday...he and the band just get better and better if that's possible. They have a few more CDs out so we bought another, plan on getting them all.
Oh, and you never know just who you might run into at Mike's Dance Barn....exterminate!!!!!
Oh, and you never know just who you might run into at Mike's Dance Barn....exterminate!!!!!
Friday, May 24, 2013
Schoolhouse Rock
Went to a fun dance last weekend around the Racine, WI. area. I had thought it would be in the gym but instead it was in what appeared to be the old library...much smaller. Still, the floor was lovely, the people very nice, albeit not many of them...maybe 19.
It's fun to try new venues, even if they aren't exactly what you thought. :-)
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Dancing at the Knights of Columbus
Note: Somehow this one wound up in the draft bin instead of getting posted...so much belated, it hits the presses!
Yesterday we had an opportunity to dance at a new venue, the North Side Knights of Columbus. The K of C (at least the one we visited) probably isn’t known for dancing. They had no proper dance floor, just a public school-grade linoleum on concrete deal with a stage fit for Easter pageants at the front of the room and a window into the bar fit for making those pageants tolerable at the back. The K of C is a social club with Catholic connections – the pope’s answer to the Elks, Masons, and other popular fraternal orders of the early twentieth century. Every time I dance at a place like the Moose Lodge I’m reminded that there was a day when insurance didn’t exist and these organizations through their membership fees provided a means to paying for disability, medical care, unemployment, and even burial expenses. It’s odd to think that, in a lot of ways, the 2000’s could use a resurgence of the fraternal orders. This is a blog about dancing, though, so I’ll stay away from musing on reconstructing society! As our favorite DJ often says, well…let’s dance.
So, as I mentioned, the floor was hard and slick and not well suited for anything involving athletic movement in suede-bottomed shoes. It seems to be that a place that’s not set up with a proper dance floor will necessarily lack sufficient space for dancing and the K of proved no exception. Somehow, in spite of the size of the room, adding tables and people equated to a jammed floor with many near collisions. I fall back on an early plea from the blog: if you’re dancing realize you’re not the ONLY person dancing.
Sure, there are accidents. Last night a very good dancer practically started off his EC swing between Kelly and me. I know he’s good and I know he’s very polite, so I chalk that one to a simple error. However, when six or seven couples do the same thing there’s something wrong. Not everyone on the dance floor is a clod so there must be some mystical energy, some occult phenomenon akin to the Bermuda Triangle that comes into play when dances are held in a space not intended for dance. Compasses spin, radios go haywire, and even the deftest of dance mavens find themselves left-footed and stumbling out of control. Their sense of propriety abandons them. Their knowledge of floor-craft becomes a fuzzy memory. Soon they’re tripping the light not-so-fantastic right across your big toe and putting their prodigious butt in your partner’s face.
I’m becoming enamored of bringing an exorcist to these cursed venues. A little holy water and incense, a few mumbled prayers, and out damned dance demons! Maybe we’d all be better dancers for the ceremony. The only problem is I would have figured the K of C would have some kind of stored up resistance, a Vatican vaccination handed down through organizational lineage. Eh, so much for that theory.
Yesterday we had an opportunity to dance at a new venue, the North Side Knights of Columbus. The K of C (at least the one we visited) probably isn’t known for dancing. They had no proper dance floor, just a public school-grade linoleum on concrete deal with a stage fit for Easter pageants at the front of the room and a window into the bar fit for making those pageants tolerable at the back. The K of C is a social club with Catholic connections – the pope’s answer to the Elks, Masons, and other popular fraternal orders of the early twentieth century. Every time I dance at a place like the Moose Lodge I’m reminded that there was a day when insurance didn’t exist and these organizations through their membership fees provided a means to paying for disability, medical care, unemployment, and even burial expenses. It’s odd to think that, in a lot of ways, the 2000’s could use a resurgence of the fraternal orders. This is a blog about dancing, though, so I’ll stay away from musing on reconstructing society! As our favorite DJ often says, well…let’s dance.
So, as I mentioned, the floor was hard and slick and not well suited for anything involving athletic movement in suede-bottomed shoes. It seems to be that a place that’s not set up with a proper dance floor will necessarily lack sufficient space for dancing and the K of proved no exception. Somehow, in spite of the size of the room, adding tables and people equated to a jammed floor with many near collisions. I fall back on an early plea from the blog: if you’re dancing realize you’re not the ONLY person dancing.
Sure, there are accidents. Last night a very good dancer practically started off his EC swing between Kelly and me. I know he’s good and I know he’s very polite, so I chalk that one to a simple error. However, when six or seven couples do the same thing there’s something wrong. Not everyone on the dance floor is a clod so there must be some mystical energy, some occult phenomenon akin to the Bermuda Triangle that comes into play when dances are held in a space not intended for dance. Compasses spin, radios go haywire, and even the deftest of dance mavens find themselves left-footed and stumbling out of control. Their sense of propriety abandons them. Their knowledge of floor-craft becomes a fuzzy memory. Soon they’re tripping the light not-so-fantastic right across your big toe and putting their prodigious butt in your partner’s face.
I’m becoming enamored of bringing an exorcist to these cursed venues. A little holy water and incense, a few mumbled prayers, and out damned dance demons! Maybe we’d all be better dancers for the ceremony. The only problem is I would have figured the K of C would have some kind of stored up resistance, a Vatican vaccination handed down through organizational lineage. Eh, so much for that theory.
Versitility
I've never been a Liberace fan, in fact I only stumbled across this clip parasitically by listening to an episode of Fresh Air which featured a story about an upcoming Liberace docu-drama (Behind the Candelabra, I believe). During the show they played a piece of this clip along with a similar scene from the television program, which got me thinking. What Liberace is doing with Mack the Knife, is improvisation - re-imagining a standard in a new and inventive way. The same can be done with dance.
So, the next time a samba is played, think about it in terms of a cha-cha or a rumba. When a salsa tune is played, ask yourself how you'd do a west coast swing to that tune. It's an exercise in creativity and it can help you transform your dancing into something that's truly your own!
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