wassup

Doods!

You must listen to this song while you read this post, because I watched a doco called ‘Sound City’ and now I am listening to NOTHING but Fleetwood Mac.

linky

I would love to be writing more, but FUCK I am busy. I have so many thoughts about teaching dance, about solo dance, about the way ‘rhythm’ has become the latest ‘sexy’ thing in lindy hop talk, and how we actually use it as the core of leading and following in our lindy hop class and thinking, about music, about events, about everything!

I wanted to write a post where I said: the question should not be ‘why aren’t there more women leads and male follows in your scene?’ but ‘If you don’t have women leads and male follows in your scene, you’re doing something wrong – what will you do to fix it?”

I want to write a rant about the tranky do, and how I think it’s actually a less than awesome routine, so why is it so freaking popular?

I need to write about choreographing solo dance. I need to write about what you should teach beginners in a weekly solo class, versus what you should teach more intermediate and advanced students. Do you do ‘level 1’ and ‘level 2’, or is that bullshit, and you should teach a ‘technique’ and a ‘choreography’ class instead?

I need to write about fucking lindy hop and how fucking wonderful it is. That shit is goddam crack. WHY CAN’T I QUIT YOU? I need to write about pilates and solo dance and how they have fundamentally changed my lindy hop lately, and how I have realised that there is NO DIFFERENCE between solo and partner dancing. It’s all just one pool of syncopated jazz rhythms.

I wanted to write about the differences between ILHC and ULHS comps, in terms of music and regional culture, not to mention ethos. And I wanted to write about the limitations of lindy hop competitions that push dancers to dance faster and faster. And their strengths.

I wanted to write about the weird heatwave we’ve had here in Sydney. 37*C yesterday. In OCTOBER. What the actual fuck?

I NEED to write about this fabulous event I’m running in December. I’m so excited about it. The thing that’s making me so excited is that teachers and performers and musicians just keep emailing to say “Oh, we want to come to your weekend and dance and make music with you! No, we don’t want pay – we just want to come and DANCE and PLAY!” People just keep emailing and grabbing me in person and saying “I want to do X on the weekend – is it ok if I do that?” and I say “OF COURSE!” It’s really exciting to be part of a scene where people are just really keen to do things, and then they DO them!

But I can’t write about it, because I have a list a mile long, mostly made up of things like ‘confirm this venue’ and ‘go look at that venue’s sound gear’ and ‘resist urge to add more workshops or dances’ and ‘send apologetic email to people trying to volunteer – the list is full.’

The hardest thing in the world is keeping a little event little. But you got to.

Oh, and I HAVE to write about sewing and satin and costuming!

And plantar fascia injuries (boo!) and working with great DJs.

Right now I am:
– Doing the final things on our dance next week, Hot Foot Stomp, where I’ll be DJing, and which suddenly has twice as many people coming as we’d planned for. FARK!
– Trying to reshuffle the DJ program for MLX because another band’s been organised to the program, and that means less DJing which is sad but also exciting.
– Getting some practice DJing in for my own sets at Hot Foot Stomp and MLX and swingpit. Good luck.
– Getting the Little Big Weekend under control, and resist its demands to become a really HUGE event.
– Memorising these two routines, and really get them solid in my brain for teaching.
– Teaching three hours on Wednesday, practicing two hours on Thursday, social dance on Tuesday and not asplode my foot.
– Reading and reading and reading. Latest thing: