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December 10, 2007

copying is easier than creating

Posted by dogpossum on December 10, 2007 10:13 AM

Mz Tartan has posted a post about conferences that applies quite nicely to lindy exchanges. So I will now infringe her intellectual copy rights with some select copying and pasting.

• thinking of holding a conferencen exchange? Best not. It is a far, far better thing to receive conferences exchanges than to give them. I can't really remember what people actually said the dances I had, in most cases. I do vividly remember various people telling me that it is incredibly anxiety-producing to organise a conferencen exchange. That's the truth. And all the while one is industriously producing anxiety one is well aware that the anxiety is ridiculous: one is not actually the person whose academic standing DJing or dancing has attracted people to this event, nor the one behind the microphone giving the talk good oil which is being intently listened danced to, let alone the person who wrote these exquisite novels songs and/or dances in honour of which everyone has gathered.
• But here is a specimen of the type of situation which feeds anxiousness. I did not mention this en blog at the time, but back in April of this year, I came into my office one morning to find six or seven messages on my answering machine from a person who seemed to be saying she'd showed up at LTU on the weekend for the conference, and she was standing outside the venue right now and could I call her back straight away to tell her why nobody was around - where it had been moved to? Oh, and she'd come from Italy to attend. FROM ITALY. I was DJing at set in one room when the DJ from the other appeared at my side to ask where the DJ for the set following his was at. Can you imagine the abyss of horror which opened up beneath me? Can you? I'm sorry, but you can't. The original call for papers, sent out eighteen months earlier, had indeed mentioned this weekend as the probable date, but we'd changed it very quickly to coincide with the English Teachers' meeting. And of course nobody else had turned up. And of course ALL the subsequent promotional stuff very clearly gave the proper date. And of course it is incredible to simply turn up to a conference without at least re-checking that it's on, or even attempting to register, or looking at the conference website. Yet, still, here she apparently was. FROM ITALY. All of the DJing rosters had been sent out ages ago and approved by all DJs concerned. We did manage to find the DJ (asleep somewhere), but it was a near thing, and yet another opportunity for public humiliation before an audience of my peers and international and interstate guests.
• She apparently turned up again last Friday afternoon. The person on the conference desk said she'd appeared and wanted to know where her name tag was. Then we lost track of her again. I would have liked to sight her, from a safe distance (from inside a bird observation hut perhaps) but it was not to be...next time, no doubt.
• If, in spite of this potent warning, you still want to do a conference n exchange, overbook your speakers DJs. Out of thirty-five two dozen, two will withdraw for good reasons and in plenty of time for you to make other arrangements; two will courteously let you know that they won't be coming in time for you to pull them out of the program, one will pull out a week before, and one will pull out by email at 6:24pm on the evening before the day their paper set is scheduled at 10:45 1:30 am. This person will be emailing you not from the Australian city where she resides, but from a country that is nine hours' flight away. How did she get there? you will wonder. Didn't it occur to her as she got on the plane....etc
• The sick feeling you will acquire as you contemplate what looks like the complete disintegration of your carefully assembled program will make it impossible for you to write play your own paper set with any degree of competency, so you will withdraw it, bash it out any way thus making you feel like a total hypocrite and poser. Nevertheless, there will actually be more than enough papers DJs, and you will eventually realise that all the agonising and your own self was were unnecessary.
• Don't cancel the wildlife tour/shopping tour/olden days architecture tour. It is what the internationals are looking forward to. You may think possums/shopping/old buildings are boring, but they do not.

Despite the extreme anxiety of previous MLXs, this year wasn't actually all that bad. The above are really just par for the course, and what I think of as 'inevitable screw ups'. The issue becomes not whether or not they happen, but how you deal with them when they do happen. The difference between a conference and an exchange, though, is that a couple of hundred dancers are there to have fun, and it takes quite a bit to dissuade them of their intent. Conference attendees, however, have a few more issues going on, and can be far less forgiving.
I only had one freak out during MLX, and that was on the Thursday of the weekend. My good friends and hostees took me for cake and I got over myself and it.

I find that the very most important thing about coordinating a dozen or so events over one weekend for a few hundred visitors is to remain calm. Freaking doesn't help. I also have a rule: "no shouting". Unless you're shouting with delight. Shouting at people is never productive, and definitely not when the shouter is feeling angry/upset/etc. Remain cool. If you do feel a good shout/cussing out is in order, take it out the back so as to avoid broken furniture, exorbitant bar tabs and embarrassing guest DJs.
I have another solid rule: say thank you to anyone who has in any way been helpful, kind, accommodating, interested or otherwise a force for good rather than a force for inertia*. It doesn't hurt to say thank you three or four times, but it does hurt if you don't say it at all. Saying thank you makes you feel good, too, and so it's a win-win deal for everyone involved.
And another rule (which is related to the previous): volunteers are the most valuable creatures at your event. DJs are generally a bit precious and high maintenance (with exceptions!), rock star dancers are a pain in the freaking arse (organise exchanges for beginners - they're far less annoying) and fellow organisers can drive you nuts. But volunteers are gold. Love them, respect them, buy them drinks, thank them, squeeze them and underwork them. They will come back next year and figure out how to work the vacuum cleaner all on their own again.

*yes, I know.

"copying is easier than creating" was posted in the category conferences and lindy hop and other dances

December 3, 2007

west brunswick toodle-oo

Posted by dogpossum on December 3, 2007 11:18 AM

So November is over. It was ok.

• I had a birthday (that was ok)
• I liked all the moustaches (I don't think there's enough facial hair in the world, and it made dance partners extra interesting)
• we did mlx and it went well (biggest ever, zillions of interstaters and internationals, the usual reluctance on the part of Melbournites to play nice with guests)
• we had galaxy plus a round of dancers stay with us (and that was very nice)
• I did all my marking and got it in with plenty of time to spare
• I got a job interview for a postdoc (argh! next week!)
• I got a small grant to get me to the CSAA conference this week (double argh! paper not written! flights not booked! accommodation not sorted!)
• I've had a few punters ringing me offering DJing gigs (I am resolute about only taking paying gigs - I've done enough freebies to know I never want to do one again, unless it's for a real charity)
• Galaxy and I met up with Mz Tartan pre-GG and the Austenauts (dang, I'm sorry I missed that! blogged with excellence here) and she was surprisingly cool, calm and collected

...and now I'm desperately trying to get my sleep pattern back to normal for the conference this week. I managed to have a relatively stress-free MLX (in fact, incredibly so), and slept at least 8 hours every night. From 8am til 4pm most days, but still, 8 fat hours of solid, dreamless sleep. Unheard of.

I've also met another dancer doing a phd on dance stuff, but she lives in Perth, so we're squeezing in a natter-fest tomorrow before she flies out. She's into sociology and anthropology and I'm not sure she's up there with the hardcore sister action. But we'll see. It'll be neat just to sit and have a nice, nerdy chat.

I'm planning to meet up with the Adelaidean dancers during the conference visit this week (Wednesday). So I'll be able to say I've danced in every scene in Australia. Except Launceston. That should be nice.

My paper is pretty much done - just some tidying up to do. It's a combination of bits from these three posts, but obviously with far less detail, seeing as how I only get 20 minutes. 20 minutes kills me, especially when I want to play some music and clips of dancers to actually make clear what I'm talking about. It's ridiculous to talk about dancing without showing any, particularly when you're talking about gender performance in dance. In fact, it's so ridiculous I should just show 6 clips and provide an exercise sheet to stimulate group discussion, a la tutorials past.

I've also noted I'm in kind of a dud session, parallel with papers I'd really like to see, and which everyone else would really like to see as well. Not a big deal, really, and just desserts for someone who fucked the programming around at the last minute (I'd missed out on another grant and cancelled on the organisers, then been offered one by someone else, so squeezed back into the program - people who pull that shit deserve to get dud sessions). But it's parallel with an old buddy's paper and in a session of licorice allsorts, so we'll have trouble asking each other questions. It is in the last session of a day, but this time it's not the last session of the last day, so I guess it's ok.
I don't mean this to sound like a big old bitch - I really am very lucky to be going at all, and I don't want you to think otherwise. But the part of me that's trying to get a job keeps saying 'how will you pimp your fine self out if there's no one in the audience?' But really, it only takes one. And there'll be plenty of afternoon teas for me to pimp myself about. I'm cringing, writing that stuff. I hate the thought of such aggressive self aggrandising, but at the end of the day, in such a competitive job market, I have to be a bit pushy.
So I'm going to experiment with performing pushiness, and pretend like I'm one of those blokes who, obliviously, introduces himself to all the Names at conferences. It's the sort of thing chicks tend to be reluctant to do. And as a consequence, those pushy blokes get remembered, simply because the chicks have been to shy to step up.
But I'm going to focus on Names that mean something to me - you know, the Old Girls network. The ladies who do. The sorts of women academics who I admire and want to work with and be like. They're the ladies who'll call me on bullshit pushiness and demand some sort of fer real talk. No bullshit (unless it's a story about my career as a stunt woman and there are Tasmanians in the room), all kick arse Sister. No pathetic arse-kissing. No sycophancy.... like I'd have the patience for that. And for sure I'd forget that it's not cool to swear in polite company. Must remember that for the job interview, actually. Swearing = not cool.
But we'll see. No doubt I'll forget all these plans and end up talking shit and eating all the chocolate biscuits with the homies from UQ. Awesome.

Galaxy asked me the other day if I'd written a 'why dance is important to cultural studies' paper, and I haven't. I'm not sure I really, hugely care - if you don't dance you don't understand why it's important. Words won't help convince you - you have to feel it to understand why it's good stuff. But I do have a short list of reasons which include things like 'class' and 'not needing literacy' and 'ethnicity' and 'faster than words' and 'freakin' great fun!' I'll have a think, though. Perhaps it'll be a paper I write when I actually have a job or a book or more than half a dozen papers. Right now I think I'd get more from a paper called 'Why cultural studies needs dogpossum' which is so effective it gets me lots of jobs. But I'll work on it.

"west brunswick toodle-oo" was posted in the category conferences and djing and lindy hop and other dances and travel

December 12, 2006

crazed and manic jubilation

Posted by dogpossum on December 12, 2006 2:11 PM

I just found out that my thesis was passed WITHOUT CORRECTIONS!!

I have done the crazy happy dance about 10 times already (lots of high kicks up into the air, a few twirly spin-arounds, some random jiggling).

If I hurry I can do the graduation thing in March/April.

So I am now Dr dogpossum (mostly)! Hoorah!

...remind me to write about the dance conference, will you? I met some lovely (and awe-inspiring) young dancers who work with companies like Bangarra (and how did I introduce myself? "You guys rock!" - I am all about cool. But they did - their mini-performance blew me away!), networked like a crazy person, discovered someone who has Graybags for a supes (and knows Galaxy), told some inappropriate jokes, shared Frida and the Whitey's Lindy Hoppers with a bunch of doods who understood what I've been trying to say about them and ate some of the best conference food EVER.

[and hoorah for the markers - the thesis was sent to them at the end of September, and they had the marks to me by today - that's under 3 months turnaround time]

"crazed and manic jubilation" was posted in the category academia and conferences and lindy hop and other dances and thesis and travel

September 29, 2006

Australian-Melbourne-Irish-Global media?

Posted by dogpossum on September 29, 2006 1:22 PM

As some of you know, I'm booked in to give a paper at the annual CSAA conference in Canberra in December. I wrote about my abstract here and moaned about not scoring a bursary here.

Well, things have actually turned around a bit since then. I have actually scored a smallish grant from the nice people at the CSAA, which will cover my conference registration and part of my airfare. Yay.

So, come December, I'm flying up to the Can to talk theoretical turkey with acadackas, hang out with my old school friend Kate (no, not 'old skewl', nor is she particularly 'old' - she is a friend I have had for a long time) and possibly see some local dancers.

This was all very nice to hear - I'm quite proud of having scored a competitive grant from an organisation which will look good on my CV. I'm also happy to be funded for my trip to the Can - I need to get a job some time soon, and these things are good networking activities... though I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time hanging about with old UQ buddies. And as you can see from this entry, I seemed to spend more time thinking about jazz than any professional business at the last CSAA conference.

So anyways, I'm off to do a paper.
Here is the abstract again:

Swing Talk and Swing Dance: online and embodied networks in the ‘Australian’ swing dance community.
Since its revival in the 1980s, lindy hop and other swing dances have become increasingly popular with middle class youth throughout the developed world.
There are vibrant local swing dance communities in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, Perth, Canberra and Brisbane for whom dancing - an embodied cultural practice – is the most important form of social interaction. Swing dancers will travel vast distances and spend large amounts of money solely to attend dance events in other cities. The success and appeal of these events lies in their promotion as unique and showcasing their local dance ‘scene’.
In travel itineraries which criss-cross the country, swing dancers develop networks between local communities that are not only cemented by their embodied interpersonal interaction, but also by their uses of digital media. In this paper, I examine the ways in which the online Swing Talk discussion board is utilised by Australian swing dancers to develop personal relationships with dancers in other cities, which in turn serve to develop relationships between local communities. This insistence of local community identity in swing dance culture in Australia defies a definition of a ‘national’ swing dance community. I describe the ways in which ‘Australian’ swing dance is an ‘unAustralia’ - not a homogenous ‘whole’ but a network of embodied and mediated relationships between diverse local communities and individuals.

Right now I'm having trouble remembering what I wanted to write about. I suspect there wasn't actually a lot of planning in there. But I have started to have some ideas. Of course stimulated by my impending trip to SLX (I'll be off to the tram stop in a few hours - nursing this horrid cold that's sprung up), but also prompted by planning for MLX6 planning.

Have a listen to this:

powered by ODEO

(which you can find here on the MLX6 music page).

Now, if that's not an advertisement for glocal community, I don't know what is. I mean, before we even get to the dance/exchange stuff, we're listening to an Irish guy pimping Australian jazz for a Melbourne exchange to an international audience. Neat stuff, huh?
This is the stuff about lindy hoppers that I really love: the way they go nuts and do all sorts of creative things - off as well as on the dance floor. And much of this creative work is centered on big dance events like exchanges and camps. There are lots of film clips, mini-films, websites, DVDs, etc etc - and a couple of special official CDs produced - but I'm beginning to get interested in the way swing dancers use radio and audio technology. Specifically, digital audio technology. I mean, there is all that stuff about DJing, but swing dancers do other really interesting things as well: Yehoodi radio is streaming music chosen by swing dancing DJs from all over the world, the Yehoodi Talk Show is really just a chance for a couple of engaging dance/music nerds to have a chat online and Hey Mr Jess is even nerdier - a particularly lovely DJ chatting about swing music and DJing with another dance/music nerd.

Hello podcasts.

This promotional podcast by one of our MLX6 crew is interesting for the way it combines samples from local musicians' albums (these are all bands we're hosting for MLX6, from Melbourne and Sydney) - they're all still living, all contemporary artists - with pimpage for our event.
I do need to sit down and do a bit of analysis of the content, but this is some interesting stuff. Radio has proved a particularly effective medium for connecting dancers in different countries - a natural complement to discussion boards. And this is one of (if not the) first Australian contribution to the international lindy hop radio world (excluding contributions by local DJs to the Yehoodi radio show) - this is the first locally produced Australian swing dance radio 'bit'. And it's narrated by an Irishman!
Wonderful!

I do need to sit down and think about how this works: the way 'Melbourne' is presented, the way 'Australia' is presented, and how different audiences within and without Australia (and Melbourne) might receive/interpret/read this text, but it's a starting point - a bit of motivation - for my paper. At the very least, I can add that to my usual list of clips and photos for the presentation - always fun to do.

Yay!

--edit: you know, part of my brain is also a bit interested in the way I've used that odeo plugin, there: most times you see those sorts of things they're 'invisible', in the way my sidebar over there is largely 'invisible' from the main body of the page over here. But I've actually framed that odeo thingy as something to use and listen to, rather than just stuffing it into my sidebar or at the bottom of this post. It's an interesting contrast to the livefm thingy over there in the sidebar (which is still stuffed and giving me the shits). I am, of course, delighted and fascinated by all this convergence action - my blog as combining audio and visual as well as written? Let's see a newspaper try that then! Of course, this issue is one I've been plaguing my students with lately in tutes - as I heard in a Media Report story about cross-media ownership and digital technology, the cross-media ownership legislation kind of collapses when faced with the internet and the fancy things newspapers have been doing online: they combine av with traditional 'static' text... and bloggage, and audio, and... lots of other lovely stuff.

This is such a great time to be a media studies stooge! How could you not love the internet?!

"Australian-Melbourne-Irish-Global media?" was posted in the category academia and conferences and lindy hop and other dances and melbourne and teaching

July 4, 2006

abstract frenzy

Posted by dogpossum on July 4, 2006 6:41 PM

I'm feeling a bit confused. A couple of months ago I went over the list of upcoming conferences and did a heap of abstracts, including one for this year's CSAA conference. Here's the call for papers:

f things are 'un-Australian' it must be because they come from UNAUSTRALIA.
Where is it?
Who lives there?
How does it come to be?
What is its past and what is its future?

While raising some very local questions of critique and desire, the theme is open to international perspectives and interpretations.
Do other places have their own unplaces? What goes on there?

UNTHEMED papers are also welcome.

I got all confused before I figured out what conference/what abstract/wuh? was going on.
I'm not too inspired by the conference theme, even though I do do a fair bit of work on global/local stuff, but almost two months ago to the day I pulled out this action:

Swing Talk and Swing Dance: online and embodied networks in the ‘Australian’ swing dance community.

Since its revival in the 1980s, lindy hop and other swing dances have become increasingly popular with middle class youth throughout the developed world.
There are vibrant local swing dance communities in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart, Perth, Canberra and Brisbane for whom dancing - an embodied cultural practice – is the most important form of social interaction. Swing dancers will travel vast distances and spend large amounts of money solely to attend dance events in other cities. The success and appeal of these events lies in their promotion as unique and showcasing their local dance ‘scene’.

In travel itineraries which criss-cross the country, swing dancers develop networks between local communities that are not only cemented by their embodied interpersonal interaction, but also by their uses of digital media. In this paper, I examine the ways in which the online Swing Talk discussion board is utilised by Australian swing dancers to develop personal relationships with dancers in other cities, which in turn serve to develop relationships between local communities. This insistence of local community identity in swing dance culture in Australia defies a definition of a ‘national’ swing dance community. I describe the ways in which ‘Australian’ swing dance is an ‘unAustralia’ - not a homogenous ‘whole’ but a network of embodied and mediated relationships between diverse local communities and individuals.

It's interesting to see a few other abstracts - here, here and here.

I'll only go if I score their grant thingy for pgrads/early career types. I can't afford to get there (air fares) or to pay to get in ($190). I doubt my paper is clever enough or sexy enough to score me some free money. But them's the breaks. Nor am I sure it's an especially great time for me to attend a conference - once again it's on the weekend after MLX, which will keep me more than a little busy.
Not to mention the whole writing a paper thing. I'm kind of a bit tired of writing...

"abstract frenzy" was posted in the category conferences

October 18, 2005

phew. draft1 done

Posted by dogpossum on October 18, 2005 5:38 PM

Draft #1 of the paper for the CSAA conference is done. I've yet to source some decent footage of social dancing to insert (though I'll do that easily over the next few weeks: have video camera, will film), and the supes has to look through it for me (not til after the weekend she said, but I understand), but it's looking pretty dang ok.
Once that's under control, I can get back to the chapters. The final chapter has been rewritten/replanned to discuss schools and other institutional bodies in Melbourne swing culture, rather than a discussion of camps and exchanges, mostly because the camps/exchanges thing just wasn't working. The schools chapter, however, seems to make more sense. So I've absorbed the important parts of that camps chapter (well, I will absorb them - when I get back to editing) and I have to write that schools chapter. It should go ok. Once I get back into it. I'm feeling pretty low-stress and keen to write. I think I'm going to thank Firefly for that.
[BG, btw, is getting sillier and more desperate for plottage by the minute... man, I should not have watched the two together]

On a slightly different tack, the mlx5 stuff is rolling along smoothly. Want to buy a Tshirt? Completed a final draft of the final pamphlet (program and whatnot) and it's looking pretty dang sweet. Alls I really have to get sorted now is the volunteer roster (not so hard, really: Brian's ob-con tendencies in that department mean that I've a good idea of how many people are needed when. Now all I have to do is
match personalities/availabilties and jobs.
... oh, and do all the little jobs that have accumulated.

I'm quite looking forward to the MLX weekend: it's going to be fuuu-uuun.

Meanwhile, I have a few sewing projects that need finishing, and I'm about to go to yoga (in about an hour and a half). I haven't been in a while because I've been busy and distracted by other things (mostly the couch), and I'm looking forward to it tonight. Isn't my life exciting?

"phew. draft1 done" was posted in the category conferences

October 12, 2005

conferences = exchanges

Posted by dogpossum on October 12, 2005 7:24 PM

I'm booked to do a paper in Sydney the weekend after MLX5 at the CSSA conference. I'm keen to listen to some papers (oh, how naive of me!) but I'm also a bit unkeen about the wanky cultural studies bullshit. I'm sure I'll meet some nice people and have a lovely time, though.
The paper is on camps and exchanges as 'fixes' (a la the theme: culture fix). Which is kind of interesting as I'm coming straight from running MLX. We only have 30 mins all up (or is it 20...?) so, after clippage (which is mandatory), I'll only have about 15 minutes to talk. Which is a shame, as I love to talk. And I love to give loooong, boring papers. But it'll be a relief for the punters.... I hope I can narrow it down to just the one point.

What will that point be?
Something about how camps and exchanges are like fan conventions I think. Something about the appeal/addictiveness of camps/exchanges and the en masse and utterly intense experience of a camp/exchange? Surely I can make some sort of comment about wild men's weekends and immersion events...
Heck, it'll be fun: I've scored $$ for the fare, I'm staying with local swingers (yay!) and I'm going to see if I can get in for free/cheap for volunteering. It will be a nice break after MLX I think.

Or perhaps it'll be all about the parallels between academic conferences and lindy exchanges... or is that too painfully wanky even for a cultural studies conference? It'll certainly make the point about the arbitrary (and ideological) demarkation of 'the field' and 'the academy', or 'subjects' and 'researchers' ...

"conferences = exchanges" was posted in the category conferences

May 13, 2004

my djing paper

Posted by dogpossum on May 13, 2004 1:07 AM

i'm giving a paper on djing in the department today/tomorrow, and i need a copy i can print out at work. so i've emailed it to myself and i'm uploading it here. ah, the ultimate public private...
Download file

"my djing paper" was posted in the category conferences

April 22, 2004

still worrying...

Posted by dogpossum on April 22, 2004 3:38 PM

...about that paper. should just get over it and bloody do the thing, right?
pft. yeah, like that'll happen any time soon...

"still worrying..." was posted in the category conferences