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(pic by Beth Evans)
My first instinct, when discovering I’ve fucked up, is to hide the fact. You know, cover it up.
When I was first learning fall off the log, I’d been quite ill with flu, and it was a really hot, humid Brisbane night. I don’t quite know what [...]
Who is Marshall Stearns?
By dogpossum On 11th April, 2013 · Leave a Comment · In history, learning, lindy hop and other dances, teaching
I’m writing some notes for our students on FB, so I figured I’d let the content free, here in the unfenced part of the internet.
Who?
Marshall Stearns.
Stearns was a jazz music and dance historian and reseacher, who was involved in the founding of the Institute of Jazz Studies.
Most [...]
Little Big Weekend 3
By dogpossum On 4th April, 2013 · Leave a Comment · In lindy hop and other dances, running events, teaching
This is where my attention is right now:
The (3rd) Little Big Weekend, featuring Lennart Westerlund and Georgia Brooks, 11-12 May 2013, here in Sydney.
The website: www.littlebigweekend.com/ is now active;
There’s a twitter account to follow: @littlebigwkend;
And a facebook event.
I run two [...]
Using history in dance classes
By dogpossum On 18th February, 2013 · Leave a Comment · In history, learning, lindy hop and other dances, research, teaching
I’m very interested in discussions about history and historical research. I’ve written about a million billion times before (this post ‘Try To Write About Jazz’ sums up some of my thinking). One of the things I’m most interested in is the way dancers use history. We do a lot of things with historical narrative [...]
Ladies first: sometimes we are triumphantly cycling to victory in our sports bras
By dogpossum On 8th February, 2013 · 9 Comments · In learning, lindy hop and other dances, menz, teaching, wimminz
I’ve had a couple of emails about what was a fairly glib throwaway line about Nathan Bugh’s piece ‘Ladies First’ in my last blog post Gendering Dance Talk. This kind of surprised me, because I didn’t really think a lot about Bugh’s article in the first place, and I don’t have any sort of [...]
Gendering dance talk
By dogpossum On 7th February, 2013 · 4 Comments · In academia, learning, lindy hop and other dances, menz, research, teaching, wimminz
My MA used lots of discourse analysis theory, which looks at the way language and words are used in written texts. I’ve also done some spoken discourse analysis work (which isn’t the same as linguistics, though there’s some crossover). I’ve been fascinated by the way spoken discourse analysis theory works in an online environment, where [...]
Dealing with Problem Guys in dance classes
By dogpossum On 27th December, 2012 · 6 Comments · In learning, learning, lindy hop and other dances, menz, teaching, wimminz
If you’ve ever done a lindy hop class ever, chances are you’ve come across a Problem Guy. Problem Guys are just that – problems. They interrupt the teachers. They talk while the teachers are talking. They instruct the follows in class (usually incorrectly) and they just. won’t. shut. up. They often move themselves up class [...]
Learning
By dogpossum On 23rd December, 2012 · 2 Comments · In learning, learning, lindy hop and other dances, menz, teaching, wimminz
God I write long posts. I just sit down, write ‘em, then give them a quick edit. Sorry about that. It’s how I wrote my thesis. But with my thesis, I edited the thing. I don’t edit blog posts because WHO CARES. So, brace for impact, yo.
Some friends of mine have started getting together [...]
a bit of dance nerdery
By dogpossum On 19th December, 2012 · Leave a Comment · In learning, lindy hop and other dances, teaching
One of the most useful concepts I’ve been working on this year in dancing is the idea of layers or different types of connection.
It’s something I’ve been working on for, oh, I don’t know MY ENTIRE DANCING CAREER, but this year it’s been extra fascinating.
Basically, you assume that connection has to have [...]
You’d think nothing had been happening round here.
But everything has been happening.
Firstly, we had to finish off classes for the year. We were so tired out, it was a relief, and yet it’s a poo to interrupt the learnz. But knowing when to rest is important.
Secondly, we had MLX. The [...]
