Category Archives: lindy hop and other dances

kindergardeners rock spaghetti architecture

Kindy builds good skills.

This film is interesting for the discussion of iterative design processes. This is something we talk about in class – the importance of building prototypes over and over and over again during the design process. This has also been the hardest part of learning to design things, for me. In the beginning of the semester I tended to spend half, if not three quarters of the allocated design time in class talking and thinking and writing about my design. And then I’d try making or doing the design and realise that, actually, it’s more useful to talk less and to play more.
I think that a PhD does this to you: it trains you to think about doing things, rather than to actually do them. Which of course is the inverse of learning to dance. You’ll never dance fast or well or interestingly if you just stand there thinking about it. I think that learning jazz routines on the social dance floor, in ‘real time’* has been the single most important part of my education, ever. Of all time.
It’s taught me to work with other people. It’s taught me to observe – to watch and listen. It’s taught me that to make shit, you have to do shit: you can guarantee that you will NEVER learn a routine if you just stand there and look at it. But if you try, you automatically improve your abilities a zillion percent. And even if you don’t get the routine (which most of us won’t), you will learn how your body works. And understanding how your body works is absolutely the most important part of dancing. Or building things.
Learning jazz routines on the social dance floor also teaches you that counting out steps is ridiculous. It’s a silly enforcing of a rigid organising system on something which is far more exciting and slippery. Jazz – in ‘real time’ (ahahhahaha) is bound by phrases and bars and so on, but it is also slippery and busts out of those boundaries with improvisation all the time. If you only learn routines by numbers, you will never learn how to bust out of boundaries and improvise. And improvising is everything that dancing is. Without it, you might as well be… writing pages of the dictionary out by hand. It’s far better to learn a jazz routine by listening to the music and understanding musical structure (and hence choreography and dance structures) by moving your body and using the music as the organising principle.
Off the dance floor, improvisation and iterative design processes teach you the limits of your materials (how strong is a piece of spaghetti), the importance of collaborative design and learning (and you can’t learn to work with people in theory – you can only learn by doing) and the sheer joy of working within a time frame and feeling the adrenaline surging.
I know I’m an adrenaline junky. But I just think life is so much more fun when you give yourself a little jolt of the organically manufactured good stuff.
*I pause here to laugh a lot about the ridiculousness of this idea: dance is always in real time, or else it just doesn’t exist!

Speakeasy

A few Sydney dancers have recently been running some late night speakeasy events after churchpit on Fridays, and they’ve been very successful. The venue is small and has pleasing acoustics – the square ‘end’ of a long, L-shaped room contains the sound (especially when the speaker is positioned on the long wall, playing into the short leg of the L) and leaves the rest of the room at the right noise level for talking and drinking. The long, narrow L shape leaves people squashed pretty close together, and this makes the room feel crowded (because it is) and fun. The drinks are well priced and good – beers, wines, etc for drinkers, top quality soft drinks (san pelegrino, those organic softies, etc) for non-drinkers. I don’t know if there’re coffees, but there could be. Last night there were cakes as well.
Last night I had a chance to DJ the gig and it was super fun. The organisers are really good to work with – friendly, easy going, relaxed, lots of useful feedback on the music, etc etc. It was like DJing a late night at an exchange, except better because the crowd were relaxed and friendly (rather than hyped and kind of cliquey/show-offy), the organisers were mellow and professional and the sound system was nice.
The music is usually blues or ‘slow lindy’, with the organisers themselves favouring a soul/funk aesthetic. Because the emphasis is on socialising rather than hardcore dancing, and because the gig follows the churchpit lindy night, there’s less pressure to play ‘proper’ music, and more interest in ‘good’ music. So it’s a fun gig.
This is what I played (title, artist, album, bpm, year, time):
Come Together Ike And Tina Turner Absolutely The Best 80 1998 3:40
Hound Dog Big Mama Thornton Very Best Of 76 2:52
Leave Your Hat On Etta James The Best Of Etta James 85 1973 3:19
Chain Of Fools Aretha Franklin Greatest Hits – Disc 1 116 2:48
I Got What It Takes Koko Taylor I Got What It Takes 72 1975 3:43
3 O’clock In The Morning Blues Ike and Tina Turner Putumayo Presents: Mississippi Blues 64 1969 2:40
My Man’s An Undertaker Catherine Russell Cat 106 2006 2:48
My Handy Man Ain’t Handy No More Alberta Hunter (acc by Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Fran Wess, Norris Turney, Billy Butler, Gerald Cook, Aaron Bell, Jackie Williams) Amtrak Blues 76 1978 3:49
Sugar Blues Preservation Hall The Hurricane Sessions 61 2007 5:02
Shave ’em Dry Asylum Street Spankers Nasty Novelties 131 1997 4:21
Louisiana Two Step Clifton Chenier Louisiana Blues & Zydeco [Bonus Track] 197 1965 3:49
Built for Comfort Taj Mahal In Progress & In Motion (1965-1998) 98 1998 4:46
It Takes Two to Tango Lester Young and Oscar Peterson Lester Young With the Oscar Peterson Trio 104 6:09
My Sweet Hunk O’Trash Billie Holiday with Sy Oliver and his Orchestra and Louis Armstrong The Complete Original American Decca Recordings (disc 2) 95 1949 3:20
The Clifton Chenier track was really my just taking advantage of an open minded crowd, and didn’t work. But it did make people jiggly in their seats, which is good. I <3 zydeco atm, though I know nothing about it. I tried to play upenergy, fun party music. The first Koko Taylor song is where I got a bit chilled. This wasn't really a crowd interested in slow, sexy dancing. They were more interested in slower, funkier dancing, and that was fine with me. The first block were more what I think of as 'Chicago' blues, though that's not really a very accurate description. From there I got a bit more old school in style, though I played 'new' songs for the most part - no scratchies. I was aiming for dirty, fun lyrics, lots of energy, beerdancing party music. 'Sugar Blues', which is rocking it with blues dancers at exchanges at the moment was a bit too 'serious' for this crowd. Though Chenier cleared the floor, it was full again by the middle of the next song. I was moving towards a more lindy style for the next DJ, Gunther, who's more comfortable with lindy than blues. Those last couple of songs went down nicely, and they're a couple of my favourites. 'Two to Tango' is one of those long-term favourites, and I really like the Billie/Louis duet 'Sweet hunk of trash'. Holiday's masterful delayed approach to timing is really understood by Armstrong, who hangs back there with her. That feeling of squeezing the very last second out of each beat makes the song feel just a little bit saucier, but also lets the singers make some clever jokes. Comedy is made by timing, and swinging jazz rhythms make for perfect delivery: that long pause that lets the audience begin to figure out the punch line, and then pop! the line.
It was a fun gig, and I really enjoyed doing it. I like going to that event as a punter, as well, even though the late nights are challenging at the end of a busy week.

fitness: social dancing

time: 01:30, feeling: great, effort: 4/5
Not a lot of dancing because I was DJing. But I danced with enthusiasm.
dancing
Edit: Today, the 24th, I feel really stiff and sore, but in a good way. Yoga + dancing + some cycling = yowzers. I might actually be an adrenaline junky. I did say I’d unload my foot, and I have. Yoga did stretch it a bit, and that might be a problem – we’ll see.

fitness: time to unload

ld.pngWell, I recovered from the sore knee, but I’m still getting nasty pain in my right shin and in my right foot in the old injury. The shin feels like shin splints, which I had trouble with when I was into charleston hardcore. At this point, I need to rest and unload, and then start again. I’m thinking I might stay off running for a while, as it’s the impact which hurts. Instead, I’ll try to do some proper, regular walking so I can stay a bit fit, at least. I’m tempted to cycle in the mornings, but the roads are crazy busy when I usually run (about 7.30) and cycling in peak hour traffic is not fun. There are the bike paths along the canal and water front, though, so I should think about that. At this point, though, I’m very disappointed, but I’m also quite worried about my old foot injury. Recovering from that took a very long time. But I know that I have to be patient and just let it heal.
At any rate, this week I ran on Monday, and I won’t run again for a while. I am DJing on Friday, so there’s the possibility of dancing, but I’ll try _not_ to dance. Yeah, right. And I’d like to do a long walk on the weekend, which might be a bit much. We’ll see.
I do love running, though, and I think that the high impact + speed of running requires good core strength and stability, and that’s the one thing I really like. It’s super useful for dancing, and makes dancing so much more fun. I was also beginning to see the benefits of running on my latissimus dorsi, which is one of those muscles partner dancers obsess about, because it’s very useful for helping you connect your arm to your hips/centre. I like figuring out how these things work when your body is in motion. I like the way movement forces you to multitask: not fall over and figure out how your body works.
The challenge for me is always to stay relaxed in the muscles that aren’t working (alert but not alarmed), while also being able to activate and use the busy muscles just enough to do the job. I am continually fighting to release tension in my upper body (especially my right shoulder – a side effect of bung foot and a lifetime of hardcore writing). The best way of doing this (usually) is to stabilise my core. If hips are stable, then my upper body doesn’t need to overcompensate to stop me falling over. Running has helped me isolate these two parts (which are of course actually far more complicated interconnected groups of muscles and bones and so on) and begin to get stronger in the core. I have less curve in my lower back, which is partly because my pelvis is less tilty, which is because various muscles and things in the front of my torso are more active, ‘pulling’ it into place. This in turn frees up muscles (like my lower back) and lets them relax.
The nicest effect has been having the chance to loosen up my shoulders, which then lets me feel how my lats are working. It’s very nice and very interesting. My one concern is that stopping running will stall my progress. But the good thing about having a body, is that you have it for your whole life, so you never need stop learning about these things. And learning how to use them.
Once again, I’m surprised by how much of my life involves fitness and exercise. We have no car, so walking to the train and bus is important, and I do all my errands by bike. We like going on bike rides with our friends, we like walks, and we like dancing. We’re also up for anything fun that involves exercise – games, frisbee, etc – fun stuff that gets your heart rate up. I guess that once you get a minimum level of fitness, your body becomes the perfect medium for fun. :D
(photo is from the wikipedia page linked above)