Do some teacher training!

Ok, dancers, another thing you can do, while you’re not allowed to lindy hop because you might kill someone.

Do some teacher training, on your own or with your teaching team:

  • Learn about the history(s) of dances, and how you will integrate that into your classes so it’s fun and useful, and not just a bunch of lecturing at students;

Do an online lecture/tutorial with a dance historian, to get all your ducks in a row and learn about a particular moment in history, or a particular dance.

  • eg I once did a private with Loggins to learn the difference between two-step and other dances.
  • You could do a session with Teena Morales-Armstrong about black dances from the 50s onward (Hand dancing? Fast Dancing?) so you can stop saying shit like ‘black dance stopped after lindy hop in the 50s.’
  • How about a session with Marie N’diaye about chorus lines and what they actually _did_ in their working days?
  • Do a session with a teacher like Anders Sihlberg about how to structure a class, how to move from a particular move or technical thing to a whole class that’s actually fun;
  • Do a session with someone like Sylwia Bielec about how to train your staff and structure a syllabus

    • It’s usually really hard to get these people to stay in one city for an hour so you can drain their brains. Take advantage!

    There are other fun topics you could work on:

    • Developing a solid OH&S policy that actually addresses sexual harassment in a sensible way (oh, and germ safety :D );
    • Putting some affirmative action policies in place, so that you can actually get some diversity on your teaching team: people of different ethnicities, different body shapes, genders, etc;
    • Sketching out a funding plan for the next few years to take advantage of any funding that’s coming up (think arts, sport, health, economic development, small business, etc)

    And so on.

    they are not shocked

    They are no ‘outraged’ because they are not ‘shocked’. There is nothing shocking about racist violence perpetrated by police because it is normalised. It is seen as legitimate violence. It is this legitimate violence that was not only used to steal the country and assert white dominance but also maintain it through the oppression of Aboriginal people.
    source

    How to be ‘public’ dancers in a covid19 world

    I think you all know that I took a break from teaching and running classes last year in about June, before I went away for a long trip. I found it gave me a real break, and I liked it. Though I truly missed the actual teaching part, I didn’t and don’t miss the everyday pressure of management and promotion.

    I pivoted a bit, and put more energy into DJing, running live band gigs and weekend events, and I got a bit more into pattern drafting (completely non-dancing related creative fun). And then I started doing 3 days a week of dance practice with a partner, and I was much happier. It’s been many years since I just did dance stuff for my own pleasure and satisfaction. More, please.

    This week I’m actually beginning to feel like being creative in a dance-related way. I was really inspired by the little bit of the WHO fundraiser I saw. It was so nice to see people in my timezone and region (Asia) doing normal dance stuff (Vietnam were social dancing), and to hear and see Sing talking about dance <3 And it was lovely to be an audience and listen to friends DJ. I liked it because it was a new thing for me. When I stopped running the classes, I feel a disconnect a few other dance friends have expressed lately. What should I write in email newsletters? Who was I talking to? What did I have to say? I felt like my personal voice was subsumed by the 'voice of the business', and I was uncomfortable with that. So now I'm working on 'stuff I love' and 'stuff I want to do‘.

    I’ve been thinking that small events and projects are going to come first in the post-COVID and living-with-COVID world, for safety’s sake. And that a smaller, local focus will perhaps be much more fulfilling and personally stimulating than huge-market stuff. Whether it’s a small class, or a small party where people just socialise in a normal human way, with talking and food and drink and music and dancing, rather than the strange modern lindy hop way, which is nothing but dance.

    This hard reset could be a good thing for all of us. As Jon Tigert says in a fb discussion, “Im much more fulfilled by local interactions,” and perhaps this could be a much better, healthier and sustainable direction for lindy hop. Small scale, fulfilling participation in local culture, that can focus on equity and justice and joy and satisfaction on a smaller, more sustainable scale. Rather than thinking ‘I have to spread and preserve lindy hop’, we can think ‘I want and need to have meaningful social interactions because we could go back into iso any time, and I know I miss this real human contact. It’s what feeds my heart.’

    And our ‘marketing’ could take that angle: real social interactions that help us get through hard times.

    Bunya pines and murri knowledge

    There are a bunch of bunya pines in Ashfield park, and a huge one up on Charlotte Street. The pine cones are epic huge. HUGE. And edible.

    They only grow wild in Gubbi Gubbi, Waka Waka, and Yuggera country, places which have been called South East Queensland since invasion.
    A story about Bunya Dreaming festival.

    Queensland is a huge state, and the land it covers now is the country of a whole host of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
    The Bunya Pine grows in only a small part of this territory, in country cared for by three people (Gubbi Gubbi (aka Kabi Kabi), Waka Waka, and Yuggera.
    I used the AIATSIS map and the The Australasian Virtual Herbarium map to figure this out.

    There are other stands of Bunya Pines in other parts of Australia, but they are much smaller.
    Bunya pines fit into the ‘bush tucker’ family of noms, and I know my local Sydney foody friends have been experimenting with using their nuts to make pesto.

    This website is a useful tool for learning about agreements treaties and negotiated settlements in Australia.

    Landrights in Western Australia and the Yindjibarndi people

    Some very good news.
    The High Court has upheld the Yindjibarndi people’s native title rights to their land.
    Fortescue Metals Group applied to appeal these rights, and got a big ‘nope’ from the High Court.

    The Yindjibarndi people live in what has been called Western Australia since invasion, but has been black country for 40 000 years. If you look it up on this great map, you’ll find them in blue on the far left of the continent, above the most eastern most bit.

    You can read about the Yindjibarndi languages here, on this epic good map.

    Languages are important, because you can trace who lived where by the languages they speak. A people will share some linguistic elements (and languages) with neighbouring people.
    Language is culture, and the number of people speaking a language can tell you about that people’s history.
    The Stolen Generations interrupted the transfer of language and culture between generations in many areas. Reconciliation Week is supposed to be (in part) about making amends for the Stolen Generation.
    You cannot understand Australian history without reading the Bringing Them Home (1997) report.
    Please note: this Report warrants a Content Warning for sexual violence, neglect, persons who are deceased, and so on. If you are an Australian, particularly if you are not a Aboriginal or Torres Strait islander Australian, you should try to read this Report.

    What is Native Title?

    Useful things to think about in regards to native title today:

    • water rights (who owns them, who can buy or sell them);
    • mining (who has access to land to mine);
    • continuous occupation of land (and proof thereof, including rock paintings and burial grounds).

      Note: native title is determined by the High Court. There are 7 High Court judges, 3 are women, none are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. It’s worth noting that one of them, Justice Virginia Bell was a volunteer at the Redfern Legal Centre in the 70s, a centre that provided legal support for the 1978 Mardi Gras protesters (the first mardi gras march), for local Aboriginal community members, and other civil rights activists.
      Read more about the Redfern Legal Centre here.

    Mervyn Bishop and Vincent Lingiari

    I like to think of Frankie Manning’s birthday as the day we white people kick off a week of deep diving into supporting black civil rights. Here in Australia, it’s reconciliation week. This land is home to the oldest culture on earth. And some of the most persistent and terrifying racism.

    If you don’t have the stomach for reading about the horrors of black history here and in the US, focus on digging out and supporting black artists, thinkers, activists, workers. Be the person who clears a space so they can stand. Still your voice so they can speak.

    This iconic image is by aboriginal photographer Mervyn Bishop. He composed and shot the image.

    …on 16 August 1975, he covered a historical event at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory. This significant moment in Australian history followed a nine-year strike over the working conditions and request for traditional lands to be returned to the Gurindji people. This photograph captures Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring soil into the hand of Aboriginal rights activist, Vincent Lingiari on the occasion of the successful passing of the revolutionary act of parliament.
    (source)

    -> land rights + labour rights + black civil rights
    Useful topics to follow up:
    – Wave Hill Walk-Off (1966-1975)
    – Gurindji people
    – Vincent Lingiari
    – Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act (1976)

    Queer black men

    I really like the way this story is reframed to focus on a queer black man as hero by this queer black jewish man*.

    *Michael Twitty is a cook and scholar who focusses on the black jewish food traditions of America and the African diaspora. He has a book, goves good twitter, and could tell you exactly what ingredients were in a cake walk prize.


    I want to keep sharing photos of black men like this, rather than bad white people, because they are an antidote to the bad news. ❤️✊🏽

    And this is why we need queer histories of jazz dance. Without them, it’s too easy for white people to position themselves as saviours ‘reviving’ the black dance of a doomed or negligent people. “Black gay men have incomparable strength and courage.” White people, it is not ok to position ourselves as ‘preserving’ black culture. Just get out of the goddamm way.

    If you’re interested, queer black men’s experience in dance under slavery is one of Tommy DeFrantz’ research interests. His book ‘Dancing Many Drums’ has some good bits on this tooic.

    Black history did not end in 1940.

    If we only talk about Harlem in the past (the 1920s and 30s), we ignore the fact that ‘Harlem’ is a living community today, and through time, with the resiliency of a people with a history much longer and more interesting than jazz. If white people tell a history of Harlem that ends in 1940, they are stealing the _ongoing_ story of black strength and creativity.

    Sorry Day

    Today is world lindy hop day and Frankie Manning’s birthday. But it’s also Sorry Day.

    For me, Sorry Day is the more important occasion. But I think that Frankie would be down with that: apologise, remember the past, move forward with hope and good will.

    [edit 10 minutes later]…maybe do a bit more than ‘move forward with hope and good will.’ Me, I’m adding ‘Do what you can, when you can. Because life is short, and we should take care of each other. And take care of the music.[/]

    introvert/extrovert

    The ‘Myer Briggs Type Indicator’ was invented by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers in the very early 1920s. They weren’t psychologists or trained researchers, and they invented the types without doing extensive testing or research.

    ‘Types’, in the Myer Briggs world, are inflexible, and predictive. Which is why people like this test for deciding what sort of jobs kids should do when they grow up. In this schema, we are a combination of traits, and we self-identify our traits. These traits are:
    1. extraversion/introversion
    2. sensing/intuition
    3. thinking/feeling
    4. judging/perceiving

    The theory has since been disproved, critiqued, and generally shat on by anyone who’s done any extensive work with real human beings (the wikipedia article has some nice links). Or stopped and thought about it properly. But people luuuurve to self-identify their personalities.

    The extrovert/introvert dichotomy that’s been pounding through interweb listicles and reasons-why-you-love/hate-iso articles is one of the Myer-Briggs types. It’s a totally made up rubbish idea that you are either an extrovert or an introvert. Humans are far, far more complex. But people really really like this idea of being one or the other.

    If I was going to a 1920s costume party, I’d go as both Myer and Briggs. Because the 20s were wacked as fuck.