Archive for August, 2008
International Lindy Hop Championships 2008
When I heard that Tena (Morales), Nina (Gilkenson) and Sylvia (Sykes) were putting on an event in Washington D.C., there was no question of whether I would be attending. I’ve been to events Tena has organized before and they are often some of the best run weekends. Add Sylvia’s excellent career as head judge and Nina’s ability to bring people in with her joyful swivels and smile and you have the makings of an excellent event.
The International Lindy Hop Championships wrapped up late Sunday night to Peter Strom and Naomi Uyama’s soul jams when they began to take the floor apart from underneath us. A fitting image for the whole event. Attendees, whether competing or just there to dance, brought the energy to create a great event and it paid off. The atmosphere was relatively relaxed on the social floor. While competitors came prepared with solid performances and were received with great enthusiasm by the audience.
Saturday night jam, photo by Ryan Swift
oh geezum. i don’t want to bore anyone. i’ll just say that swing dancing was already sort of passe when i started, sometime in 2001. It was post-gap commericial and post-neo-swing fervor. i’ll also say that initially i was drawn to this dance because it seemed so expressive and unassuming; it didn’t take itself too seriously. for a long time - partly because of the type of music that was popular in my scene when i was learning - i thought i didn’t really like swing music and at best would have to tolerate it until i could build up some kind of scheme for subverting it. later on i became exposed to a wider array of artists and was relieved to discover music that i felt profoundly connected to and inspired by and which is now some of my favorite music (e.g. Stuff Smith, Fats Waller, Cats and the Fiddle, Slim and Slam, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Django Reinhardt).
