by Carl Nelson

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

Friday night I took the bus in from New York City and shaved my time so close I managed to arrive only with enough time to sign my registration form, get my number and walk onto the dance floor for my heat of the Open Strictly Prelims.

Following the Open Strictly was the Strictly Balboa Prelims and the Classic division.  The Classic division brought out some excellent choreography.  The winners of the Classic division were Zach Richard (Montreal, QC) and Carla Heiney (San Francisco, CA) with a routine they performed at CSC 2008 in Montreal; it had a great story to it and moved between musical transitions really well.  The second place winners were Dax Hock (US) and Alice Mei (France) with this routine; it was full of quite creative material.  Third place winners were Kevin St. Laurent and Emily Hoffberg (Pittsburgh, PA).  Of notable mention, and one of my favorite routines from the Classic division, was Laura Glaess and Mike Roberts (Austin, TX) with a 1920’s inspired piece that you can see here.

The last competition for Friday was the Solo Charleston contest at 1:30am.  With a tap-in format, which means that if you are tapped you progress to the finals, by judges and a winner decided by the crowd; the energy was overflowing.  You can check out the video in Alain’s post about Marty and the Big Apple.  Hurley François (Florida) swept the finals with a glowing face.  Second place went to Emily Hoffberg (Pittsburgh, PA) and third to Juan Villafane (Argentina).

Hurley François, photo by Ryan Swift

Saturday the competitions began at 2pm with the Prelims for the Open and 3pm for the Advanced Jack and Jill.  The heats for both competitions filled the floor and with usually three or so heats per division, the competition was very stiff.  From the three heats, eight finalists were selected for each division to carry on to the finals on Sunday.

The heated competition of Saturday afternoon was definitely the Pro-Am competition.  Many of the Amateurs had carefully prepared routines or were just quite talented dancers on the rise.  With the Professionals showcasing them, it was a very tight competition.  The third place finalist was Abigail Browning (Amateur) dancing with Nick Williams (Professional), second place was Andrew Thigpen (Amateur) dancing with Emily Hoffberg (Professional), and first place went to Lee Tucker (Amateur) dancing with Kelly Arsenault (Professional).

With a break for more classes and dinner, the competitions started up again with the Open Strictly Lindy Finals.  Eight couples hit the floor to the sounds of the Boilermaker’s Jazz Band live on the bandstand.  With a warm-up song followed by a phrase battle into an all-skate, the competition was quite relaxed in comparison to other Strictly competitions at events where finals are usually done to high tempo tunes.  It was refreshing to have a Strictly final to mid-tempo tunes where the dancers could really give their best showing.  First place winners were Juan Villafane and Sharon Davis (Australia), second place went to Jamie Cameron (London, UK) and Crista Seipp (Washington D.C.) and third place went to Carl Nelson (New York, NY) and Joanna Lucero (Atlanta, GA).

Boilermaker Jazz Band, photo by Ryan Swift

Following the Open Strictly Finals was the Champions Strictly Balboa with really solid spotlights from some of the best balboa dancers in the world.  Nick Williams (CA) and Kate Hedin (Baltimore, MD) took first place, Bobby White (Baltimore, MD) and Laura Keat (CA) took second place, and third place went to Zack Richard and Carla Heiney.

The next competition of the evening was the Showcase division, of which Alain already featured Stefan and Bethany’s fourth place piece in his interview with Bethany Powell.  This division was packed with excellent routines with innovative choreography, aerials and more.  First place went to Max Pitruzella and Annie Trudeau (Montreal, QC) with an amazing choreography with probably the best hat trick I’ve seen yet.  Second place went to Nick Williams and Laura Keat that they performed at Camp Hollywood earlier this year.  Third place went to Kevin St. Laurent and Emily Hoffberg.

Midnight Saturday kicked off the Champions Strictly Finals which you can check out in these three clips: Jam 1, Jam 2, Jam 3.  The winners were Nick Williams and Carla Heiney (CA), second place went to Max Pitruzella and Annie Trudeau (Montreal, QC) and third place went to Jeremy Otth and Laura Keat (CA).  With the Boilermaker’s backing them for three tunes the Champions took the floor by storm to a variety of tempos.  The quality of the dancers and their exceptional variety in style and musical interpretation is always greatly inspiring.

One of my favorite competitions of the weekend was the Cabaret division.  There were a number of exceptional acts in the Cabaret, as well as a show-stopping act by some folks from Denver (and Dallas).  Sharon Davis performed a lovely fan dance of which I’ve seen a few variations, but this one was particularly cute as the tune itself was called “Lady with a Fan” by Cab Calloway; third place. Kevin St. Laurent and Juan Villafane performed their polished tuxedo performance reminscent of work done by flash dancers like the Berry Brothers which they have recently performed at Camp Hollywood and CSC; second place.  Kelly Arsenault presented a beautiful piece of modern dance that nearly put me into tears.  She placed first entirely deservingly.

Late night dancing continued until 5am, although I participated in one of the continual impromptu jams with guitars, mandolins, and my washboard till about 5am.  To see more and more dancers bringing out their musical skills to events and creating music in addition just to dancing to it is a fantastic movement in the scene.

Sunday, as always, is the wrap-up for these kind of events; yet one of the most important events takes place on Sunday.  The Juniors division.  Current dancers have so much love and hope for the future of the dance, when the juniors get on the floor and perform their routines the crowd pours forth more energy than any Champions division could garner.  This year there were three couples in the Juniors division; although they were placed third to first, they are all first in our hearts, as Peter Strom said during the award announcements.  Third place went to Catalino Lopez and Sasha Cross who were so adorable.  Second place went to Derrick Summerville and Sioban Tompkins.  First place went to personal friends of mine from Albany, NY, Ellie Hanus and Ian Herrick.

Ellie Hanus and Ian Herrick, photo by Ryan Swift

Additional divisions on Sunday included the finals for the Advanced Jack and Jill with third place going to Mike Roberts and Kate Hedin, second going to Jamie Cameron and Crista Seipp and first place going to Stephen Jean and Laura Glaess; the finals for the Open Jack and Jill with third place going to Chris Mayer and Annelie Naes, second place going to Jason Sager and Kristen LeChevet, and first place going to Ryan Hitchen and Abigail Leggette; and the Invitational Jack and Jill with third place going to Dax Hock and Marie Mattsson, second place Todd Yannaconne and Annie Trudeau, and first place going to Max Pitruzzella and Bethany Powell.

The team division consisted of four teams with a really solid level of competition.  The third place team, Hot Mess, came from all over Texas and had some very solid group formations and partnering.  Second place, Team Canada, had a routine similar to the original Mad Dog from Danvers.  A note of interest, the money that Team Canada won is being donated on behalf of Canadian dancers to the Lindy Hoppers Fund.  First place, the Northern Lights from Montreal, had a really wonderful routine with great musicality.

Team Canada, photo by Ryan Swift

The awards were conducted promptly and with a good clamor from the audience for all of the winners.

The DJs played music until about eleven when Naomi and Peter took over with a soul jam that packed the floor until they started taking it apart from underneath us at 3:00 am.  With soul music being the current dig for late nights and the wonderful Swing and Soul coming up again in the fall, it was a great way to wrap up the whole event.

On whole, for a first year event, ILHC went wonderfully with a relaxed atmosphere, exceptionally high level of competition and performances.  Organizationally, the event ran exceptionally crisp on time, rarely being off by more than a couple minutes for any competition or class and a number of thanks went out to the volunteers who put in many hours making that happen.

Perhaps my only complaint was that the DJing for the evening dances really didn’t inspire me to get out on the floor and really throw down most of the time.  The Boilermakers definitely made up for it Saturday night, but I think the DJs could have pushed the floor a bit harder rather than fall back into some of the same jams we’ve been hearing for the past year or two.

Stay tuned for ILHC next year, they’ve already set the dates so check out their website.

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