Check it out – let your friends know or just ignore it as you see fit… but really… check it out.

Vagabond Cafe

As a jazz dancer using the Yes, and… game in classrooms and even as a personal exercise on the social dance floor or in a jam can be a great tool to break out of your typical routine of steps or variations.

The Yes and… game can go like this:

You invent a gesture to go along with your name.  With a bunch of people you stand around in a circle and when someone points at you, you say your name and perform your gesture and follow it up by pointing at someone else and performing theirs.  The goal is to go back and forth as fast as possible.

As a  jazz dancer we can extrapolate it to be more contextually relevant.

We pick a jazz step or motion within the jazz aesthetic.  With a group of people you stand around in a circle and when someone points at you, you perform your jazz step/motion and follow it up by pointing at someone else and performing theirs.  The goal is then to go around the circle performing various jazz steps for yourself and others.

This would be a great way to build jazz steps into your repertoire or the repertoire of your students without just drilling steps in a more stereotypical classroom fashion.  It will also most likely result in some good laughs when doing it with friends.

As a lindy hopper you could extrapolate it into a game within a single dance on the social floor.

As a lead – make the decision to dance simply – take out the complex moves so you can watch your follow.  As a follow – make the decision to dance simply – take out your standard variations and watch your lead.

As you dance pick out something that your partner does as a variation, footwork rhythm or motion regularly and when they perform that action – on your next opportunity – repeat it back to them.  Do this often enough and with the right partner and you can easily get into a two person game of Yes and… where you play off each others motion.

With the right kind of social relationship on the dance floor you can easily bring the idea of Yes and… into your partner dancing.

Termed differently, Yes and… is just a variation of our understanding of call and response which is such an integral part of our dance and the music we dance to.

Perhaps the most significant note in the video: wanting to be liked and admired can be an impediment to our creativity as dancers.  We often choose to replicate what works and what is showcased as successful in competitions by top dancers rather than pursuing our own creative impulses.

We have to be aware of our crowd and audience but at the same time have the confidence to forge our own dance since being admired and liked have little to do with dancing.  Something I think all aspiring dancers have to work on balancing.

Twyla Tharp is the author of The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.

I had mentioned I was looking for changes and they came whether I really wanted them or not.  It turned out to be a tumultuous month or so and I’m only now getting back on track with my blogging.

I have left New York City for now.  I came home for Thanksgiving (home is Maine – where the parents are).  I had hoped to make a detour to Seattle for a week but that has fallen through.  In any case I’ll be heading to Atlanta very soon, a prior layover in Boston is contemplated, to attend Swing & Soul (one of my favorite events from last year).

In Atlanta I will be working with Jo on our dance partnership and our routine.  We will be teaching at Sparx in Cleveland, Ohio come April and will perform a routine at Lindy Focus which is just after Christmas.  Living in entirely different sections of the country makes working together a rare opportunity and spending a significant chunk of time on that will be refreshing.

I hope to meet up with Terrence and work on my tap, explore Atlanta and teach a class or two locally for Down South Swing.

I’ll be looking for further travel opportunities come ’09.

If you are interested in privates, classes, having me visit your city, or just hanging out – contact me.

"Galgo Azul" by Juan Perdiguero

I’ve busked a bit with Tin Pan in Central Park and it was an amazing experience.  When I worked in midtown I would take the bus up the twenty blocks and get off just to catch them for four or five songs during my lunch break.  These guys are exceptional musicians.  Jesse is their lead man on trumpet and vocals, Clifton on guitar, Rob on upright bass, and Stefan on reeds.  They can wail out heart-breaking tunes at a crawl or make it so hot and fast that you can’t help but dance.

I’ve got two of Tin Pan’s now old albums Alice McNulty and Early Jazz and Americana.  Of the two Early Jazz and Americana is my favorite but neither sounds like their street performances and that’s what Hound’s Tooth is promising.  I can’t wait to get my hands on it and I’ll shout out a review once I do.

In the meantime you can appease your ears over in the listening section.

Terrence featured an interesting thought about this and I’ll see if I can keep the discussion going (perhaps tangentially).

When we are practicing, training, performing or even just dancing with or in front of our peers we are less likely to envision our space – our art – as sacred.  When we dance on our own after our classes are finished, our training over, our performances finished and our peers retired from judging, what do we evoke?

I’ve always been fascinated by the sacred space that can be created in art.  Not in a necessarily ritual or religious sense but in the creation of a space which obliterates the self.  The notion of “letting go” or “losing oneself” is present in many forms of art, especially performance art.  Our most divine work, that which is other-worldly, rarely manifests in front of an audience or when direct intention is behind it.  It unfolds in moments of release.

Ever wonder why its such a classic image for people, trained or not, to just dance around in the kitchen with complete abandon?  It’s a form of release.  As dancers, when we take this same abandon and let our training flow through it, the art that it creates is an honest outpouring of ourselves.

Whether this has to do with the notion of Flow, as described in psychology, or some immersion within the world-as-it-is sans ego, it is nonetheless an exposure – a vulnerability – which releases us.

Perhaps this is going beyond the scope of this blog, but when you really get going, past the point of forgetting what lies beyond, where are you and what are you expressing?

Do you think dancing on our own is truly important?  What does it mean to you?  Where do you feel the sacred space in your dance is?

It’ll be very interesting to follow if you live in the NYC area or are visiting the city and want to see some of the best bands and hole-in-the-wall venues that no one really knows about.

Check it out at http://avalonjazz.blogspot.com/

Last year I wrote a quite extensive review of ULHS 07 in a series of posts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) which gathered quite a bit of traffic.  This year I hope to bring that traffic to Lindybloggers.com with a more pointed review, but also stay tuned for key footage from the event and perhaps an interview with one of the organizers.

I think this will be an interesting event for me since last year I approached it as just a dancer and competitor and this year I have the angle of a journalist/blogger in addition to those roles. To come back to an event the following year after having reviewed it once, I look forward to seeing what changes are in store (there are definitely some large ones relating to some of the competitions) and how they’ll affect the event.

If you’re going to ULHS this year and see me walking around with a camera, a notepad and a ridiculous hat (okay maybe not the hat) say “Hi”, introduce yourself, get a snapshot, give me a comment, and let me know what you think about Lindybloggers, this blog, and/or ULHS.

Stay tuned for the ULHS review and if you’ve got something to add, post it up in our comments on Lindybloggers.

Recently I have had some interesting twists added into my life.  My regular work week fell from five days a week, working more than 45 hours, to three days a week, averaging 24-30 hours.  At first it hit pretty hard.  I was taking about a 40% paycut on really short notice.  I cut back on expenditures that I could and stressed over it.  So much so that I was in physical pain for almost three days.

Then as the time has rolled by, I have realized it is a sort of blessing in disguise.  It has given me the space in my life to reevaluate what is important, how I want to live, and what I really take as valuable.  I am not made for the office life or the desk job.  I am an artist and that takes commitment; to no longer being afraid of freeing oneself from normal expectations.

I have added a tap class to my weekly schedule on Mondays at Steps alongside practicing tap with Maggie twice a week.  I am commiting more time and energy into my collaborative news project with Alain Wong, Lindybloggers.  I spent eleven days in a row either going out dancing or working on dancing, my body was tired but it felt great.

I have projects planned to choreograph with other dancers.  I am checking in on gigs for the new year and building prospects for the future which enable my artistic side to be sustainable.

I am building the life I want to live.

I had been away all weekend; flown in midday, dropped my things at home and tossed my taps into my bag and headed back out.

The first class was a basic tap class.  Really for the flat beginner, which I would describe myself as most of the time.  The first five minutes of any tap class I feel like I can’t get my feet to do anything; however, about halfway through the class I felt really in the groove.  By the end I felt like I definitely had my feet in step.

With the basic class to warm-up and get the steps back in my feet, the beginner class progressed quite a bit easier than my first time to the class.  Sequences and steps that I had trouble with a month ago came easily and I could concentrate on the quality of my sounds, the movement of my leg versus just troubling out the rhythm and more.

Thanks to the basic class before hand, the listening section of Derick’s beginner class was easier as I could distinguish between the various sounds a pair of taps can make.  Getting my feet to do them wasn’t always so easy and this is definitely the most challenging part of class for me still.

We finished up with a nice little routine that I enjoyed.  I found that when progressing down the floor, or working the routine, it helped for me to close my eyes occasionally and focus on the sounds and the rhythm that I was trying to make rather than focus on the physical movements.  More like an instrument than a dance.

I can’t wait to go back, although I probably won’t be able to keep up two classes a week because of funds but I am going to try to go half an hour early to warm-up on my own.