Friday, January 11, 2013

Dancing in Public

I'm going to deviate from my original schedule to do a short post about dancing in a public setting. 

I'd like to jump off from Ruby Red's wonderful blog post On Dance Culture: Separate But Equal regarding dancing in public. The author reflects on an experience listening and dancing to music in public as well as the "mental constructs" that keep us from participating in that movement (by us I don't necessarily mean swing-dancers us, us as in the general public). Even as 'trained' dancers, we may feel a hesitancy to dance in public because it is somehow not appropriate or downright strange, and we would rather not be the weirdos in the room.

I think many of us dancers have had similar experiences. Either at weddings (well, non-dancer weddings), night clubs, or just out and about hearing street performances sometimes a pressure is felt to step back and listen rather than dance. Being able to engage the music as a dancer, again to quote Ruby Red, is seen as a special talent or skill set, something we have developed. Occasionally we receive comments about how after we danced, no one wants to follow us for fear of looking bad or uncoordinated (especially guys hoping to impress dates. But this happens in swing, too. Think going into a jam circle after instructors have just tore the floor up). We don't want to deter others from dancing.

Luckily, I have reasons to hope these norms may change.

Recently, my friends and I have started going to MASH, a beer and bourbon bar. Thursday through Saturday nights the bar advertises live music, particularly blues influenced bands as well as rockabilly and occasionally more 50s style rock n' roll. We love the speakeasy style setting (and the bourbon selection is quite good) of the place and the music is a good excuse to attend.

We have a 'rule' about dancing in public to bands which have not seen dancers before. We let the band have three or four songs where we will listen, gage dance-ability, and then if we think we can get away with it we will dance. So far, all the reactions have been positive. Bands have advertised their playing to us, asking us to come back.

Moreover, our last couple times dancing other people we don't know (I hesitate to call them non-dancers,  I think that's unfair. We'll say non-swing-educated in this sense) will get up and dance with us. Last night while the Canastas were playing four or five couples were packing the ten by 7 foot floor space at a time (a tight squeeze). While this sounds like a small number compared to dance events swing dancers tend to go to, for this space it was full. The energy was really high and the band fed off of it. They told us as much, saying they liked extending the songs and seeing what choices could get more people moving.

The takeaway:  while the social normalcy of 'formal dancing' (say lessons in ballroom styles, latin, and swing) may be rare, people are willing to get up and dance will little to no training despite 'educated' swing dancers taking the floor before them. I'm sure this isn't an isolated occurrence.

As dancers wanting to make dancing to live music, any time and anywhere, a far more normal occurrence, we should embrace these chances to share what we do and encourage others to join us. We may dislike losing the floor for a night to those who have no idea what floor craft is, but they are far braver in a way than we are. They have only a vague idea of what the music is saying to them, how to move, what happens next, etc.

But they stand up and dance anyway.

Usually sober.

To reward you for sitting through this, here is a picture of an annoyed owl.




Saturday, January 5, 2013

Travel: It's What I Do

I'd like to start with an attunement, a thought by Alain de Botton from his book The Art of Travel. I love this quote. It reflects associations I have with travel and growth.

“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestice setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are."


I wondered while in Scotland why I felt so at home so far from home. On trains, planes, and automobiles we can find a stillness or inspiration that may elude us normally. 'Home' surrounds us with familiarity. The mundane isn't so much damaging to thought as it lures us into forgetting where we are can by dynamic and full if we make it so.

I often get this feeling (is there a word for it?) of discomfort when I come home from a particularly amazing or long trip. I feel as if I have changed, or would have liked to have changed, in some manner. But exhausted, dragging in my suitcase and bedroll, I find the sheets on my bed were as I left them. The books remain alphabetized on the shelves. My posters and CDs, the same. My surroundings hadn't changed, neither had my city (even new to this town, we get used to new things so quickly). Going back to a city I lived in before college is a weird experience because--to me--so much time has past and the city should be different. I don't know how, but it SHOULD be changed, much like me (however small that change may be). Of course, our surroundings do not change to suit our immediate desires or internal states.

Even so, coming home often conflicts with my perceptions. Lindy Focus (a week long swing dance camp in North Carolina) was something so far outside of the ordinary, but I adjusted by the end of it. The trip only lasted a week, which is a short considering I lived abroad for two months, but it was a very full week of different experiences. I lived, breathed, and ate dancing practically 24 hours a day. Between classes, lessons, panel discussions, electives, and the evening dances I'm sure we were engaged 8-16 hours a day or more. Coming home itself became and adjustment again. Maybe that's the conflict. Coming home shouldn't be a conflict, but it is to some extent, because home at least feels so normal. And in my new experiences, normal becomes in some sense abnormal.

And so, even given those discomforts, I love traveling because it keeps me engaged in a particular way.  I'm sure one day I will have to find a medium for that feeling closer to home, but for now dancing nearly every weekend in another city is a great excuse.

Ok, that was today's philosophical exercise (see my last post for the background). Next week look forward to two topics:  Change and Work.

Ready? Here is a fun picture of a restaurant in Philadelphia.


Thursday, January 3, 2013

And So We Survive Another Revolution of this Hunk of Rock Around It's Life, and Eventually Death, Giving Star

Okay, here we are:

2013. The big Two Zero One Three. And the world is still here. I guess I should prepare to pay taxes.

It's a new year, so time for a recap? A thoughtful post about all the change and growth of an individual adrift in a sea of change and uncertainty? Maybe, it is rather cliche, but also fitting.

Working as a writer I feel like I don't have any time or desire to update this thing (which is odd, does that make me a bad writer?). Between my two jobs, hobbies, traveling, and side projects I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and do the pseudo-philosophical writing I had promised myself to do, and honestly the kind I like (see everything I ever wrote regarding Alain de Botton).

So as something-like-but-not-entirely a New Year's resolution I'll try to do three weeks of 6 updates on various themes:

  1. Traveling
  2. Change
  3. Work
  4. Teaching
  5. Dancing
  6. Friends and Relationships
Tomorrow I'll post my thoughts on traveling, a brief version of which I've shared with a friend from Scotland. I've managed to do a good bit of that in the last year, and there will be a lot of more of that coming in the next four months (Chicago, Denver, Washington DC, Lafayette, Oberlin, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids). It's all for dancing, something which is rapidly becoming the number one thing I do (sorry fencing, the upcoming practice schedule is going to make it hard to see you).  

Pittsburgh during Pittstop 2012

To round this out, above is a picture of Pittsburgh I took during an exchange weekend.