Sweet Georgia Blues – Rediscovering the Blues

Darn writer’s block. I’ve been trying to craft an opening paragraph about Sweet Georgia Blues, but it’s proving difficult. 8 opening sentences later, I’m still running dry.

How do I describe a weekend that was both torturous and invigorating? My laptop completely died Friday morning and I spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon in a state of panic.  I needed my notes, all my music with my DJ software, my Fast Blues playlist, my Spirit Moves videos. Best Buy fixed it and then my computer wouldn’t start Saturday morning. It was dead. Dead, dead, dead. I dealt with partially transcribed notes on my cell phone, recreating material in my notebook (who uses pens anymore?), and playing music off my limited iPod collection. Evin and Noah Galang helped me greatly with this unfortunate situation.

Anyway, I discovered I have people at Sweet Georgia Blues. From Virginie Jensen, Andrew Twiss, Evin Galang, and Heather Ballew, I saw great blues dancing, quality that hasn’t been matched in years. I saw great body movement, spatial awareness, individual style, momentum, and musicality demonstrated. Their blues dancing is touched by other influences and it looks great. I was home (for a weekend).

My blues dancing is influenced by my lindy hop, ballroom, west coast swing, and jazz dancing background. It’s so great to create a wide variety of movement because your partner is also widely versed and connection skilled. I say embrace your influences, keep learning, and dance to the music. Dancing to blues music will lead you to the blues.

For example, this couple was jamming out at The Speakeasy in Longmont, CO. They were shaking it, working the fishtails, leading and following a few simple patterns. They were in the moment and rocking it. I get caught up in our tiny “dancer” community subculture and forget about this entire group of people jamming at blues bars and festivals. We could all learn something from them.

Dance. Have fun. Don’t forget to breathe. Let loose.

You can find me teaching the blues I enjoy at these upcoming events:

September 21 – Teaching a Bluesli Workshop in Zurich

October 5-6 – Teaching lindy hop, blues, solo charleston and aerials in Luxembourg with Jesse Hanus

October 19-21 – Teaching blues at Drag the Blues in Barcelona

 

Team Building – Recent Performances

Time flies when I’m keeping busy. Denver locals are always asking me “how long are you here?”, assuming I’ve only recently arrived. The truth is, I’ve been in Denver since mid-April, keeping a low profile as I work, train, and search for new restaurant gems. When you must wake up at 6am and insist on sleeping 8 hours a night, there’s not much opportunity for dance socializing. That’s my current world – the one where if you don’t dance, you’re invisible.

Big Finish

If you want to be highly visible, try team routines, partner choreographies, or bust out in a jam circle.  This picture illustrates Three Bones’ big finish at Beantown Bounce 2013.  I was happy when Alain and Gen asked Jesse and  I to perform with them, Jon Tigert, and Heather Ballew.

It’s been so long since I did any team performances. I quit 23 Skidoo back in late 2009 because parkour was awesome and Skidoo was sk-lame. Fortunately, Three Bones had prepared choreography, defined performance goals, and great dancers. So Jesse and I broke down their choreography from their teaching videos and their MWLF performance.  Thank goodness we were prepared upon arriving, because we had two days to ask questions, solidify problem areas, and practice with everyone. I was pleased with the result.

Since I had so much fun working with everyone, I decided to also do the Pink Track Performance at Beantown. It was great working with Mike & Casey. They purposefully kept the routine simple yet high energy because they wanted to focus on the performance aspect. We practice Charleston arms. We practiced mentally running through the routine while a metronome played. We practiced dancing our parts solo to said metronome. We practiced laying out our crazy legs. We practiced holding our lines. We practiced. Again, it was worth it.

Needless to say, I wanted to perform more. I missed it. 23 Skidoo had a good run, but eventually my goals didn’t align with their demonstrated ones. Fortunately, July continued being performance month.

A production company contacted Heather needing 6 swing dancers for several dance numbers and taxi dancing. Boom! Let’s deliver 6 badass Denver dancers in the form of Joe & Danielle Demers, Delilah Williams, Ceth Stifel, Heather Ballew and I. It was great working with all these dancers again. We easily collaborated as we threw aerials, jam sections, and reviewed Stops Part I and the California Routine.  The attending renewable water experts even approved.

Teams helped me arrive where I am now. And now I’m hoping for more future team opportunities as I continue traveling and teaching dance around the world and in Colorado.