Category: Dance Teaching

WichitAwesome – AiR, Teacher Thoughts

Currently, I’m enjoying my last day in Wichita before I return to Denver. After 4 workshop hours, 1 group class, 1 team training, 10 private lesson hours, 2 dances, and multiple times chasing a 3 year old, I’m nearly finished. This was Wichita’s first Artist in Residence and it was very successful from my perspective. I had great hosts, full classes, many private lesson hours, invested students, a good teaching partner, and I met the Engineer’s Guide to Cats’ guy. A winning week!

This Wichita weekend marked my third straight 2013 weekend with a good teaching partner. It started with Nadja Gross and Elissa Gutterman in Zurich (recap here). Then I taught with Carla Saz in Valencia, Spain (she of the quick translation, student reading ability, and rotation reminders). Finally, here in Wichita, I had Chelsea Rothschild who, along with Evan Borst, brought me out for this AiR.

I often teach by myself or as the principle instructor. This means I often arrive early into a dance scene to prepare classes with the local instructor and/or organizer. Classes and the material will be planned, but prep work must still take place. I want my teaching partner to be confident with the material.

Fortunately, I’ve worked with really engaged teachers recently. They’re invested into making the weekend a success and you can tell. It helps that they are strong and capable without me. It’s like a good social dance. We have our roles and for those 3-4 minutes we choose to coexist. This was most noticeable when I asked Chelsea several times to demonstrate specific bad and good examples. She was able to immediately understand what I was asking and provided the appropriate examples each time. That is a handy skill, the ability to decipher your partner’s verbal request through active listening.

Thanks for the good times, Wichita. Good luck with your next AiR!

Valencia Recap – Paella, Dips, Tricks, Black Bottom

Valencia, Spain offers a great time especially when I get to work with Miguel and Carla, the proprietors of Black Bottom Lindy Hop. This was my second visit to Valencia and I was looking forward to it. February 1-3 would be my final weekend before I returned to the US. They had a great weekend planned featuring must eat foods and 6 hours of workshops.

That weekend was my last hurrah and seemingly, a coming out party for Black Bottom Lindy Hop. A student made cookies and a lindy sweets train, there were t-shirts and a special inappropriate move – Miguel’s Black Bottom. I attended a Black Bottom (not the jazz step) class where Miguel and Lucia taught a move from Skip Ups and I was inspired.

Most importantly, I had paella for the first time! I’ve been tempted by paella in the past, but the advertisements, the shrimp, restaurant commercialization have been turnoffs. Two years ago or so, I had a dish called paella at Ondo’s Spanish Tapas Bar in Denver. It came out in a cylindrical shape and contained chorizo, bacon, and shrimp for its proteins. I mainly remember the rice tasting and feeling wet, maybe slightly oily. And if you visit Madrid and Barcelona, you will find many restaurants advertising paella. Is it paella? Mmmmmm…. not really.

This is true paella from the Albufera region of Valencia, Spain. Rice, green vegetables, chicken and rabbit served in a large round paella. Delicious, hearty, authentic. Just how I like my swing dancing. Once you get to know the taste of authentic paella, you can’t go back to the cheap substitute. It won’t work, you’ve been spoiled.

This leads into other reasons why I enjoy visiting Valencia so much. The dancers have individual style, Miguel and Carla have great branding, they know what makes food and lindy hop so great (quality ingredients, authenticity, uniqueness), there’s a beach, and it’s cool, quirky, and there’s great architecture. Other dance scenes just have a permeating sameness, not Valencia. So, if you get the chance, visit Valencia, eat some of their fabulous regional cuisine, and say “hi” to Black Bottom Lindy Hop for me.

More is Less is More – thoughts from Zurich

The familiar adage begins “less is more”. My recent Zurich west coast swing teaching experience speaks differently – more is less then is more. Confusing? Allow me to explain.

I taught west coast swing workshops with Elissa Gutterman from Tel Aviv this past weekend. We were both excited to teach with a partner because we mainly teach alone. She teaches 4 different west coast swing level classes for Dance Tel Aviv. I specialize in teaching workshops and classes with local instructors and am often hired to be the principle teacher. It’s tough explaining both roles with, oftentimes, limited resources.

When you get two teachers that intimately understand both roles, leader and follower, two things can happen. One, you can get the never ending talkers. I witnessed this once at a Denver Intermediate workshop. At one point, the instructors had talked for at least 10 minutes, most students were sitting down. Fibonacci sequencers. This is more is more. Two, is where the two teachers complement each other and are content with the other teacher’s explanation. As each is a capable leader, they take turns leading. This is more is less.

As we were complimented on our ability to rarely talk while giving concise instructions and technique hints, you can guess we were the latter. This allowed the students more repetition and practice to music. We were able to focus on individual needs after giving group instructions. Then we could return to the center and remark on what we saw without always consulting the other. More solo teaching experience equaled less time talking equaled more students’ doing. More is less is more.

I would like to thank Nicola Fiaschi for organizing this workshop, Nadja Gross for hosting me and organizing the Bluesli workshops, Elissa for teaching with me, and the many others that made this weekend successful, including all the students and Saturday night’s social dancers.

Why Elephants Rule – Todd & Ramona teaching in Denver

I found out late October that Ceth Stifel, the man behind the Captain Lindy website, was bringing Todd Yannacone and Ramona Staffeld to teach workshops in Denver, Colorado. I was really excited for three reasons. 1. Colorado needs more intimate workshops  featuring national and international instructors. 2. Todd and Ramona are awesome (evidence above) and 3. I was going to be in Denver. Notice the past tense, but that’s a different story for a different time.

It’s true that Denver has several large events featuring many national instructors. Oftentimes, you’ll get 1 or 2 hours with an instructor, and may never learn from some instructor couples. With smaller local workshops, you will get 4-7 hours with an instructor couple. This allows you to understand their dance philosophy better, develop your dancing with them during an afternoon, and receive more personal attention. It’s wonderful to have consistency and gradual development. This makes learning fun, enjoyable, and more fun.

This brings me to my second point. Todd and Ramona are great teachers and you should take this opportunity to learn from them. I’ve had limited experience with Todd, but recently took a Masters Level class with him and Annie Trudeau at Lindy Focus. The material was solid, got me brainstorming new ideas (always welcome for the mad scientist!), we practiced lots to music, and they kept the class moving. I also watched another class he taught with Nina Gilkenson. This class featured some fancy arm-y stuff that Todd is known for. He was concise, precise, and technique driven without being too wordy.

While in Australia, I had the opportunity to work firsthand with Ramona when I substitute taught with her. Along with being a great dancer, she’s a great person. She smoothly segued me from lengthy technical driven detail into teaching through dance action. Lesson learned. And that’s the thing about Ramona’s classes. She had a jazz dance series she taught in Melbourne and students would come away pouring sweat, walking stiltedly, but beaming big smiles. You learn, you dance, it’s action and movement.

Whether you are an intermediate, advanced, advanced +++++ whatever dancer, I strongly encourage you to take these workshops. There will be something for everyone. Take advantage now. You have 10 more days to enjoy early bird pricing of $60 (price goes up after January 20).

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Further thoughts: small workshops are the backbone of the European scene. Dancers across Europe are hungry to learn whether they have an established scene or just beginning. I spend most of my time in Europe teaching workshops for local organizers. I rarely work a big event, but specialize in teaching workshops geared toward that community’s specific needs.

Madrid has 7 schools, around 150 dancers, and have a workshop with out of town instructors about once a month. Sometimes it’s a big event, but most often it’s small. London has at least 3 large schools and Swing Patrol brings between 600-1,000 dancers a week. Sometimes they might have 2 workshops by 2 different instructors in a weekend. The point is that scene leaders, like Ceth, Heather, Shana, Joe, are developing the scene by bringing in out of town instructors and designing workshops based on the community’s needs. They’re not waiting for the big organizers to throw their big event. I want to support them any way I can. I hope you can.

Rocking Personal Style – Adventures in Porto

You ready? This is Guedes. Sometimes, like tonight, he goes by his pseudonym DJ Joe. He’s rocking the plaid, a bow tie, and fierce facial hair. The music was in good hands after he took over from Abeth and the Mean Swing Machine, carrying the party until 4am.

I was in Porto, Portugal teaching an aerials workshop with Helena Cardia and coordinating with Lindy Hop Portugal for promotions. The aerials workshop was a great success, bringing 40 dancers from Porto and Lisbon. We taught 7 different aerials in 4.5 hours at an amazing acro gymnastic facility.

During my short stay, I was reminded that I miss Porto’s crazy winding streets, riverfront, towering bridges (abandoned and otherwise), and the dancers.

Two things stood out for me at the Saturday night party. I wrote the following in my Notepad: “have good fashion style, solid dancers”. It’s not that they are wearing fashion labels, fancy footwear, or dressing vintage/retro/classic. It’s that the clothes fit their personal style so well, embodying their characteristics as a person and a dancer. They are put together.

They are also put together dancers. Abeth has done a great job developing Portugal’s scene. And a good portion of Portugal’s dancers have really invested themselves into swing dancing. It shows, especially on the dance floor. Just as you have many fashion flavors, you also have many dance flavors and styles reigning on the dance floor. They have a big small scene.

I had a great time dancing with everyone that night. Eventually, my back started stiffening (4.5 hours teaching plus 3.5 hours training) and I had to rest. Fortunately, Daniel was making a recovery brunch the next afternoon. Always say yes to a Daniel meal. Trust me.

That wraps up Portugal. Hopefully, I’ll return soon for more adventures.