Category: West Coast Swing

No Rest in Bucharest

There are times I wish I still possessed my stolen smartphone. Times when I see a picture I’d like to capture, but my camera is inaccessible. Times when I’d rather map directions on my phone rather than paper. Times when someone says something insightful and I wish I could write it down for memories sake.

It seems that I learn a lot about a swing dance scene at the first meeting, oftentimes the car ride from the airport. My job isn’t always merely to teach my material, it’s to improve the scene.

Bucharest has a small west coast swing scene. They’ve been teaching for 3 years, but have 20-30 regular dancers. Cristian has calculated that he has taught at least a couple hundred people, though. However, being that people are social animals, they prefer parties where greater numbers gather. This means salsa and tango.

The WCS Intensive Weekend is meant to change that. It’s to be a catalyst where dancers from across Romania can come and learn west coast swing. It’s the first west coast swing weekend in Romania. There will be dancers from at least 3 other Romanian cities and a couple from Bulgaria. There will be dancers from salsa, tango, ballroom, and lindy hop. Lindy hop will also be offered since it’s virtually non-existent except with a very new group in Brasov.

Overall, I think the weekend was successful. I was pleased with the overall attendance. Classes seemed full for the space and, as I said before, dancers from surrounding communities came to support this event. The organizers did a great job taking care of myself, Estelle Bonnaire and Julien. We had an apartment to ourselves, received spending money for food, and there was always someone to take us home and get us to the venues on time or even early. They also took us to get great food and if there wasn’t time, food was ordered. I really enjoy events where I can focus on my duties rather than worrying about a needy chaotic organizer.

You could see the maintained energy gradually dwindle on Sunday night. Visiting dancers had already traveled home. I was exhausted, having arrived for morning classes and taught 5.5 hours. The organizers seemed happy. Attendance numbers seemed higher than anticipated. The Saturday night dance featured 7-8 performances including a social west coast swing demo, zouk, salsa, tango and more. This also meant these styles influenced the dance floor a little. It was fun to witness the intermingling. Hopefully, this means more people will seek out west coast swing and this event will happen again and grow.

Oh, and I left the dancers clamoring for more lindy hop. The joys of teaching dance.

Sofia Underground Swing

This photo nicely illustrates this post about the Sofia Swing Dance scene. It exists, it’s been going on for a while, but until you dig, you may not know it exists. While this picture shows Roman ruins, Sofia swing scene has not been happening since the days of yore, but it is slightly underground. Several people were surprised I was teaching in Bulgaria, not knowing there was a swing scene. There is and let me tell you more.

Sofia is a unique city. Everywhere you turn, you’ll see a church, mosque or other religious center. Turn around some more and you’ll find the fifth place of worship, McDonald’s. There are so many McDonald’s here! There’s great Bulgarian food, but that’s another post, another blog.

I met the organizer, Yavor Kunchev, via a Facebook friend request in mid-June, 2012. This may have been spurred from a comment I made on a video posted on a Bulgarian swing dance group wall. Who knows? Facebook and YouTube bring people together in unusual ways. We kept in touch and I landed in Bulgaria for a week in late March.

First things first. Yavor knows how to take care of his instructors. I was set in two nice apartments with a great wireless connection (so important), two grocery stores nearby, and the city center within walking distance. Also, I was introduced to so much Bulgarian food. More and more organizers are realizing that I’m a food tourist. I appreciate this very much.

Along with finding the Sofia swing scene very friendly and helpful, they’re also crazy for swing dancing. The Smugglers Collective swing party was packed Saturday night. This is a very cool underground venue. They have so much happening below the streets here. I don’t know how the dancers stayed up so late. (Aside: Porto, Portugal might have competition. I’ll let the Sofia dancers attending the Porto Swing Jam Exchange decide that). I went home much earlier than the hardcore party people. Aerials were on my mind.

That weekend, I worked with two different follows, Stela for lindy and Valentina for aerials. They were great to easy to work with and dedicated to give me two extra hours of their time for training purposes. I even used Yavor for some in-class demonstrations. As a solo teacher, you must be prepared to lead, follow, and switch at any moment. The solo to partner class kept me really busy. There were definite points where I was footwork confused.

If you’re ever in this part of Europe, take the train or plane to Sofia. The airport is close to the city, the food is great, the city is lovely (free English speaking tour), and the dancers enthusiastic. Check it out.

Prague – 16 Teaching Hours Made Easy

How do you recap teaching 16 hours? 7 blues, 5 west coast swing, 4 lindy hop. 2 hours private lesson, 2 hours group private lesson, 1 hour taster class, 11 hours workshops. Ok, clearly there are a few ways to summarize my teaching time spent in Prague. Then add 4 or so training hours. I like making sure my teaching partners are prepared with the teaching material, the possible examples and drills I might use, and know what I might look for from the students. Let’s also add another 3-5 hours for class planning. Each scene is unique and has unique needs. Organizers are always welcome to provide guidance so I can deliver what they think their dance scene needs. Also, I run a popular YouTube channel, so I’m always pushing myself to have new material. Redundancy does occur, but it’s nice that I can give a unique video recap playlist.

16 hours is a breeze when you have great organizers. Zdeněk Kabát and Aneta Pérez represented the westie organizers, Monika Kadanková and Matus Haluska the lindy hop/blues organizers with Marie Prachenská also assisting me in those workshops. Some qualities they exhibited that I enjoyed were their organization, promotions (online and flyers), communication, great tour guides (Prague tourism sites and great food), enthusiasm for their scene and making the workshops a success. I felt very comfortable and at ease in Prague. That could be  the delicious potato salad, dumplings, and sausage talking.

Some highlights from my weekend were the westies organizing a Czech Blues demonstration for me. Marie and I taught a 50 person blues taster at the Jam Cafe Saturday night. We expected a few people and planned accordingly. I threw those plans out as soon as 20-30+ random people showed up. Wow! Secrets to teaching large taster classes in foreign cities: entertain, keep them dancing, play lots of music, keep them learning, reduce any technical information that comes to mind, have fun. A recent highlight has been the Easter decorations in Old Town Square with cute farm animals, live orchestra, and much food.

So come to Prague, dance a bit, enjoy the Czech cuisine, see the sites. I hear there is a blues festival in May.

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.

Tel Aviv, Israel – Get Your Westie On

I visited Israel September 11-18. I’ve been looking for a way to teach and visit there since my Denver friends visited Israel for weddings, relatives, and schooling. Israel seemed foreign and exotic, has religious significance, and I enjoy middle eastern cuisine.

Between Jerusalem markets, sampling fresh halvah, slathering Dead Sea all over myself, hiking the Snake Path to Masada, eating lots of hummus, I taught many classes. This opportunity materialized thanks to Facebook’s Westie Discussion of the Day. I met an Israeli westie named Nur who asked “…. I was wondering while you were touring europe, have you considered visiting Israel:)?” Well, “Israel’s been on my mind for a while.” And “would I be able to teach there if I visited? That would help me such a trip more affordable to me.”

Israel was on! I would be teaching 6 1.5 hour west coast swing workshops for Dance Tel Aviv, run by Rena Scharf Kayat and her husband. I ended up adding an Authentic Jazz class and private lessons to my teaching schedule also. Tel Aviv has a growing and vibrant west coast swing scene. Dancers mainly come from lindy hop and west coast swing. It was definitely fun working with such a mixed crowd of different skills, levels, and dance backgrounds.

What I learned:

1. Israelis are extremely generous.

2. If you like Middle Eastern food, come to the source. It’s worth it.

3. Dead Sea mud has amazing benefits, but don’t slather the wet stuff. The drying process will take too long. Find the clay-like mud.

4. When planking the Dead Sea, do not submerge your face.

5. Those Israeli boys are bold. I haven’t never been asked to dance by leads so often. Way to step up.

6. Israel also has great international cuisine.

7. Give yourself plenty of time at the airport when leaving. Also, if your backpack has many coins from 4-5 different currencies, it will look very very suspicious to airport scanners.

Thanks to Nur for helping set this up and being a great tour guide, Rena for hiring me, Elissa for teaching with me, my two hosts, my drivers, and all the dancers and workshop attendees. Thanks for the dances and great memories.