(please do read the previous blog post beofre reading this - https://bsharpblues.weebly.com/bswing-blog/march-22nd-2019)
4. Actual Partnerwork I was fumbling for a title for this last point. I originally wanted to call it "real vs fake social dancing" but i felt that it was a bit too misleading. This is complicated so let's take it apart and see what all of this means. In the old days, the men led the dance and the women followed the dance. Sing danced a lot with Frankie in the 90s and tells me that his lead was "very strong and very clear". I think the terms have different meanings from what i would use in class today, but one thing is for sure - Frankie took efforts to lead his partners as best as he could. In today's modern global Lindy Hop scene, there is a lot of ...(for lack of a better word) pseudo-partnerwork. Pseudo means - pretended, not real, so pseudo partnerwork means - dancing that looks like it is really partnerwork but IS NOT. You may ask - as long as they are dancing together it is partnerwork right?? And i would have to agree with you, but also remind you that partnerwork in Lindy Hop terms (or even social dancing terms) is very different from partnerwork in ballet or hip hop, or other types of dances. In Lindy hop (and other social dances as well), partnerwork is predicated on LEAD & FOLLOW, a connection & communication between the 2 partners who are dancing together. I would go so far as to say that this connection & communication, is what is unique about social dancing in general, as opposed to a choreographed ballet (pas de deux) or 2 modern dancers dancing together. The major difference is generally that it is choreographed, whereas in social dancing, it is improvised. So here, i am going to define partnerwork in Lindy Hop as GENUINE and AUTHENTIC, if there is really 1. Lead and follow (each person in the partnership takes on a specific role and stays with that role & generally does not take upon the scope of the other role in the partnership) 2. (some form of physical) Connection between the 2 partners 3. (some form of) Non-verbal communication between the 2 partners For Social Lindy Hop to be Genuine and Authentic, i would add 1. Improvisation as one of the criteria, and we have discussed improvisation in the previous blog post already. Already, we can see that partnerwork in ballet or hip hop doesn't meet the same criteria, because there is no specific lead and follow. In a proper lead and follow scenario, one person initiates the movement or step, and the other executes the movement or step as signaled. There is no simultaneous execution of movements or steps because, like when one is driving a car, only one person has the wheel and the pedals, not both of them. A lot of times in these other dances, moves are executed simulatenously in tandem by both partners. Let's jump to our modern global Lindy Hop scene and discuss the types of dancing possible. B4 we move on, it is useful to understand that these scenarios i am describing run on a scale from MORE TO LESS. a) Partnerwork steps --- Solo Jazz steps b) Improvised partnerwork steps and sequences --- choreographed partnerwork steps and sequences c) Lead & follow that is loaded with communication and signals --- lead & follow which is spacious or empty Let's take scenario a). So here, clearly, when there is MORE partnerwork steps than solo jazz steps (if u think of a % like at least 60% partnerwork steps vs 40% solo jazz), then the dance runs closer to "REAL" (actual) partnerwork. We do have a dancer here in Singapore, who loves to dance solo jazz but with a partner. The way this person dances is very unique (no judgement here on this from me - i am purely describing the way this person dances) - in that the dance ends up being mainly solo jazz steps while either being in the typical open position, or the closed position. There is a lot of improvisation on the solo jazz aspect while holding hands or in close hold, but very little traditional partnerwork steps in that one partner (the lead) is giving signals to the other partner (the follow) what is to be done. As solo jazz variations are generally not "leadable", there is no way for the follow to do exactly what this leader is doing. For this particular dancer -the % scale would run roughly between 70 to 90% solo jazz and 30 to 10% lead and follow communication. I have no issue with this dancer wanting to dance like this, i just find that when it reaches this place of 70 to 80% solo jazz - it does not constitute actual partner dancing based on the definitions above, and so i would not call it "partnerwork" even though the positions being used, are the actual positions we use for partnered dancing in Lindy Hop. Globally speaking, I do see a trend towards greater and greater expression of solo jazz in partnered Lindy Hop. My take on this is very clear - I do not want to call doing solo jazz while holding hands or being connected to another person - PARTNERWORK. I feel that this would be a mislabeling of the term, since historically, partnerwork always involved the above criteria as i have mentioned. I think it is fair to say that there is a scale but a 50/50 ratio is the most i would give before i would call it something like - solo jazz while holding hands. While breakaways were present in the past, the moment the partners got back together, it would be lead & follow all the way till the next breakaway. Solo jazz was generally reserved for breakaways (a generalization but true) and the men really wanted to be dancing with the ladies in those days (the 30s and 40s). In competitions as well, i find there is no clear cut ruling on the matter of how much solo jazz is too much, and it seems that as long as the partners are holding hands or connected it is considered "partnerwork". My opinion on this is that it is a bias against dancers who actually lead and follow their partnerwork. I find that doing solo jazz while holding hands or in a partner position to be very much easier than actually leading and following. It would not be fair to equate the required mechanics of leading and following a swingout (for example), with 2 people holding hands and doing footwork variations for 1 eight, or executing a choreographed jazz break together for 1 eight. A complex lead and follow or partnerwork sequence, would require even more effort on the part of the partners involved than 2 partners holding hands and doing variations of solo jazz in various positions for 4 eights or so. Here, i think we have to give credit and respect where it is due - simply because lead and follow partnerwork does take more effort than "partner solo jazz" - no matter how much fancy the "partner solo jazz" is and how much more visually appealing it looks. Literally, solo jazz while holding hands is an individual dance for 2 reasons - 1. there is no possible way to communicate complex rhythmic variations to the partner to follow exactly, hence it is more or less individual improvisation and the partners can just do their own thing... (like how hard is that...) 2. if it is done together, it is more likely than not CHOREOGRAPHED and executed simultaneously, and not a lead and follow signal - and both of these scenarios are easier in terms of effort and difficulty than actual, improvised partnerwork dancing. I ask my readers to be discerning and aware of what is happening when you watch any performance or competition. Not everything is equal and not everything takes equal effort to put together. A routine heavy on solo jazz choreography, even if its very fast and very fancy, is still easier than an equivalent partnerwork routine done at the same speed or complexity. Scenario b). We mentioned a little bit about this in the previous blog post but here is the place to elaborate. In the modern global Lindy Hop scene, the norm is couples who teach and perform together exclusively. As they have been working together for a long time, these couples usually develop their own techniques and understandings which are unique to them and not to others. It would not be false to say that not all of the material that they use as leaders or followers could be applied on a general scale to dance with social dancers all over the world globally. That in itself is fine - the couples deserve the right to use whatever technique they want for their workshops and classes and performances. The issue is more that there is no awareness that this is so - many social dancers take class expecting these steps to be usable for social dancing when they are not really. Once again, i ask dancers to be aware and discerning about what they are learning in class. Just because a step looks cool and fantastic, doesn't mean it's gonna be applicable on the social dance floor, and also just because it was taught by so-and-so famous instructor, that it's gonna be applicable on the social dance floor when u try it with another social dancer. One of the reasons why this is important to bring up, is because it compromises certain situations in social dancing because of the familiarity. This was the case in certain American Lindy Hop competitions in the 2007 to 2011 period. The organizers and judges somehow realized that couples who were dancing with each other on a regular basis produced more stellar looking luck of the draw dances - but it was due to the partners' familiarity with each other that this could happen, not because they were excellent social dancers. Hence a ruling came into place which required that there be a certain amount of time that these teachers or dancers were not teaching and dancing together b4 they be allowed to be paired with each other for luck of the draw contests. Dancers beware, not all luck of the draw contests really feature genuine, authentic social dancing and partnerwork. When i am looking at a luck of the draw contest - i am looking out for 3 things 1. communication between the 2 partners (how well they communicate as they dance, missed cues, steps did not work out) 2. % of solo jazz to % of lead & follow partnerwork (if there is an emphasis on solo jazz then i do not consider them good partner dancers) 3. Whether the 2 partners have taught and performed together b4 and have a history working together. (once they have, it is hard to tell whether they are actually social dancing or it's coming from their long history of working together with each other - in a Strictly or Choreographed division, this issue would not really crop up, but in a luck of the draw division, this then renders the whole point of social dancing/improvisation - MEANINGLESS) Once again, it's an issue of giving respect or credit where credit is due - for example, I love Skye and Frida very much, but they do use a great deal of workshop material in their dancing, so on the scale of social dancing and improvisation, it falls somewhere in the middle. I'm not going to give them credit for improvising on the spot when they are executing chunks of workshop material or choreographed material at least 50% of the time they are "social dancing"- i would not call that (improvised) social dancing. I'm not saying anything about their ability to social dance at the high end of the improvisation scale. Both of them have excellent track records as social dancers, and they CAN social dance on the high end of the improvisation scale. I'm just saying, when they are dancing at a workshop or at a competition sometimes, they are not "really" social dancing the way we think they are, with a high level of lead & follow or improvisation, and dancers who watch these videos of them dancing, should be aware of that fact, and not blindly assume that just because they are executing partnered steps, that it is of the same degree and difficulty as the steps being danced on the high end of the social dancing/improvisation scale. I would just like that credit and recognition be given to dancers who are doing their dancing on the more improvisational/lead &follow end of the spectrum, because i think that this is harder and takes more effort than executing choreographed or preplanned sequences, and dancers do not seem to be aware of this issue, but it is really important!! If we are not careful about this, pseudo partnerwork would then be misconstrued as real partnerwork and luck of the draw competitions would begin to lose their meaningfulness, since luck of the draw contests are meant to test/benchmark, social dancing, lead & follow connection & communication and improvisation. We also need to be aware as dancers, what really is difficult and what is not - so as to give credit and respect to the correct things and not to the illusion of things. We also need to understand that there is a scale and it means that one end of the scale is easier than the other end so we have to be discerning to know which end is which and not blindy assume that steps or sequences executed while holding hands or in typical partnerwork positions are all equally difficult and all fall under "partnerwork". Scenario c). This is difficult to explain as it is rather technical in nature. Certain leaders (like myself for example) lead in a way where the lead could be called - spacious or empty. It comes about from a certain way of using the frame and structure, as well as a great deal of relaxation especially in the arms. This means that there is an ability to control the amount of information and signals being given to the follow, such that, just like in regular communication, the basis of understanding is that - If the leading is more empty, it is a less complex/complicated step, or a basic or neutral step. If the leading is full of information then it is going to be a complex or complicated step or sequence as the leader needs to process and send the information in rapid chunks to the follow in order for the step to be executed without issues. Here we are talking about improvisation, and not a preplanned or choreographed sequence which the follow is already aware of and has been worked out and practised prior to social dancing. Here the follow is unaware of the sequence of steps and has to dutifully follow the information as it is given by the leader in order to execute the complex step of pattern. Just like in verbal communication, if you have to say a lot on an issue in order to explain it clearly, it is considered more complex/complicated. If you do not have to say a lot and it can be explained clearly, then it is considered less complex. So here, the scale would be - If the dance generally consists of steps where the leading is spacious or empty, it would be easier. The steps would be called simple or uncomplicated. If the dance generally consists of steps full of signals and information, then it would be a complicated or complex dance. Linking this to effort and skill, it is obvious that when it veers towards complex/complicated, it takes more effort and more skill. Bringing it back to social dancing and improvisation, if the social dance was more full of steps with more complexity then it would be more difficult than a choreographed routine of equal complexity simply because of the factor of the improvisation. I would also like to mention here - that is why some leaders are easier to follow and some leaders are harder to follow. It depends very much on the complexity of their leading and the steps that they choose for their social dancing. When the leading is full of information, followers sometimes feel that they have not a moment to breathe or switch off as the leading information comes fast and furious at them for them to execute. Following the logic here, it means that followers who can follow complex steps are more skillful than follows who cannot. This is also important to say here - I am not saying a that a complex or complicated dance is necessarily a better dance, i'm just saying it takes more effort and skill to execute, and we give credit for the effort and skill. Just like in cooking, a dish could be really complex and have many ingredients and take many steps to prepare, but even after all of that, one might not like the taste of the dish. But that doesn't negate the effort and skill required to prepare the dish. Whether or not one likes the dish, has no bearing on the effort or skill required to make it. That's the recognition i am asking dancers to become more aware of. If we look at the scenario closely, we see that in many cases, many instances, we value the skill and effort it takes to do something. Why do we not apply this to our dance as well? Why do we not apply this discerning perspective to our social dancing as well? We apply it to food, we apply it to products, we apply it to services, but we do not readily apply it to dance. We scrutinize products and services for best value, best quality, best materials or ingredients, and we recognize these qualities by paying according for them - we are happy to pay for perceived quality or skills, but here, we do not readily recognize what is actually difficult or skillful in dancing, and we are easily misled by fancy and aesthetic looking performances and routines with lots of solo jazz and footwork over more difficult and requiring-more-skill partnerwork and improvised dancing. Why is that? I think it's time to be educated on this so we can be clear on what we are dancing, and that ultimately bodes well for our dance in general, as the dancers globally become more discerning and more aware of what really needs to be understood. I hope this blog post has brought to light the complexities of improvised dancing, especially in the area of partnerwork, and brought to your attention that not all partnerwork is the same or equal in terms of skills or effort required. I hope it has allowed you to see a bigger perspective on the use of solo jazz within partnerwork, or the use of choreographed sequences in partnerwork. All these things have their place in our dance. It is just important to understand where. It is also important to be discerning about the different ways of dancing partnerwork in that some ways inherently require more skill and effort than others, or are more difficult and complex than others. This way we can give credit where credit is due, and not lump everything under the same umbrella. Should you have questions, come and speak to me when you see. Till the next time. In this blog post, i thought i would take time out to write about some of my own ideas, beliefs, principles and values with regard to topics in Lindy Hop. I would call this series "About B". A little bit about me Although BSL is a relatively new venture, I have been dancing July 2001, and have been teaching in Singapore professionally since 2006. During 2001 to 2005 I was part of NTU's Kinetics Lindy Hop club, in various roles including as a performer, choreorgrapher and committee member. Later, after leaving NTU I taught under Jitterbugs Swingapore as one of the "teacherbugs" until Jitterbugs no longer ran adult classes. I also taught at NTU in an official capacity for many years. The history behind this is privy to me because I was part of the original committee who awarded the contract for teaching to Sing & Jitterbugs in 2002. After I graduated from NTU, Sinclair held down the fort at NTU for a couple of years until he longer worked with Jitterbugs in any capacity, then I stepped in as the official teacher from Jitterbugs shortly after. After some years teaching at NTU, i think maybe 5 years or so, i was ready to move on - the commute was long and the pay not great. I had a discussion with Sing to tell her i was wanting to stop, and in good faith, we decided that it would be a good opportunity to pass on the teaching post to a young and enthusiastic dancer who wanted very much to teach. Sing also graciously awarded the contract to this dancer as well, so all the money from the school would go to this person. (Previously, Jitterbugs would take a cut, and as the official teacher from Jitterbugs I was paid the Jitterbugs teachers rate, which was $40/h at that time. I personally thought it was a great opportunity for this person, not in terms of money or convenience, but in terms of learning - learning about humility, responsibility, how to teach, learning about how to learn, learning about managing a group and choreography etc etc. I am the dancer today because i walked down this path of teaching, choreography and performing, all thanks to my time at NTU and the Lindy Hop club there.) Also i think it was a gift, given that this dancer had no track record as a teacher or anything of note at all other than being super eager to teach, share their own ideas and philosophies and become a teacher. Sing and I valued such enthusiasm hence we made our decision that way. I myself had become a better dancer and a better person by becoming a teacher but I guess not everyone succeeds in this way. I was also a member of Swing Express, the performance team of Jitterbugs Swingapore from 2005 to 2010, and also performed with many of the groups that Sinclair formed under Jazz Inc. After Sing left Jitterbugs, we teamed up to teach at Timbre at the Arts House, until that was no longer viable, and then BSL was formed shortly after. One of the reasons why i have remained so obscure is because of my aversion to social media. I prefer face to face communication and do not maintain personal Facebook and Instagram accounts. Mediated communication is not for me. I also prefer to be known for my dancing and teaching abilities rather than being known from pictures taken of me at so-&so event. The dance is very important to me and between being a well-known person who is not a good dancer vs a not well-known but really good dancer, if i had to choose, i would rather be the latter. But social media is happily taking care of the former circumstances so who knows, I may end up becoming both some day. The current accounts on FB & Instagram are purely for dance and BSL and I make it a point ONLY to post dance related media. Personal media is kept out so you wont find details of what projects I'm working, what social activities i went to, what food i am currently raving about, what clothes/fashion I have just bought - UNLESS these are somehow related to dancing. I prefer it this way. If you want to get to know me as a person, just come talk to me; interact with me face to face. I am generally frank and blunt sometimes so bear that in mind in case you are a sensitive person who gets offended easily. Come 2019, i will be 39 but I still continue to teach and perform today where-ever i have the opportunity to share my love for this special and unique family of dances. I believe that a dancers' longevity is important, because a lot of us start dancing at a later age, and we have to learn, alongside learning the dance, ways to take care of our bodies, so that we can enjoy this activity well into our 70s or 80s, just as Frankie and Norma did. Today's "About B" topic My belief is that - Improvised dancing is much harder than choreographed dancing and good improvised dancing (that is "real") is way more difficult to achieve than good choreographed dancing. (In this article, we can assume the terms improvised dancing to be interchangable with social dancing, and choreographed dancing to be interchangable with performance dancing. The latter terms are what we are familiar with in general, and it's easier to simplify the explanation this way for real life relevance and not a abstract discussion where there is no application to what we do with Lindy Hop in real life. The terms are not synonymous, of course, as there is improvised performance dancing and choreographed social dancing, so i would ask the reader to remember that as well. also - I am a person who gives credit or recognition based on what i think is difficult [as objectively as i can], because i recognize effort and skill undertaken in order to achieve the required mastery.) Let's explain the statement above properly and in what context. It is quite specific in its understanding so i will have to define some of the terms used in the statement above for clarity. When the word "factual" or "objective" is used, I use it to mean - "I see it as a matter of fact" and not a "matter of opinion". So for example (as explained below) - I see improvised dancing as "factually" taking more effort than choreographed dancing. Moving on - By social/improvised dancing, we mean - 1. non-choreographed dancing. This really has to be explained. To be honest, all social dancing is choreographed because we ALL learn steps that have already been invented. A good analogy - words and sentences. Dance steps are like words. We learn them individually and then string them together to make a sentence. Usually we don't break up the words we know into individual letters and then start making sentences from the individual letters. we use the words in the whole form, and string together longer and longer groups of words, making sentences or paragraphs. A swingout, is 8 counts. This is a fairly long word that we use often. There are shorter words, like 6 count steps, and even shorter words, like 4 count steps. There are also groups of words that we use as a group, like Frankie Sixes (or Frankie Four), which is 4 6ct steps, strung together to make like a little sentence. There is also the "sentence" - 3 swingouts and a circle, which i use very often in my classes. Improvisation...then, really is the stringing together of these words and sentences (and sometimes paragraphs) in a NON-FIXED order. If we strung them together in a FIXED ORDER, then we get what is called a CHOREOGRAPHY - which remains the same because of its fixed order. But because we don't string them together in a fixed order, we call it improvisation. This then, is the main difference between choreography and improvisation, in the context of social lindy hop. You have to understand this b4 we proceed on. From here, you can already see that, it requires more effort to improvise during social dancing, than to dance to a choreography - based on this idea that a choreography is fixed and unchanging, while an improvisation is constantly changing. Once you are past the initial stage of memorizing the choreography, then the work is done, but with improvisation, you have to redo it each time you dance so that it doesn't remain in a fixed order. This is of course a spectrum - the more fixed your personal arrangement of dance steps and sequences are - the closer it is to a choreography than an improvisation. The second thing that determines this is whether you use larger or smaller chunks of dance sequences. The larger your chunks, the more it veers towards choreography, the smaller your chunks, the more it veers towards improvisation. You might not agree with me, but i think that it is far more difficult to improvise with smaller chunks than larger chunks, and it is far more effort to constantly keep changing the sequences than to remain in a fixed order. Let's not factor in things like - how well you memorize, how familiar you are with steps, or how small/large your repertoire of dance steps/footwork/following steps is - lets make all those equal, and then just look at the effort needed to execute a social dance vs executing a choreography (which you have already memorized and each time you perform it it will be the same). So my conclusion here is - Improvisation using smaller chunks is more difficult than improvisation using bigger chunks, which is then more difficult than a fixed order routine, otherwise known as a choreography. If you have issues with memory work or issues with remembering things in a fixed order, you may well find choreography more difficult for yourself personally than improvisation, but that is a lack of practice in your ability to remember things and not a factual thing that each time you perform a choreography it is the same, but each time you improvise, it is different. That in itself is extra effort aside from your personal issues with learning and memorizing a choreography. I would say that you are just better practiced, at improvising than memorizing. It doesn't make improvisation - factually less effort than choreography if both abilities were equal. So, coming back to topic, non-choreographed dancing really means - how non-fixed the order is, and how small the chunks of sequences are For myself, I have no basic fixed order and i improvise at the 2 count level. If we go back to the analogy, it means i am making up "words by using individual alphabets", so for dance steps, i am making up dance steps, using 2 count basics. If you don't understand what that means in terms of dancing, that's fine, come take a class with me...but at least understand the analogy here - A large part of my dancing is built from the 2 count level, even big "words"/"steps" like swingout, circle, charleston etc etc.If you have danced with me as a follow, that would explain why I seem to have endless lead variations that are unexpected. But really they are just smaller individual pieces of dance steps than the average leader does, put together in a non-fixed order. 2. Lead and Follow Communication In a social dance, lead and follow communication always has to be LIVE and present for a good social dance to occur. In performance dancing, especially with routines that are very familiar, the lead and follow dynamic (the physical dynamic that needs to occur to get the step executed) exists, but the communication between the lead & follow for the execution is un-necessary as it is a choreography, planned beforehand and familiar to both parties. There is no need to tell one another, ok this next step is....then after that is .....then after that again is this......All of which is needed for social dancing. In social dancing, the leader has to keep telling the follow through his leading, what's coming up, what's coming up, what's coming up. In a performance, they already know the whole routine start to finish. No need to engage in that. This again, objectively, is extra effort during a social dance, vs a performance dance. When i'm dancing a performance, i just remember my role, and i leave it to the follow to remember her role. I don't need to lead her with 100% focus and accuracy to execute any given step, i can put that extra energy into performance styling or project it to the audience. But if i'm taking care of my follow the way that i do for social dance, 100% of my energy goes there, making sure throughout the social dance she's aware of what's happening, where to go to, what's coming up, preps to make the journey smooth etc etc. So here the scale is - Again, to me, that's just factual - improvisation just needs one to always be alert and listening, choreography you can switch off this aspect sometimes and use the energy elsewhere if you wanted to. It's just not needed all of the time, another reason why social dancing takes more effort than performance dancing. Once again, let's make all other factors equal. Performers of course put in a lot of energy into a performance and for social dancing we can skimp on that, but if we were to equalize that, it still wouldn't change the fact that this is effort that has to be undertaken when social dancing over performance dancing. I personally try to put in energy into my social dancing so that the level of execution can reach performance levels. What can i say? I like it when it looks nice too.
I know that some of you reading this would say - performance is so difficult, i could never perform and look good or remember choreo but i can social dance so easily week after week. And then it seems like there's no way social dancing can be objectively more difficult than performance. But i put this scenario to you - suppose, you started off as a Lindy hop performer, day after day, you learnt steps and routine and all you did was perform them. After 5 years, someone asks you for a social dance, which you have never done before. Will it be difficult? Yes. Will you be unable to improvise smoothly on the spot? Yes. Will you be stressed and say things like - "my mind blanks out, i can't think fast enough, i dunno what's going on..."? Yes. Will you actually have fear of social dancing? Yes! I see this a lot with syllabus tap dancers and musicians. They know how to play a piece or tap a routine, but they CANNOT IMPROVISE. It's so tough for them. Why? It's as tough for them to improvise as it is for you to perform. It's just what you have put time & effort into. I want you when reading this article, to put aside any bias you have that social dancing is easier than performance or vice versa and just read it from the place where you are hypothetically good at both, because that is the context this discussion is placed in, not the context where you assume one is easier or more difficult than the other from your lack of experience and practice with it. 3. Social dancing skills and techniques are not given as much recognition as performance skills and techniques are I have mentioned this before in short. The main reason for putting this here is because, social dancing is meant to be fun and not meant to be stressful. So we don't put a lot of emphasis on good social dancing skills and we also don't make want to make dancers feel like they are not dancing well - when the point is to go out there and have a really good time. I'm completely aware of that and i want all of you social dancers to have a good time as well - whether or not your technique is good, whether or not you've been dancing for 1 year or 10 years, whether or not you can really lead or follow or not. On the social dance floor, all of that is NOT IMPORTANT. But having said so, that doesn't change the fact that there are social dancers who - are better than others - who can lead & follow better than others - who are clean and precise and beautiful to watch in terms of their social dancing - most importantly, who feel good to dance with in both a PHYSICAL level (this is about the physical dynamic of the lead & follow connection, that it is smooth, clear, gentle yet firm, caring etc and not jerky, yanky, confusing, staccato, hard, stiff, painful etc) and feel good on a mental/emotional communicative level (in that as they dance with you they are making the effort to communicate with you, not blanking out, not on autopilot, not "somewhere else" and only dancing with you because the job demands it - this is really tough for teachers, especially since they have to dance with so many students at any given workshop) All i hope for, is that the time and effort put in by these dancers into their social dancing be recognized. I have met international teachers, who because they perform and teach for a living, are average social dancers - simply because the amount of time and effort that they have spent has been put mainly into performance skills and not social dancing skills. On the social dance floor, they are beautiful to look at, but not necessarily a fun and enjoyable dance in terms of communication, engagement, creativity or the physical feeling of connection. Sometimes the leading is very simple and basic, sometimes the connection is a bit strange, sometimes the partner is a bit stilted, sometimes there is no interest to social dance other than for the job....and i understand why. I give them the recognition for their achievements in performance dance, but not when it comes to social dancing. A lot of times, people give RECOGNITION AND RESPECT to these dancers/instructors, automatically giving credit for their social dancing skills because of what they have performed and how they have performed (or even their international reputation as teachers and performers), instead of making this assessment based on having several social dances with them. One of our local dancers told me that she didn't have a good dance with a world famous dance instructor at SLR 2 years ago, and she told me she felt so lousy about that. I happen to know that 2 other people had danced with this instructor and also was not impressed, so given this information, i was more inclined to believe that this instructor was not fun to social dance for whatever reason (no judgement there). But this local dancer automatically assumed that she was at fault because of her poor technique and her poor skills (which may have been the case as well, we can't factor that out) but the reason she gave me was - she's just a local dancer and the leader is a world famous teacher, so based on this reasoning, SHE HAD TO BE THE WRONG ONE. This i completely disagree with. Don't jump to conclusions based on the reputation and name of the instructor alone - that's such a biased perspective, and the wrong kind of mentality to have. Such thinking compounds the problem. These are 2 different skill sets that do overlap, but they are distinct enough. Very few teachers are very good at both.It could also be possible that the teacher is at fault, keep it as impartial and open as possible and don't jump to either side of the equation - that it must be you who was wrong, or that it must be the teacher who was wrong. Look at it objectively and ask other people for their experiences and observations. Don't just assume. There's more to come, but i will post the continuation another day as the next section could end up being a bit long on it's own and i think, deserves more attention as it covers a big area. See you on the dance floor in the meantime! - end of part 1 - B. Here at BSL, one of our taglines is "All About The Dance".
Other than loving teh-tarik, one of the things you have to know about me is that I can only dance lindy hop and its related dances, i CANNOT dance anything else for nuts. Watch me try hip hop, k-pop or salsa and die laughing. It's less a matter of technical ability and more a matter of not having the interest nor passion to pursue those other dances. I look at those dances and I don't find myself attracted to those dances. They look so...technically difficult, what with the body waves and the body isolations and the disjointed step to step choreography...and also, I simply don't identify with values of those dances. I don't really understand hip hop, and I don't like the music as well. I don't really understand K-pop and I don't listen to the music as well. Salsa is too sexy and attention seeking for me. But when it comes to lindy hop and it's related dances, i can get it. It's about fun. Check. It's about self-expression. Check. It's about freedom. Check and double Check. It's about dancing with someone else in a free and self-expressive way. Triple Check. That's not to say lindy hop can't be serious, street/edgy, romantic, sensual or sexy. There are so many umbrella dances under the SWING dance banner/family that 1. you would not be able to MASTER (i mean master, not learn) them all 2. each one is different yet the same enough and possess some of the other attributes described above. For example, Blues/Slow drag/Grind carries the sexy/sensual attributes. Airsteps carries the "serious" attributes, simply because, if you're not serious in a focused way, they often go wrong and result in injury. Solo Jazz carries the street/edgy attribute. All these in addition to the general attributes we associate with Lindy Hop and some of the vernacular dances coming from the Jazz Age of the 20s to the 50s. Jazz music, in the beginning, was very tough for me to understand (you wont be able to tell by looking at me now but 15 years ago...was a different story). Now when we teach we really break it down for you to hear, and really count you in. One of the wonderful things about jazz and swing jazz in particular, is how simple it really is once you've gotten past the initial barrier to it. Even musicians, who have been trained classically, sometimes find they don't understand jazz and don't know how to play it. It's because we're sometimes stuck behind a wall of our own biased perception - we expect music to be a certain way because we're used to classical, rock, pop or other styles, but then jazz comes along and shakes those perceptions up, then we don't know how to deal with that. Understanding jazz is easier if you come from a period specific cultural perspective. What were the qualities that were culturally significant at that time? How did the people of those times express themselves? What was changing in the culture such that the dance arose with the music? When we look at what's key to our dance, we can also find the same key things in jazz music. Because the sensibility that exists in our dance, certainly exists in the music that grew together with the dance. I'll leave that for you to figure out, and not digress too much from the main content of this blog post. It was during my internship at Singhealth in 2004, that I made my decision that I wanted my life to revolve around this particular dance, Lindy hop and the associated vernacular dances under the big umbrella. Knowing that I can't possibly master all the different dances in this family, I've chosen to focus on - 1. Lindy Hop Under this banner, there are 2 subgroups which must be mentioned a) Airsteps, which is a very rigorous and demanding subgroup requiring a lot of time and effort to train for b) slow lindy, which is as yet, a still-developing subgroup of Lindy Hop so it's rather formative and needs more effort to consolidate 2. Solo Jazz (Vernacular Jazz) previously under the Lindy Hop banner, Vernacular jazz is now coming more and more to the fore. When i started dancing in 2002 there were people who could dance partnerwork but not dance jazz. Nowadays, there are people who can dance jazz but not partnerwork! Phew, how times have changed. I have been dancing solo jazz since 2003, just 1 year after i started dancing partnerwork lindy. 3. Tap - is a large area unto itself and while it grew up in the Harlem Renaissance of the 30s, it is so far beyond that now. 4. Charleston Charleston is a large group as well, in addition to solo dancing, there is partner dancing for charleston, and both these groups can be generally categorized into 20s style or 30s style. When we do pivots on the feet and touches instead of kicks that's 20 style. 30s style is when we do kicks with the bounce. When i look on the dance floor, i see the some basic partner charleston patterns but not complex patterns - well, certainly not as complex as what we can do with our 8/6 count. Many dancers now do not have a strong repertoire of charleston patterns such that they can get through a 200bpm song WITH ONLY charleston partnerwork patterns and not resort to 6/8 count patterns. I am one of those few dancers who can, simply because I've spent time learning and practicing these patterns. As for 20s partnerwork charleston, on the local dance floors, i haven't really seen anyone dance that. The Rest of the Family ... I don't find myself attracted to blues dancing nor shag/balboa/bal-swing as much and also - I already can't finish learning the above dances, can't take on any more on my plate. The word "learn" is tricky, because people would define it differently. When i use the word "learn", i mean - reach a certain level of proficiency that is of some standard. Now - back to All About The Dance. I am a serious teacher, partly because that's my personality but also because i love this dance. So here I am making this distinction - I don't love dancing, I don't love DANCE as an artform, I only LOVE this very specific family of dances. I think it's important to make this distinction because some people just love dancing, no matter what the dance is as long as they get music and get to dance... and some people love all forms of dance, meaning they love dance itself (as an artform) - both of those scenarios are different from each other, and different from me. I only love this family of dances, if somehow, i had to stop dancing I would not dance/learn other types of dance. Maybe knowing that will help you understand the way i behave in class or the way i teach class, or why i can be so serious about this dance. I know it's a bit cliched, but this one is the only one for me. It's my lifelong love affair. Other pretty things may pass my way...but i will never stray. SORRY.......... that was quite cheesy...quite a bad line. I hope the analogy works though - that you get what i mean. Although I am very serious and passionate about this family of dances, I am very aware that dance is not separate from LIFE, like as in, the big picture of Life, the existence that we are all living at any point of time. Dance to me, is not just part of LIFE (the big picture) but also, like a microcosm of life itself. So, for me, if you substitute the word LIFE for DANCE, it makes sense in my own personal perspective. Everything we do in dance, we also do in life. We may not see it as such but we do. So when i dance, i am living. When i dance and i am happy, i am living life happily. When i am working for dance, i am making a living from dance. When i am learning in dance, I am learning in life as well. Some people might ask - how is that possible? What does dance teach you about Life? My Answer - It's possible at so many levels. When I am taking a class and learning new things, I learn many different things at one time. Or more accurately, I am trying to learn many different aspects or levels at one time. A teacher teaches a step or a combination in class. At the most surface level, i.e. the most obvious level, I am learning the movement and rhythm for the step/combination so that i can learn the step and execute it. I am also learning about 1. My own body mechanics as i learn the movement of the step 2. What muscles i am using in order to perform this action safely and efficiently - which i then apply to my daily movement 3. The teacher's "teaching method" - so that if it's really effective and helps students learn better, i can learn it and apply it on my own students, helping them 4. My own process of learning and how i am trying to absorb and assimilate new information and new ways of moving so that in life i can learn quicker and easier with regard to other things 5. The teacher's philosophy behind the way they dance and what they are teaching (this is usually implied, you have to listen and read between the lines to get it) 6. What are the blocks and difficulties that other students are experiencing as they learn this step, which may also be present in their daily lives as a biomechanic dysfunction, or a bad learning process. Now, if that's isn't a big picture scenario, i would not know what else is! I know dancers are so focused only on the surface level, which is really just about the step and how to apply it in their dancing - nothing wrong there, but my personal perspective is quite a bit broader than that, so once again, a peek into how i view this aspect of dance/dancing, and why I don't see it as a separate thing from LIFE. So when I go dancing, i really just go for the dancing. Let's not play semantic/word games here. When i say "I really go for the dancing", it doesn't exclude chit chatting with people, interacting with others, drinking or eating or other stuff. It just means I am there more to dance, than to chit chat, or to eat or drink, the priority is dancing, not the other possible things we could do there. The percentage is probably like an 70/30%. The desire to dance is 70% and the rest is 30% (when i was younger it was like 85/15!). I understand that some people are there for other reasons, or the percentage weightage about dance is different. It could be the other way around, 70% others and 30% dance. I am not going to judge what weightage others give to dance, but I would like to point out some things about a scenario where the OTHERS outweigh the DANCE. 1. The standard of dancing won't be high because the priority is not there. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing really depends on how important the dancing is to you personally. For someone like me, having bad dances all night is.....ugh. I think that applies to all the dancers (teachers included) who have worked on their dancing and have reached higher and higher standards, only to come to a community/scene and then have to dance down because the standard is not high. Nobody is going to say it - that they didn't enjoy themselves, but inside, quietly, that is what they felt. It then creates a silent rift between dancers who like to be good and have worked at it and dancers who arent concerned whether or not they are good and just dance to enjoy themselves. The ones who aren't concerned don't feel it, because as per etiquette, most dancers rarely refuse a dance, so there's little way a good dancer can refuse to dance with a bad dancer without being rude. So the bad dancers get away with bad dancing, and the good dancers suffer quietly inside. 2. Why use dance, if dance is not going to be the focal point around which a community gathers? Singaporeans, we love to travel and we love to eat, and we love to have get-togethers and eat and celebrate. There is nothing wrong with that, but when those things become the focal point of any dance community, then it sort of defeats the purpose of having the dance in the first place. Might as well skip the dancing part and just get down to the part which everyone is really there for, the shopping, or the travelling or the eating, or the get-together. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, why are we really here (at so & so dance event)? Is it to dance, or is it just so we can have a party? And if the answer is "to have a party" why did it have to involve dance in the first place? Some people might ask - What's wrong with that? That the reason for the community to come together is not dance but something else. I would say - Then the dance becomes irrelevant and will fade away, and disappear from the landscape like an extinct species. Things which become less and less relevant will fade away inevitably. Once again whether or not that is a good or bad thing comes down to how important dancing is to you personally. If the dance fades away and there's no loss in your life - fair enough. It would not be the same for other people though, just saying right? To explain it another way - any kind of club or association - music, gardening, literature, origami, whatever it is - all these clubs or associations by nature, must have at their core - the activity for which they were formed. It would not make sense for the gardening club to do 15 mins of gardening, then everyone packs up and then goes for 2 hours of hanging out and chit chat at a cafe...and that more and more people join the gardening club, not because they want to get involved with gardening but to join these awesome 2 hour chit chat get-togethers at the cafe that the gardening club is famous for. Nothing wrong with 2 hour chit chats, but that defeats the purpose of the gardening in the first place, no? 2a) tagging on from previously, I would personally argue that the loss of this family of dances from the Singapore scene is indeed a tragedy. It brings much joy and much needed outlet for many people and we should continue to grow and support it because i feel that it can do so much for peoples' lives in Singapore, if these people were to give this dance a chance to grow in their lives and enrich it. 3. Sometimes local dancers come back from overseas dance communities and gush about how wonderful it was to have danced there etc etc (usually with an implied meaning of - how much better it was compared to dancing back here in SG), and i completely agree with those comments except that a) the reason why it was better there was because the people in those communities placed a higher priority on dance than on the "other" things b) if the dancers liked what they experienced overseas, but are not interested in playing their part to help build the local community so it can grow into the overseas community from where they just had that marvelous experience, then...... they actually have no business comparing it to the local community and gushing about how wonderful it was in comparison. That's like so typical complainers' syndrome loh - don't like something but then not willing to work at it to enable the change to come about but then still want to make the comparison. (pardon my usage of Singlish here, it's just so apt i think) Again - don't want to judge - just want to point out that if you had enjoyed your overseas experience, and you would like that experience to be present in SG community as well, then one of the ways to make that happen is for there to be a culture where more priority is given to dancing. In my opinion, SG is really one of the stronger communities in Asia when it comes to Lindy Hop, but i think we can go further if people were to place on priority on dance in this community. If you were to ask me - What would be the benefit or reward for people to do that, put in more time and effort into dancing?...I would not know how to answer you other than -it's so enjoyable and so rewarding on so many other levels than just what is immediately obvious, like getting to know people, having a group to hang out with, having something to do over having nothing to do....For me being able to connect with people physically while dancing and being able to self-express and communicate non verbally through social dancing is one of those things which i'm not sure i can find elsewhere so that keeps me coming back to it. If you've never experienced that before, how dancing can make you happy....give dance a bit more priority and time and see where that leads you. I can assure you that it has happened for many people around the world, that's why they all dance. Once again, it just boils down to how important the dancing is to any given person. (in a future blog post, I will write about how to be efficient with time and practice given the modern world's busy busy schedule) I think between the 3 teachers in SG, Sing, Sinclair and me, we all think the dancing is important, and not because we teach it, or we make a living from it, or what-nots. I think we all just believe in Swing Dance/Lindy hop as tool for life, that it really feels good and can make people happy, and central to that enriching experience of Lindy Hop, is good dancing, which comes about through a good amount of focus and priority on dancing. I don't want to give this idea that only good dancers have an enriching Lindy Hop experience, but maybe a food analogy is good here - the $3 econ rice can be as good a meal as a $30 restaurant main course, as long as they are both good. There's place for both to exist, in different contexts, when they are both good. But if they are both bad, not nice to eat...then you wouldn't even pay $3 to eat bad food, much less $30. Good food comes from a certain set of priorities - hygiene, fresh ingredients, prepared with some skill and love....etc etc. It can be applied to the dance and dancing as well. Good dancing will come from having certain priorities as well. How is it that Lindy Hop and the other associated dances can fascinate us endlessly on Youtube...when we're watching a performance, or make us feel something inside when you watch 2 good dancers social dance? When i watch videos of Frankie (usually social) dancing in the early 90s,I really feel something emotional inside me that makes me smile and then I think, i need to learn more so i can have a bit of that magic that Frankie had in his 80s. .To me that's how the logic stacks up. I hope i have brought some new perspectives with this blog post and see you on the dance floor soon. I thought i would take some time out to write about who my teachers were, during this long 17 year lindy hop journey, and what has influenced me over the years. Click on the links to be directed to youtube videos.
BEGINNINGS (2001 to 2003) My very very very first teachers were the teachers from Lindy Hop Ensemble Singapore, a group founded by Jacqueline Tan. I remember taking class with Jacq, Deborah, Xinyi, Kok Chiow and Amber. When i started dancing, i did not know anything about Lindy Hop, so like most Singaporeans, i just assumed that whatever the LHE dancers did was all there was to learn abount Lindy Hop. I was so wrong. After leaving LHE, due to some complicated circumstances (a story for another time), me and then-partner Sik Banhuei, found that there was another studio that offered Lindy Hop in Singapore, called Jitterbugs Swingapore. We approached this school, this was Jan 2002, and this was the first time that i met Sing. Sing was our teacher for the next few years. I had joined a club called Kinetics in NTU, where i was studying, and Sing would go to NTU once every week, to teach us youngsters the Lindy Hop. LHE was primarily a performance group. At their classes and events, they did social dance, but it was never emphasized, and they danced to faster tempo music, which was not beginner friendly. This may have been because their teachers were the Jiving Lindy Hoppers from the UK, one of the lindy hop revival groups (I wish i had time to explain these terms i'm throwing around!!). This group had learnt from the Mama Lou Parks dancers, a later generation of Harlem Lindy hop dancers, whose speciality was the fast challenge dance, usually done as a performance jam. Social dancing was completely new to us and it was very frightening to us at the time (as it still is for many beginners - don't worry). As a school club, one of our obligations to the school was to perform at school events and put up dance activities for the university, so from the very beginning, Sing had to teach us both sides of the Lindy Hop dance coin - the social aspect, as well as the performance aspect. Sing emphasized social dancing, in the tradition of Frankie, and she was especially concerned with good leading and following. She taught most of this generation of Kinetics dancers all their basics - frame, footwork, lead & follow, connection, steps etc etc and also choreographed for us and trained us how to do performances for the events we had obligations to do. Kinetics was a fantastic experience. Some of the best local Lindy Hoppers came from the group during this era (circa 2002 to 2009). Some of the Kinetics alum who are still dancing today include Ethan (i just recently posted a video of him and Alex dancing), Jingyang, Taufan and Xinqiang.(wow those are all leads!!) THE MIDDLE YEARS (2003 to 2008) Sing had taught us all our basics, but she would always invite teachers from overseas for Seajam, the annual camp/workshop that she ran. This was where many of the older generation of Singaporean Lindy Hoppers would have met Frankie. Without fail, if Frankie could come, he would come, and it was fantastic. Even as a newbie, i could see something special and different about Frankie and at that time as youngsters we knew nothing about the Savoy or his work as part of Whiteys, to us, he was just some old guy that used to dance that Sing would always bring in for Seajam. The significance of Frankie hadn't sunk in yet. Meeting Frankie gave me something special and important - i learnt that the African Americans, had that something special, that many others didn't, when it came to this dance. It was a vibe, or a groove, or an energy, somewhat undefinable, yet clear, if you knew what you were looking at. These black people, they had it. These other peoples (could be white, could be Asian, could be Singaporean) did not have it. And that in itself, set me off on a journey, to find out what this "thing" was, and that eventually led me to tap. (another story) I have since learnt that this special quality can be learnt, can be passed on and is not exclusive to the African American peoples, but they have easier access to it from within their cultural and historical context but for the rest of us, we have to look for it, if we can even see it to begin with. Many teachers came through Seajam. Some are still dancing while others have disappeared from the Lindy Hop scene for various reasons. The most influential on me that came through Seajam were the Swedes- the first generation of Harlem Hotshots, in particular Mattias Lundmark. (i'll continue with Mattias later on) At this time as well, i and a couple of other Kinetics dancers were taking regular classes at Jitterbugs. Back then, circa 2004 /2005 there were 4 levels of Lindy Hop, called Lindy 1 to 4, and you had to audition to get into Lindy 4. We took Lindy 3 for a year, and then we auditioned for Lindy 4 and we got in, so we started taking both Lindy 3 and 4. the class system was lindy 1 & 3 at 7pm and Lindy 2 & 4 at 8pm, so we would do classes 7 to 9pm then go straight into Swing Fling after, and probably end up eating supper after 11pm. The teacher couples at that time were Sing & Chan Meng, and Sinclair and Fen. Sometimes Eric and Li-Hsien would come in and teach as well. We took class with all of them. Sinclair's classes were very different from Sing's classes, even back then. Not so much the steps but the focus/emphasis, which he would continue to bring to Jazz Inc a few years later and develop further. Back to Mattias. The 1st year he came to Singapore was 2004. For every year he came, i took a private class with him, as well as attend all the classes he taught at Seajam. He taught me several important things, which were - 1. To relax while dancing. 2. To Stretch for Swingouts and 6 counts 3. How to do half body rotations 4. How to open the chest and straighten out a hunched back/shoulders 5. How a swingout and a circle were actually the same step i worked with Mattias's style and material for 4 years, 2004 to 2008, and Banhuei and i took our last private with Mattias and Hanna Lundmark in Stockholm in 2008 when we went there for a holiday. We learnt how to do cross kicks and jig walks properly in this private, i still have the notes! I was very inspired by this first generation of Harlem Hot Shots, the most famous is Frida Sergerdahl. We would look at their videos and see what we could learn from them. They were very smooth yet every energetic, and they did not have the roughness that you can see in some of the old Lindy Hop soundies. They had all the steps and the stylings but not the jerkiness. They came to Singapore for Seajam in 2006 and later 2012. The first time i saw them, ever, was in these videos here, and here. LATER YEARS (2009 to 2016) In a recent Lindy Train session, i asked the dancers about their satisfaction with their level of dancing. The answers were mostly - unsatisfied. I told them, i was satisfied with my dancing, and i had been satisfied since 2009/2010. I would continue to learn and grow, but that particular feeling of "not being good enough" or "lacking" was gone at this point of time in me. I had spent about 5 years working on the material and philosophy that i had learnt from the Swedes and at beginning of 2009, i felt really good about my social dancing. I was creative, had my own repertoire of steps and rhythms, had this nice relaxed feeling of stretch, and also this easy way of social dancing that felt really good and i was happy with that. Skye Humphries' first visit to Singapore was in 2009 with Naomi Uyama. It was also for Seajam. I had known of Skye from the previous video - look at time 1:28 - i was not impressed at all; but they did a performance at Blujazz that still wows me today. Although i was very satisfied with my dancing, i wanted to learn how to do what Skye and Naomi were doing, and so thus began the next phase of my journey. This was the era of the YOUTUBE video, the major competitions were ULHS and ILHC and i watched so many videos of Skye, Frida and Naomi and the rest of the Silver Shadows to try and learn more. In 2011, i was awarded the Herrang Scholarship, which enabled me to fly to Herrang, Sweden to take class at the world famous dance camp. I took one private each with Skye and Naomi and watched ALL of their classes for the whole week that i was there. These are the things i learnt from Skye and Naomi - 1. how to bounce/pulse 2. how to keep the flow going 3. how i didn't need to lead everything 4. how to take leading information from the leaders' body Here is a video of a performance i did that sorta shows where i was at after this Herrang trip 2011. This phase of learning continued until Oct 2016, when i went to Stockholm and took a weekend of Skye and Frida workshops and was finally satisfied that i had understood what i had set off to learn all the way back from 2009. i hadn't perfected it, of course, but i knew what i had understood and what i hadn't, just like in 2008 after the Swedes phase. It was also at this point in time I realized i had to move on from looking at other teachers and start to develop myself as a dancer. MOST RECENT (2017 - 2018) It may have taken 16 years, but now, i was ready to consolidate all the stuff i had been learning all those years of dancing from so many different teachers and so many different videos. To truly express myself as a dancer, i had to first come to this place that i could stop looking at other dancers for material and answers and start developing my own theories and philosophies and synthesize the techniques i had learnt into something that was mine and not a patchwork of all the other teachers. I'm still doing that today, learning new things from teaching and breaking down stuff for students and giving some of those techniques and exercises that i learnt in the past, reworked "B"-style, to help the students become better dancers. I want to be clear that I'm not closing myself down to inspiration from outside sources or other teachers, but to stop thinking that these teachers have something that i don't have that makes them better dancers than me or that they have the answers but i don't. And i encourage every serious dancer to do that, to keep taking class and searching and be open to inspiration, but also to keep searching within yourself and on your own for the answers. And it is more rewarding and more effective when u find it on your own than when someone told you the answer. To me, the true reward for dancing is to be able to authentically express oneself through a given form, in this case, dance, and more specifically, lindy hop (it could just as well be art like painting, writing like poetry, or film-making or photography or singing). But then a joy that money cannot buy and laziness/lack of discipline cannot ever hope to attain (well, you gotta find it on your own effort right??) starts to appear when you dance. I think......it's the joy of expressing yourself well at that moment and feeling satisfied and good about that. And i hope many of you reading this will one day reach that place with your dancing as well. Here is what happened, as best as i can tell.
HAVING TO LEAVE TIMBRE AND OLD PARLIAMENT HOUSE Timbre Music Academy was being closed for renovations so Lindy Live! at Timbre had to be shut down. Danny had commuicated to Sing and Sing had told me shortly. ** I had a meeting with Sing on how we were going to move forward. Sing wanted to continue working with Timbre and Danny, whereas i was not so keen. At this point in time, i was not teaching the Beginners (Lindy Hop 1 & 2 class levels) at Lindy Live! already (a story for another time), and at the new venture with Timbre, which would be at Timbre@Substation, there would only be beginner levels. Also, as expressed before, i had never really liked the bar/pub social dance setting. I have attended many socials at different bars and pubs before, Harry's at Boat Quay, BluJazz at Haji Lane, Jazz Inc's Socials at the Flyer Bistro, and then subsequently at Ink Bar at Swissotel and China One at Clarke Quay...but i have never found myself comfortable in those settings. I had always preferred a studio setting for social dancing. And to me, that was a big factor in me becoming the dancer i am today, a social in a studio setting. THE ENDING OF AN ERA Why do i say "the end of an era?" I am not the earliest batch of Lindy Hoppers in Singapore. Sinclair is from an earlier batch than me, i think somewhere about a year before me. Jitterbugs Swingapore, had started operations in 1996 or so, and they had always had a social. The first studio was at Tras Street, in Tanjong Pagar. I had not yet started dancing, so i have never been into the Tras St studio. Some current community members who have been dancing a long time may remember (like Gen, or Marz). My first encounter with Jitterbugs was at the Orchard Point Studio, what is now OG Shopping Center in Orchard. This was 2002. Back then, Jitterbugs Swingapore was having socials on Thursdays and this social was called "Swing Fling". I grew up with Swing Fling. Later on, Jitterbugs would move to MIllenia Walk, where briefly they would have Swing Fling on Sundays 4 to 6pm, which didn't work out so well, and later on, it was returned to its usual Thursday slot. When Jitterbugs moved to Cathay, Swing Fling was still on Thursdays 9 to 11pm. When Sing left Jitterbugs and created Lindy Live! at Timbre we maintained this social on Thursdays at the same time slot. You cannot imagine how many memories i have of Swing Fling. The many dancers and teachers i have met and danced with at Swing Fling. Swing Fling has been running on Thursdays 9 to 11pm. since before 2002. If you just count the years i have been attending swing fling, that would be 16 years. Swing Fling doesn't exist anymore for 2 reasons - 1. It was ALWAYS on THURSDAYS 9 to 11pm (except for the brief slot change to Sundays) 2. It was ALWAYS a STUDIO SETTING Sing has gone on to create Swingstation@Substation, but it's on a Monday and also its not a Studio setting. The end of the era, for me, means that Swing Fling is gone. 16 years of social dancing @ Swing Fling, is over. For sure, i had attended many other socials over the 16 years, but the only social i would ever call "home" was Swing Fling. I didn't want to take the name "Swing Fling" when i made the decision to start my socials on Fridays, it was something special that never really belonged to me, just something i was proud and happy and now sad, to have been a part of for 16 years. WHAT IS B SWING LINDY? WHAT IS "B"??!! My main aim in starting B Swing Lindy was to keep working (this was my job after all), and also to have a place to keep dancing in a studio setting. I had been tapping and teaching Leading Ladies at The Studio at Bugis for almost 2 years now, and i felt that i would be happy to organize socials there. The aircon is strong and the floor is sprung ok. (Tap dancers can tell if a floor is sprung from the sound, and how well "sprung" it is) At a meeting with the Timbre teachers, Hong Wee had also expressed his concern that 2 months with no socials was NOT a good thing. I felt the same way - i didn't want to stop dancing for 2 months (for personal reasons i do not attend Monday night socials, and i do only prefer to dance regularly in a studio setting), and so Friday night socials were born. "B" is the initial i usually use for my name, my parents and my close friends know me as B, and i always sign off emails as B, but B could also stand for many other things. Like bananas (i love bananas), or the word "Be", or the word "Best", or the word "Bonkers", all of which are important B words. So B Swing Lindy is NOT Brian Swing Lindy - that sounds terrible. The "B" is what you want it to "BE". I don't have any issues with that, only that you come dancing and have a good time at the socials. I do not like social media so much and have never had a proper Facebook or Instagram account. For B Swing Lindy, i was advised to create a facebook account and a page and also put myself on Instagram. I am very much a face to face person, and very much a "real life" and not "simulated life" person. I find social media and other online things take us away from the immediacy of staying in the present A LOT and i prefer to try and keep that discipline instead of being 23/7 on the mobile (even though i fail at that quite a bit). I don't think one can really be "friends" on FB, that's just a word FB uses. Friends are the people i see regularly in real life and we interact regularly in real life. But for events and social media presence i will be posting on FB and Instagram a fair amount moving forward. This concludes my short origin story and i hope to see you somewhere on the dance floor. -b. **this post has been modified from the original at the request of Danny, owner of Timbre. |
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