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Mike the Girl Newsletter
Cheers,
-m.
Greetings!
Welcome to the first mailing of the Mike the Girl mailing list. This will be the first of many, happening about once or twice per month. Here are some things I think you might enjoy.
In this newsletter:
Music: Fats Waller and borrowed melodies
Video: ULHS 2005 Slow division
Food For Thought: Challenges of follow instructors
Tidbits: random fact and on-this-day
Where in the world: where I'll be for the next few months
Cheers,
-Mike
Music:
Something Borrowed, Something Blue
I must admit: I'm a sucker for jazz piano. And few jazz pianists can combine that chunky, percussive, old-school piano style with growling vocals quite like Fats Waller. His "Your Feet's Too Big" is among my most-played songs on i-Tunes- that understated piano and laid back swing... delightful. And if you think you know Fats Waller, or Otis Rush, you might take a second look. Check out the melody on "I've Got My Fingers Crossed":
Fats Waller
Did you get a good, solid listen? Recognize it? If not, let me help you out (notice the name change):
There's also a blues version- Otis Rush made the Violent Love version of the melody popular. Poor Taste Warning: I wish I were making this up, but it's available on the album Penitentiary Blues: Songs to Do Hard Times By. Wow.
The Otis Rush Version
Emusic.com Free Trial
Videos:
Rock Me Slow
ULHS 2005, Slow Division. In honor of the Food For Thought subject, there's something very special about this clip. In case you aren't familiar, this is the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown- the best of the best. These are top-notch follows, and they can follow the craziest of the crazy, the most complicated moves and bad-ass aerials. But here, these follows shine for a different reason: their input. The leads leave spaces wide open, and the follows fill those spaces with creativity and cleverness, without sacrificing the relationship between lead and follow. The input is often subtle, but the real take-away lesson here is how receptive the leads are. They answer, build on, mirror, or use... they don't run over or get frozen up by what's going on. ((Specific examples to come)) In addition, this song is fantastic- laid back, but highly interesting. Rather than over-dancing it, the dancers keep things interesting, and keep the energy up, with clean, simple movements. Beautiful!
ULHS 2005 Slow Finals
Food for Thought:
This is a man's world
Most of you are probably familiar with Southern Belle or Girl Jam- they're weekends that focus on follows. This may seem like common sense (turnabout is fair play, after all), but this has been a recent and revolutionary idea. Gina Helfrich, one of the organizers and founders of Southern Belle, posted a blog recently on the disparities that make this event so radical. She has also included several videos, which actually include the names of the ladies (how many of us can name 3 famous lindy hop follows from back in the day? 3 leads?):
Gina's Jazz Dance Blog: Feminism and Follow-Focused Events
I posted a quick response on the blog, but would like to take some time and space to discuss it a little more deeply:
In the blog, Gina brings up the fact that follow instructors are often brought in as partners, while lead instructors are often brought in, and asked to bring the follow of their choice (or teach alone). The logic behind this fact, while flawed, is easy to figure out:
Lindy hop is comprised of a bunch of moves. Leads know the moves, pick the moves, and lead the moves. We go to workshops to learn moves. Therefore, we'll bring in leads, because they know/do moves.
If this is the case, why should follows go to workshops at all? And the answer, of course, is that there is more to dancing than a bunch of moves. For starters, there's technique. In order to teach successfully, whether as a lead or a follow, you must understand the mechanics of the dance. Leads and follows (even assuming the follow doesn't also lead) have different vantage points to discuss from, and both can provide valuable insight for students of either role. Whether you bring in a lead or follow, a solo teacher is teaching one role as, "this is what I do," and one role as "this is what I want to feel from you."In addition to technique, there are other aspects to social dancing: composition, movement quality, the lead-follow dynamic, musicality, and so on.
From an instructor's perspective, teaching as a solo follow presents more challenges than just old-school attitudes from potential organizers. If a follow can only follow, and she wants to teach a class that includes new vocabulary (moves), she has to talk the leaders through the move, and then demonstrate after a leader gets it successfully. If there's a follow in the class who has good technique, a solo leader can pull her out and use her to demonstrate. Now, a solo follow could certainly do plenty of classes that don't involve new vocabulary, but no instructor wants to be without such a valuable tool. Vocabulary can be used to teach technique, composition, etc- not to mention, leads often measure a workshop by how much "new stuff" they get. It's unfortunate but true.
So what's a follow to do? The classic answer is: learn to lead. This enables a follow to demonstrate for the leaders, let them get the basic mechanics, then demo for the follows, to help them refine. It's useful anyway for follow-follow privates, and truthfully, being able to perform the other dance role adds another level of depth to any dancer.
However, this, in a way, brings us back to square one. Now, instead of a follow instructor, we have an amphirolic instructor (new word I made up meaning able to execute both roles). The truth is, at any level, people want "new moves". While there are tons of great concept classes out there, and there's always room for technique improvement, I truly think that our dance mindset is still so move-centric that follow instructors wanting to teach entire weekends are going to have to keep meeting on leaders' terms- for now, at least.
Thoughts to ponder:
The challenges of a solo leader
There are great solo follow instructors out there- how are they doing it?
The challenges of crossing the normal gender-role relations
How biased do you think the system really is? Agree? Disagree?
Upcoming Follow-Centric Weekends:
Southern Belle Swing Bash, September 19-21, Atlanta, GA: http://www.southernbelleswing.
Blues Muse Workshop, October 3-5, Philadelphia, PA: http://www.lindyandblues.com/
Tidbits:
Quotes:
--"While I Dance I Cannot Judge, I Cannot Hate, I Cannot Separate Myself From Life... I Can Only Be Joyful And Whole. That Is Why I Dance" - unknown
--"Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation." - Martha Graham
--"Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I haven't tried before" Mae West
Factoid:
On this day in history: July 13th, 1835 - John Ruggles received patent #1 from the U.S. Patent Office for a traction wheel used in locomotive steam engines. All 9,957 previous patents were not numbered.
Just so you know: You should actually stretch after warming up. Casual athletes (such as us dancers) often start to warm up with stretching, which is less productive than stretching warm muscles. So next time you get to class early, run around the room, then stretch!
- Show quoted text -
Where in the World?
Where you can find me over the next few months
Where you can find me over the next few months
August:
8-10: Orlando, FL: Sunstate Jam
29-31: Dayton, OH: WorkshopSeptember:
11-14: Virginia Beach, VA: Dirt Cheap Blues Exchange
19-21: Atlanta, GA: Southern Belle Swing Bash
26-28: Charlotte, NC: Blango Nuevo
October:
3-5: Philadelphia, PA: Bluse Muse Workshop
10-12: Minneapolis, MN: ULHS
24-26: Atlanta, GA: AVS10-12: Minneapolis, MN: ULHS
Hope you enjoyed it!
-Mike
