alain’s dance blog

You know you’re a dancer when… you walk into a classy shoe store and don’t even bother looking at the design of the shoes, nor the price. You first flip the shoe over and look at the sole.

Here are pictures of different dance shoe soles that you might want to explore, in order of least to most slippery:

1. Sticky rubber soles. Ouch!  Only when I need to match a costume. These will hurt your knees.

2. Flat rubber sole shoes. My favorite for fast dancing. The flatness of the shoe means there is less grip, and so they are more forgiving on the knees than the sticky rubber soles.

3. Fuzzy rubber shoes. A mix of rubber and some fuzzy material. These shoes seem to be a hit among female swing dancers in Montreal. You can find them at discount chain stores like Wal-Mart, Payless Shoes and Zellers.

4. Suede soles (also known as “chromed”). I hope Francys doesn’t mind me taking picture of his shoe. You need to use a wire brush to maintain the suede hair, or else over time, they become as slippery as soft leather soles.

5. Soft leather soles. Less friction than suede, but not as slippery as hard leather.

6. Hard leather soles. The classic dance shoe. They are unfortunately harder and harder to find in Montreal. Most dress shoes today have a rubber heel. What you can do is get a cobbler to replace the rubber heel by a hard leather one.

Which sole do you prefer?

This past week at Lindy U, Ann Mony and I taught a class on swing dance contests. We started by talking about competition experience and asked our students how they felt about competing. I explained that contests can be a motivator in working on your dancing, but that the results should not be taken personally. Sylvia Sykes will tell you at a competitors’ meeting that you should go out there and have fun, and that your placement does not reflect your dancing ability. Indeed, “winning” a contest doesn’t mean you are better than the other dancers on the dance floor - it just means that on that given day, when the judges were looking at you, you looked like you danced “better” in comparison to the others.

“Better” can mean different things to different people. Visual appeal: clean lines, nice form. Good technique: proper posture, connection, flow. Emotional appeal: are you giving a credible performance, is the crowd drawn in?

Emotional appeal is the most important one for me. Just like good actors make you believe their story through their ability to tap into their emotions, being authentic as a dancer, dancing for the joy of it - that’s what connects you to the audience and crowd. That’s what makes people enjoy watching you. Not the fake smile, the genuine one. That is, if you are one to smile when you dance. One student told me after class that he doesn’t always smile when he dances, but that his joy is felt inside. This enjoyment may not necessarily show on his face, but shines in other forms, through his musicality and creativity. Good point, David.

In class, we watched three couple performances in the American Showcase at ALHC 2006 and asked students to evaluate them. We then went over the official scoresheets to see what judges actually gave them. This gave way to an interesting discussion. How do you compare Todd & Naomi’s smooth Dizzy Atmosphere choreography to Stefan & Bethany’s innovative 12th Street Rag routine? They were both amazing to watch, and yet so very different. We agreed that in the end, quality of the dance was the most important criteria. Note: choosing music that inspires you and dancing like yourself (not someone else) are also essential for good performance choreographies.

We also watched the Boston Tea Party 2007 Advanced Lindy Hop Jack and Jill finals, and compared our scores to the official score sheets. Because of the sheer number of dancers, students had a much harder time making a decision, showing that judges really have a hard task at hand when evaluating huge number of competitors. We chose this competition footage for our students because there were many recognizable Montreal dancers including Eric Bertrand, Caroline Rossi, Sylwia Bielec, Max Pitruzzella, Annie Trudeau, Mélanie Huot-Lavoie, Benoit Laforest, as well as Ann and myself (did I leave somebody out?). Tea Party is amazing, you should all go next year!

Jack and Jills are contests where you sign up individually, and are assigned random partners. In the prelims, you are evaluated individually. In finals, you are evaluated as a couple. As Carla Heiney and Sean Morris said so well in their Jack n’Jill class at Camp Jitterbug 2007, judges look for good dancing and emotional connection. The whole point of a JnJ is to have two people who do not usually dance together create something beautiful on the spot. In other words, it evaluates your ability to adapt to your partner in addition to your quality of dance.

We put theory into practice in the second half of the Lindy U class with a Strictly (improvised with chosen partners) and a Jack and Jill. To simulate the Strictly, we gave couples prep time before the contest.

Congratulations to all our students who participated - they did a great job despite the stress of being evaluated. Congrats also to Fred and Melanie who got our vote for best couple that evening. They combined quality dancing with great presence and fun.

Shona Harris interviewed Fred and me during the Dance Museum show broadcasted every Thursday from 2-3pm at CKUT 90.3 FM, Montreal’s McGill campus community radio. We’ve been on this show before with Katherine Blekinsop, and it’s always a pleasure to talk about the swing dance scene in Montreal.

You can listen to the CKUT interview (26 mins). I apologize to Fred for cutting him off and monopolizing some of the answers. After listening to the interview, I realized I need to improve my interview skills. I need to work on listening, on enunciating and on being less of a control-freak. And maybe brush up on my dance history.
Oh, and if there are inaccuracies in our answers, please let me know. I definitely don’t pretend to know everything.

It was cool doing the interview. Thanks Shona! And tune in to CKUT 90.3 FM, the voice of artists in Montreal.

The AARP Bulletin (American Association of Retired Persons) features an interview with Frankie Manning this month.

Frankie Manning is 93 years old and still teaches Lindy Hop today. He’s living proof that dancing keeps you young.

I’ll be seeing him at The American Lindy Hop Championships in two weeks. Sweet.

I had met Dianne Eramo a few times in Lindy Hop events, but only got to know her a few weeks ago at Showdown when she shared a hotel room with us Montrealers. She’s an awesome person and inspiring dancer, and she totally deserved making the final in the Solo blues contest there.

So when she told us she intended to visit Montreal in November, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to inspire Montrealers with her dancing.

So here it is, straight from New York City for the first time, two drop-in classes on Saturday November 3rd with Dianne Eramo. It’s gonna be hot!

Here’s a video of Dianne and Lee Tucker winning the Strictly at Wicked Lindy in Boston 2007.