alain’s dance blog

This is the playlist of the Saturday late night at the Montreal Lindy Hop Exchange 2007. Nathan Shetterley started off which some groovy mood music while people ate, and then dancing resumed at around 2am.

DJ Mike Thibault from Rochester and DJ Alain Wong from Montreal trading songs, mostly four at a time.

Savoy Blues Kid Ory’s Creole Jazz Band
Effervescent Blues John Kirby & His Orchestra
The Darktown Strutters’ Ball Alberta Hunter
Flying Home Barnet, Charlie
Moten Swing Kansas City Band
The Comeback Count Basie & Joe Williams
Roll With My Baby Ray Charles
Let’s Get Together (edit) Chick Webb/ Ella Fitzgerald
Don’t Go ‘way Nobody Boilermaker Jazz Band
Track 19 Mystery Track
Like It Is Erroll Garner
Honeysuckle Rose Ella Fitzgerald
Don’t Be That Way Lionel Hampton
One O’Clock Jump rip Coleman Hawkins & The Metronome All-Stars
The Very Thought of You Billie Holiday
Death Came A Knockin’ Ruthie Foster
It’s All Right Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions
Hound Dog Big Mama Thornton
Cry To Me Solomon Burke
Groove Me King Floyd
Shoorah Shoorah Allen Toussiant with Chocolate Milk
What Makes The Ending So Sad Lou Rawls
Never Make Your Move Too Soon (edit) Ernestine Anderson
Splanky Count Basie
Skin ‘Em Back (Original) rip Skeets Tolbert and His Gentlemen Of Swing
Exactly Like You The Benny Goodman Quartet
It’s De-Lovely Boilermaker Jazz Band
Yes Indeed Tommy Dorsey
Keep on Churnin’ Wynonie Harris
Got To Give It Up, Part 1 Marvin Gaye
Let’s Get It On (Demo Take) Marvin Gaye
Ocean Of Tears Ruthie Foster
Lonely Teardrops Jackie Wilson
Please Mama Please Go Cat Go
You Sexy Thing Hot Chocolate
When the lights Go Out Jimmy Witherspoon
Gimme a pigfoot Lavern Baker
On The Sunny Side Of The Street Lionel Hampton
They Can’t Take That Away Carmen McRae
A Letter To Heaven Sister Wynona Carr
Just A-Sittin’ And A-Rockin’ Ben Webster
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A letter (Ahlert-Young) Jay McShann
Black And Tan Fantasy Duke Ellington
You are My Sunshine Bill Henderson
Trouble in Mind Nina Simone
Midnight Blues (Red Shirt) Jimmy Witherspoon
You Send Me Aretha Franklin

This September is the marking of Cat’s Corner’s 9th year anniversary. As a present to Fred and everyone who has helped out with Cat’s Corner over the years, we are commemorating this event with a special ops code-named Cat’s Corner Facebook Day.

What can you do to celebrate CCFD?

1. You can post a picture of you dancing at Cat’s Corner.

2. Change your profile pic to the Paw. Better yet. You can download the Cat’s Corner paw (right click and save this file) and replace your picture with it for that day. Imagine everyone updating their picture to the PAW for one day. It will be a sea of paws in everyone’s news feed!

3. Change your status. Write something Cat’s Corner-related. For example, replace “Alain is __________ ” with “Alain is digging Cat’s Corner and will never go into ANY dark corner.” Of course, the more controversial, the better your status will be.

4. Change your description. Only for the totally religiously devout. Save your “About Me” facebook text somewhere safe, and then copy paste this into your About description:

I am devoted to Cat’s Corner. Cat’s Corner is my life. Long live the Cat! http://catscorner.ca

5. Post an item. Send a posting bulletin on that day to all your friends, describing how you discovered Cat’s Corner. You may have told all your friends already, but do it again, just for this special day. Tell everyone why ya love the Lindy Hop.

6. Post on your wall, on your friend’s wall, on the Cat’s Corner Facebook wall. And when you run out of Facebook walls to post on, paint graffiti on Montreal city walls. Proclaim your allegiance to Cat’s Corner loud and clear.

7. Finally, start now. You can start by writing your new About description, downloading the Paw, and drafting your bulletin.

Remember that the big impact will come if everyone “updates” their profiles, pictures, walls on the same day. So don’t forget. Tuesday September 4th is Cat’s Corner Facebook Day.

Post a comment on this page with a link to your facebook. We will send you many thanks and bless you for lovin’ the Cat.

Amen.

I’m all excited.

1. Dancers from all around the world
2. Afternoon dances, evening dances, late night to early morning dances
3. Great DJs, both from Montreal and out-of-town

This is what the schedule looks like.

Friday evening: Sara & The Undulators + DJ Danny-O

Friday late night: Tomo (New York), Greg Avakian (Philadelphia) and Nathan Shetterley (Detroit/Quebec)

Saturday afternoon: Swing L’été (I’ll be performing with SCX)

Saturday evening: Gordon Webster and his orchestra + DJ Pocail aka Daniel Champagne.

Saturday late night: Nathan, Mike Thibault (Rochester) and Alain Wong (me!)

Sunday afternoon: Pocail, Nathan, Tomo, Mike

Sunday evening: Colin Perry & Blind + Tomo

Sunday late night: Alain and Greg

Don’t miss out: Le Montreal Lindy Hop exchange 2007

I don’t think so. Sure, dancing can have sensuality attached to it, but it can also be respectful and artistic at the same time. And it can be dirty or classy.

When we refer to “blues dancing” in Montreal, we most likely mean “dancing to slow music”. Sometimes it is to Blues music, and sometimes not.

This year we had our first Blues exchange in Montreal. And since the three swing dance schools in Montreal have given “blues” classes recently, I thought it would be useful to list some references on what blues dancing is.

The best description I’ve found is on Blues-Dance:

Blues dance is strongly tied to Blues music, and many aspects of Blues dancing (for example, call and response, emotional intensity, and tension and release) are directly related to the music to which it is danced. There are many types of Blues music (rural, urban, up-tempo, slow, electric, delta, modern), and also many types of Blues dance, all with very different nuances and emotions.

Early Blues dances often contained very simple one-step or two-step patterns; some examples of such early Blues dances are the “Cake Walk” and the “Black Bottom.” Other Blues dances such as the “Slow Drag” and the “Mooche” have also been passed down to us relatively unchanged from the original forms. In its modern context, Blues dance incorporates many aspects of these original dances as well as incorporating ideas from modern concepts of partner connection, improvisation, and natural body movement.

From the discussion forums: what is blues dancing? Lucy and Jojo’s opinion, the X-rated connotations of blues dancing, Blues and Sexuality.

Here’s a post by Ogden Sawyer, a respected blues dance instructor in Boston, denouncing the association to sex:

Man, I hate that Blues has come to this. I teach blues, I love to dance Blues, but it truly sucks that people really equate Blues Dance with some sort of chocolate covered sex-fest.

I’ll be the first to admit that blues can be sexy and bawdy, and downright suggestive, but the music most often speaks in innuendo and never quite crosses that line. The dance should reflect that. If all you do is sit in closed position and do various body rolls, you just ain’t blues dancing.

Finally, a thread on the intensity of Blues dancing. Let me know what blues dancing means to you.

Following my previous post on the MTLX, you might be wondering why you should attend a Lindy Hop exchange.

Here are a few good reasons:

• If you are hosting an exchange in your city, you get to meet cool Lindyhoppers from around the world. You get to introduce them to your city, introduce them to your language. In short, you get to share your home with strangers.
• Exchanges are for dancing, eating, sleeping and the occasional hooking up. That means that your weekend is not interrupted by teachers talking or competitors performing. It means you never stop dancing.
• When you go to an exchange, you go to have fun and to meet people. Nobody has pressure on their shoulders (like at a competition). Everyone is there to share in fun, sweat and style.

An exchange is Lindy Hop at it’s purest form: social dancing. Read what Adam thinks about Lindy exchanges.

Let me know why you like dance exchanges.