alain’s dance blog

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.

Last night I DJ-ed at Swing and the City and it was a “show your MTLX colours” night (yes, there are two different ways of spelling color (our) and I always forget which one is which).

MTLX stands for Le Montreal Lindy Hop exchange.

A dance exchange is an event that focuses solely on social dancing. You dance in the afternoon, you dance in the evening, and you dance late night until early morning. As opposed to a workshop or a competition, where the focus is on dance classes or competition.

The first Montreal exchange ran in 2005, and this year is the second edition happening the weekend 10-12th of August. There are some amazing out-of-town guest DJs coming in - Tomo Tanaka from New York, Mike Thibault from Rochester, Greg Avakian from Philly, Nathan Shetterley from Quebec/Detroit. It’s going to be awesome.

You can win a free pass to the event by wearing the MTLX colours (blue, green, burgundy, or orange) at a “Show your MTLX colours” sponsored dance. What is so cool about their promotion? Well, it’s an innovative way of getting the hype out. It gets people talking and participating.

If you’re in, you wear the colours. And not just at one dance, but at all of them. In effect, you spread the word to others just by being there.

MTLX in two weeks.

Two weeks ago, Ann Mony and I performed our Classic routine at Swing L’Été. The Classic division in dance competitions allows for choreography but no partner weight support moves - ie. no airsteps.

We had choreographed this routine in May for CSC 2007. The music: Jimmie Lunceford’s “Runnin’ Wild” off the album Stomp It Off on Decca.

Thanks Amanda for filming it!