alain’s dance blog

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!