alain’s dance blog

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.

The Spirit Moves is considered the bible for Lindy Hop and authentic jazz forms. Indeed, the documentary contains authentic footage of dancers back in the day, dancers that we now consider “legendary”, dancers like Leon James, Al Minns, Frankie Manning.

Here’s a description from SavoyStyle, maintained by Judy Pritchett:

Mura Dehn was a Russian emigrant to the United States in the 1930s. She was so impressed with the African-American social dance that she saw in New York City that it became her life’s work to document African-American vernacular dance. One of her achievements was “The Spirit Moves”, consisting of six hours of remarkable archival film. Formerly available for viewing only at the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York City and the Smithsonian. The first 3 parts of this are now available on videotape at SavoyStyle.

For those who are curious about the content, here’s the original index from the movie:

Chapter 1
Ragtime: Strut, Cakewalk, Breaks–steps in cakewalk
Jazztime: Charleston (1920’s), Jazz steps (1930’s, including Boogie-woogie, Shimmy, Susie-Q, Snake hips, Black bottom, Fish tail

Chapter II
Blues: Rent party, Shakeblues, Speak easy, Male shake blues, Gutbucket blues

Chapter III
Savoy routines: Trunky doo, Aerial lindy, California (lindy), Big Apple.
Postwar trends: Calypso, Apple jack
Jazz Dance

Many Lindy Hoppers today study the Spirit Moves and learn from them. For example, Mike Faltesek’s famous 2006 solo blues routine draws elements from the Shake blues section. And Naomi Uyama’s winning performance in the solo blues contest at Showdown 2006 shows influence from the solo dancing of Mildred Pollard (aka Sandra Gibson).

I’m so glad this documentary exists to show us authentic jazz dance forms as danced by artists from that time period. You can purchase The Spirit Moves at Swingdanceshop.com.

Mélanie Huot-Lavoie and Alain Wong competing in the Lindy Hop performance division at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown 2007.

Mélanie hasn’t seen the video yet, but I think we are satisfied with our performance. I was really stressed the morning of, waking up before everyone else in our hotel room and then watching CNN in the lobby because I had nothing else to do to keep me distracted.

We did get some good feedback from dancers, so that was cool. Ben Yau from California commented on the fact that despite our short stature (we were by far the smallest couple performing), we did a good job of dancing big. Yay arms and hands.

Let me know what you think of our performance.