Ten Things that Could Improve your Dancing.

Tonight, immediately after teaching the first lindy hop lesson in swing club this semester, someone asked me how to get good at swing dancing. I thought this topic was relevant to other dancers, particularly beginners, and would be help me to layout out my own goals and strategies.

First off, these are all my opinions, I am only semi-qualified to give them, and they are not a recipe for success.

1. You're dancing to have fun, right?

For me, the end goal of dancing is to enjoy myself. Challenging myself to be better, to learn interesting variations, to syncopate my steps, and to connect with a lead/follow are all ways to vary my dance and make it more comfortable.  I think that this will make it more fun.  I don't want to get better so I can be the best. I want to get better so I can have more fun.  All of the following tips are methods to reach this goal.  If you're sacrificing enjoyment to get better you're missing the point.

2. Take a lot of lessons.  

Take the lessons offered in your scene.  Ask questions during the lessons.  Don't be embarrassed by your questions.  I can almost guarantee that they've been asked before and that someone else is wondering the same thing currently. Retake the lessons until you feel comfortable with all/most of the material. Take notes on what you've learned and review on your own later. Once you feel comfortable with the material and have become proficient as either a lead or a follow take them as the other role. I will go into detail on this later.   

3.  Social dance as much as possible.

Go to your scene's social dances and dance with people of all levels. Don't feel embarrassed to ask people who are more experienced than you are to dance.  Don't say no to people, or avoid dancing with people who are not as experienced as you.  Try to enjoy each dance no matter what. You're spending the next three-ish minutes with this person so be present and let them know you're dancing with them! That's why making at least a small amount of eye contact during a dance is good.  Congratulating each other when something cool happens is also encouraging! Lastly, don't apologize, unless you've physically hurt your partner.  Most cool moves happened from mistakes so be confident when you make a mistake. You might've just invented the next big thing.

4. TRAVEL.

I know that some people don't have the time and/or budget to allow for this, but if you have the opportunity and the means to travel, you should.  Dancing with people from other places will help you grow as a dancer.  You don't have to go to an exchange or a workshop (though they are super fun and I highly encourage it); you can just go to a weekly dance.  Each dancer dances a little different and each scene dances a little (or a lot) different. Learning how people from other places dance will force you to lead and/or follow to accommodate these different styles.  You don't have to adopt them, but you might want to consider how they change your dance. 

5.  Try to switch roles.

If you are pretty comfortable as a lead or a follow try doing the other role.  It will break your brain briefly, but it will make you a more informed dancer. Knowing what's happening on both sides is fantastic and will help you understand what your partner is going through when you dance with them. You might even find you like the other role better. There's no way to know unless you try.

6.  Solo dance!

I was at Atlanta Varsity Showdown this past weekend and one of the instructors said something along the lines of "You can't do with a partner what you can't do on your own."  Which made us all giggle in fits, but on a dance related note it's very appropriate.  Get to know how your body moves alone.  Being self aware when you dance will allow you to connect with your partner at a higher level.

7. Actively and passively listen to music you want to dance to.

I know there is a lot of debate on what kinds of music swing dancing should be done to.  I suggest trying to dance to a wide variety of things before deciding what you like.  Then, listen to what you want to be able to dance to in a passive and an active manner.  Listening passively (listening without wondering what's happening in the song) will familiarize you with the songs and the genre.  Listening actively (thinking to yourself what the drums are doing, what the base is doing, etc.) will improve your musicality.

8. Know when you've hit a wall and decide how you want to address it.

I've hit a lot of walls.  I'm improving and improving and improving and BLAM I plateau.  Sometimes I even back track a little.  It's really frustrating when you love dancing and are trying to improve.   There are two ways I have personally addressed this with success, if you can think of more, go for it.  The first thing I've done is danced through the walls.  It takes a lot of force because you feel like you're going nowhere, but you have to trust that eventually you will get through it. The second thing I've done is taken a break.  I'm not talking about a break from dancing entirely. I'm talking about taking a break from situations that pressure you to improve. I took a break from lessons and traveling because both of those things make me feel like I have to improve.  When I returned to these things I was able to absorb more and begin improving again.

9.  Try teaching. 

If you want to teach and you feel competent, ask if you can teach a beginner class in your local scene. I didn't know what I knew until I had a room of fresh-faced baby swing dancers looking at me for direction.  OMIGOD it is scary the first time. They are dance putty in your not-all-knowing hands.  But act like you have a plan (better yet, have an actual plan) and make sure they have a good time. By then end of the first lesson you will have learned just as much about your dancing as the class did.

10. Remember number 1. 

It's so important I'm bringing it up again.  You're dancing to have fun.  Remember to think about that during all the other steps. If you aren't having fun why the heck are you devoting so much time to it?  Go enjoy yourself.

Lindy Hop Thoughts: Conversational Dancing

I like to think about dancing as a conversation.  I used to feel limited when I followed and sometimes I still do depending on the lead, my mood, or how tired my legs are.  But I am trying, with increasing success, to see leading as an open-ended question and to see following as an appropriate and interesting answer.

If a someone asks me "How are you today?"  and I answer, "I'd like two slices of cheese on that burger," I have answered inappropriately.  The conversation no longer flows because the question asker has to stop and think about what is going on.

If someone leads an inside turn it would be inappropriate for me to force an outside turn.  The lead would have to stop and wonder what happened and why.  It stops the flow of the dance.

However, when someone asks me "How are you today?" there are a number of appropriate responses. I could say "I'm fantastic; I just won a thousand kittens!" or, "Horrible; the world's supply of nutella ran out this morning."  I have answered appropriately in both of these cases and significantly influenced the direction of the conversation.

If someone leads an inside turn I should follow appropriately - with an inside turn. However, there are a number of ways I can contribute to the dance and influence its outcome while doing an inside turn. Maybe I want to do a pop turn. Maybe I'm feeling particularly sassy and I want to shimmy while I'm turning. I could do either of these things, and a number of others, while still following what has been led.

The beauty of looking at a dance like a conversation is that I don't have to feel limited when I am following. I used to struggle with this in almost every dance I had. I love silly dance moves. It used to irk me so much that I wasn't in control of the dance when I followed. All these opportunities for fun and interesting things would fly by while I got led through pretty standard moves.  But I have had a revelation: even though I am following I can be an equal or greater contributor to the dance conversation.  If I do an interesting variation I can inspire the lead.  This allows me to change more than the move, it allows me to change the dance.

This is not about hijacks, or rhythm variations, or styling, though it includes all of them.  This is about the way I view dancing.  This is about feeling empowered when I am following.  This is about two people contributing to one thing to make something greater than the sum of its parts.

Strawberries

This morning I crushed a strawberry into a cup of lemonade (which was delicious, obviously) and it occurred to me how little pressure was needed to mash the strawberry.

I don't know how many of you have had the chance to crush a strawberry at home, but I can tell you that it's no easy task. You have to hold them still and apply a lot of force to make them pulpy.   But these French strawberries sort of collapse on themselves if you apply light pressure with a spoon.

It's noticeable when you eat them as well.  As you bite into them they melt into pulpy messes. At home a strawberry is a more formidable thing - it holds its shape as you go.

I like both of them - the American strawberry for its bright color, plump appearance, and sweetness - and the French strawberry for its delicateness and its less sweet, but more flavorful taste.

I wonder how much the differences have to do with climate, soil content, genetic modification, and selective breeding.  We certainly like things to be bigger and sweeter in the US, so it would make sense if we had bred our strawberries to be larger and more sugary, but it might just be differences that happened by chance.

Either way: delicious.

How I React to Famous Things.

I have this freakish obsession with touching famous things (Not people. That's too creepy even for me).  It's not that I'm going to wander up to a Michelangelo and put my hands all over an incredible sculpture - that would be bad for the sculpture after all - but if I'm in a church, or a palace, or a famous building I'll run my hand along a banister or if none of the security guards are watching too closely I'll give one of the columns a brief hug.

It all started with the Hagia Sophia last summer. There's this thing called a wishing column.  It's a brass section of one of the pillars with an a little indent in the center. You place your thumb in the little spot on the pillar and make a wish as you rotate your hand all the way around.  And for me this offered some connection, quite literally, with the building and the other visitors.  The tactile sensation of the place made a great impact on me.  I remember being surprised at how cold the wishing column was despite all the warm human touch that had graced it. I remember thinking that my wish just went up with thousands of others from around the entire world for thousands of years.

Then there was the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, again last summer, where I felt like I needed to hug every column and run my hands over every surface.  There was something so alive about it.  It was constructed with such movement that the building looks like it is vibrating. In touching it I felt maybe I could resonate with it, maybe I could become a piece of the marvelous history that went into it.

This summer, the most prominent experience I've had has been at the Pantheon in Rome. I ran my fingertips along the cold marble on the wall, a dirt red stone in particular.  Perfectly smooth and cold.  I did stop to think that it was probably not the original stone being as it's close to the door and at a height where many might touch it, but it doesn't really matter if it is the original or not. More importantly, it is a part of something great and famed whether it was in the original building or added ten years ago.  Touching it connected me to several thousand years of history.  How many people entered that building in awe? How many of them got in an argument with their spouse? How many of them wondered how it was build?  How many of them wept?

What has become increasingly clear as I've touched each great building is that it's not actually the monument that matters, but the people passing through it that do.  The people passing through these famous places make them increasingly famous as their history is put onto a higher and higher pedestal.   While most monuments are breathtaking in their beauty and grandeur, many more beautiful buildings have fallen in fires, in revolutions, or simply in the passing of time.  It is just that these have survived and have been building reputations upon themselves through the passing of time.  They are important because we have declared them so.

For me the physical contact with them brings them back down off the pedestal. Touching a railing reminds me that it's a real place, not a photo in a history book, not the essence of a Roman god, but a real thing that people go in and out of nearly every day.  This simple act reminds me that it's the people who are incredible and amazing, not the building.

Post-Cannes Bloggin'

The study abroad has long ended and my grade has since come in so I now feel free to use this blog for whatever I might.

So welcome to The Factory: Post-Cannes Edition.

What have I been up to since leaving the glittering world of the French Riviera? 

The week following the program I went to Herrang Dance Camp. It is a magical place in Sweden where you do nothing but dance for week long intervals (and fuel yourself almost completely with ice cream). I took a series of lessons in advanced Lindy Hop with a good friend of mine from Atlanta, GA.   It was common place for people to walk down the street singing Gordon Webster pieces or break into a set of Charleston moves. Everyone dressed like people from the 1930s and 40s and tattoos as well as headbands and hair flowers were abundant.  Needless to say it was my heaven - except for the part where I felt like my feet might fall off or my calves might never relax. I'll go more into detail about what I learned in a separate post.

On the last night of the camp I danced until 5AM packed my things and got on a shuttle to the Stockholm airport at 6AM. I spent the rest of the day getting to Amsterdam where my mother was waiting at our hotel. I explored Amsterdam with her for a week which was not nearly enough time to see the city. 

Now, I'm sitting in the stark white Paris apartment my mother and I have rented writing this post with the mercifully reliable internet connection we have.  I've been here for a week so far and I'll be here for another week. Still, I'm not sure we're going to see all the things we'd like to.

A Different Kind of Agency

Sitting in the Debussy, cold and a little tired, I watched David Baldwin explain to me what my future could be.  He didn’t know I was sitting there. He didn’t know he’d told me exactly what I wanted to hear when I hadn’t even known what it was I wanted to hear. I tried to talk to him afterwards, but he got called backstage and I didn’t run into him later at the festival. Of course I’ll email him, but this will be separate, formal, normal, not the ephemeral magic of hearing a version of your perfect future laid out.

David Baldwin is the founder and CEO of Baldwin& an independent agency operating out of Raleigh, North Carolina.  It is a self-described “hybrid branding/digital/advertising/mobile/social media thingy.”  It works for brands such as BMW and Burt’s Bees and was awarded small agency of the year by Advertising Age, a coveted prize in the USA, within a few years of its beginning.

The presentation Baldwin gave somehow managed to be humble even though it was entirely centered on the work of the agency.  It was self-deprecating.  He talked about their work and showed a few case studies, but mostly he talked about their policies. This is what appealed to me most.  He said they didn’t like to define jobs, a common theme at the festival, because it limited only creatives to being creative. The work they do they try not to categorize. It’s a sort of catch-all agency making ads, films, websites, social profiles, outdoor events, art, connections, and communication. 

Then he explained that they only took clients whose goals they supported. The only way they could do their work effectively was if they believed in what the client was doing. They never took business they couldn’t stand behind.  And that was the moment I thought: I could work there. That doesn’t mean I’m going to or even that it’s the right place for me.  But before hearing this I had pretty much crossed agency work off my list for future jobs.  I never want to end up at an agency where I’d have to do work for a company I don’t support. It’s bad enough that I already buy things from brands that aren’t socially sustainable, like Nike and Wal-Mart, I don’t need to help them get even more money than they already have.  I don’t want to wake up in fifty years and realize I dedicated my life selling the next version of the cigarette.  So I’ve been thinking of doing in-house PR work for a non-profit I support (because there are plenty of problems I have with some of those as well).  I’ve been trying out some internships in local non-profits, but it all seems a bit pell-mell, and it’s hard to get people to understand what exactly public relations is and how each department can use it to their advantage.  At least at an agency people have some vague idea that you’re making communication for a series of brands.

Hearing Baldwin say that his agency only takes work it supports was really important to me.  Maybe Baldwin& isn’t the right place for me, maybe the work I support wouldn’t line up with the work they did, but at least I know that some agencies operate like this.   At least I know I can expand where I’m looking in my search for a career that offers a way to make a positive impact on society to include agencies again.

Cannes Day 7 - The Last Day

On this, the last day of the festival, I started the day watching commercials. Luckily they were running through VW ads, which are usually pretty interesting, so it was less mind-numbing than usual.

After that I went to "Creativity Inside-Out: A New Way of Doing Business" put on by an agency called Big Spaceship that operates primarily out of Brooklyn. It focused on changing the nature of workspace to foster informal leaning. It was good, if slightly contradictory. One suggestion they had was not making set strategies of process, but then they were listing out strategies for this process. Otherwise they presented some interesting proposals like doing walking one-on-one meetings, having projects that are for fun rather than clients, and allowing new-comers to the industry to rotate through different projects every six months if they wanted.

Then I saw "Being the Underdog: Building an Identity through Creativity," during which a Hispanic American, a Latvian, Hungarian, and a Guatemalan talked about the ground breaking creative work happening within each community or country. It turns out when you're an underdog you aren't afraid of failing so you can take bigger risks and the pressure of having a smaller budget forces you to be more creative.  This was by far one of my favorite talks the entire week because I didn't know about most of the work in these populations (except the Hispanic American work having seen a number of Hispanic publications and ads in my Texan school district).  

It was also the most angering seminar because they crammed four countries into one session on the last day when most people don't come. It said a lot about how the industry is structured to favor those countries that are already in power. The clips shown at the underdog seminar were no less impressive and innovative than those shown by any other country or agency.  Each county, which were barely mentioned the rest of the festival, got twelve minutes to talk. Yet we already know and are somewhat familiar with the work coming from shops in the USA, the UK, France, and Australia. Brazil has been getting more time in the spotlight this year, and they are sweeping the award ceremonies, but otherwise I've seen a lot of work and seminars from countries I already know something about. The seminar for the underdogs made me aware of just how much is getting left out, particularly in Central America and Africa outside of South Africa.

Now I'm sitting in the theater one last time to watch the final awards ceremony and trying to put any negative feelings behind me, at least for the night.

It's been one hell of a week.

Thank you and good night.