Swing Dynamite Blog
Thoughts and news about swing dancing in Ottawa
How Claudia Started Swing Dancing
[ No Comments ] Posted by byron on Jun 14, 2010 in General
Our event director Claudia’s got a great post on her personal blog about how she started swing dancing. It’s called Trips to the Bookstore Are Dangerous!
CSC 2010 Results
[ No Comments ] Posted by byron on Jun 10, 2010 in Competitions, Ottawa, Swing Dancing
Swing Dynamite – and therefore Ottawa – had another great year at the Canadian Swing Championships in 2010.
This year everyone from Ottawa who placed was connected with Swing Dynamite in some way–as a teacher, coach, team member (current or past) or student, which makes us especially proud both for representing Ottawa so well once again, and for the success we’ve had in training dancers. Many of the dancers below were competing for their very first time, and ended up making finals or even placing at Canada’s biggest swing competition!
Just some of the awards Swing Dynamite won at CSC 2010
Here’s a comprehensive list of our accomplishments this year. Competitors are listed even if they are no longer team members, and even if they’ve since moved out of Ottawa – we’re still proud of you! I’ve listed placements below 3rd place as “finalist” unless the placement was particularly noteworthy for the number of competitors or level of competition:
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Teaching Advanced Dancers
[ No Comments ] Posted by byron on Jun 04, 2010 in General, Swing Dancing, Teaching Dance
We’re at an exciting place with swing dancing in Ottawa: the rise of the advanced dancers.
When we first started Swing Dynamite in 2006, the advanced dancer was a rare breed. Most dancers were beginners. If you could do a decent swingout you were pretty good!
The challenge in teaching dancers at that beginner/intermediate level is like the old metaphor of holding a bird in your hand: to grasp firmly enough to keep it from flying away, but gently enough that you don’t crush it. Similarly, what most dancers need is a balance between giving them the technique they need in order to move and connect better, and the freedom to play, create and simply have fun.
Things change with advanced dancers. At some point dancers need a new kind of guidance. You have to let the bird fly away. And very few teachers understand this. Even the top teachers in the world often tend to focus on getting everyone to dance the way they do, when what the advanced dancers really need is to discover their own style.
That’s where we’ve gotten with many of Ottawa’s dancers now: they’re good enough that I have to be cautious about coaching them, because they’re in that zone where it’s not all about “good vs. bad” anymore: now it’s about their evolving personal style. So I have to focus a lot on differentiating between “poor technique/expression/creative choices” and “not going far enough in their own direction.”
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