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!

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:

Congratulations everyone! Kaboom!

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.”

For example, let’s say I hated big kicks, but Joe loves them. I could be inclined to say that Joe’s kicks are too big, which is what I’d tell him as a beginner. But when he’s an advanced dancer, I have to realize that maybe “big kicks” are going to be his thing, and I need to just back the hell off and let him evolve a big kicking style that totally works for him.

Because there’s something even worse than getting Joe to do smaller kicks. The worst thing is if he goes half way. Because if he’s going to start the new “crazy big kicking style” craze in the swing scene, he can’t do it with medium-sized kicks.

His style can’t be a half-way point between my style and where he wants to go. He needs to just embrace his inner kickiness and run with it.

Maybe it will turn out that his big kicky style is uglier than a mashup of 70′s leisure suits with 80′s hair styles. But so be it. That voyage of self-discovery is the whole point of becoming a better dancer. And just as it’s a necessary ritual to have embarrassing photos in your high school year book, going through weird phases in your dancing is part of the journey.

As teachers, that’s why it’s a tough call: giving good advice, and not letting poor technique or bad habits masquerade as “personal style,” but also knowing when to shut up and let people find their own way.

The post was good enough that I felt it should be shared beyond just Facebook. I’ve been asked this question many times in Ottawa and Damon’s answer has detailed insights about the differences in movement and interpretation.

Damon writes:

Keith Shapiro asked me what difference I saw and what I instructed the bluesSHOUT! judges to look for in these two styles of blues dance. I thought others may find the information interesting enough to spark conversation.

The difference in movement I see between the styles comes in three places:

1) Floor interaction
Jook – A rolling off the hips as the dancer drops into the floor and pushes themself out, and a preference for limited traveling.

Ballrooming – A sinking into the floor and then pushing out as the dancer swings their free leg in the direction of movement from the hip with a preference for traveling across the floor.

2) Manner of movement
Jook – Deeply rhythmic, often staccato movements with sharp direction changes or strong hits with various parts of the body (often hips). Lines trend towards short and angular, bending or breaking to form new lines in a sharp movement.

Ballrooming – Moderately rhythmic, a rolling movement with smooth changes in direction and a rolling movement of the torso (originating in the waist not the shoulders). Lines trend towards curves our elongated straight lines that dissolve into new and contrasting lines.

3) Music interaction
Jook – The melodic line of music is used primarily to shade the movement of the entire body giving the quality a different flavor than what was happening previously or to inspire new rhythmic movement entirely.

Ballrooming – The melodic line serves as a second rhythmic line causing the dancers to step off the base rhythm and instead execute their steps to the rhythms they hear there. This is most often seen during the breakaway open-position movements.

About Damon Stone

Damon Stone has taught at all of the first three Blues Blast events in Ottawa, as well as at countless other blues events around the world. He’s also one of the founders and organizers of one of the top blues events in the world, Blues SHOUT! Read more about Damon on his Blues dance web site.

Swing Dynamite just came back from the Canadian Swing Championships, where over 30 of our team members, teachers, and students came to dance, compete, cheer and party. And every year that I see dancers compete for their first time at a major competition, I see the same secret hope: everyone wants to be that guy or girl. You know, the won who comes in and wins the very first competition they enter. From unknown to rock star in a heartbeat.

Of course, the chances of that are staggeringly low, even for a dancer with lots of true natural talent, because even if your dancing is that good, there’s still luck involved–whether you ended up with the right partner in the Jack ‘n Jill contest, loved or hated the songs they played, or lost your shoe in the fast round.

But beyond that, there’s a lot more LUCK behind “natural talent” than you might think.

We often talk about “talent” as though it were just a question of how much natural coordination and musical creativity you were born with. And that’s definitely an important part of it. But talent isn’t just that.

A lot of what we call “talent” is just what your natural instincts tell you–how to move, how to interpret the music. Some people naturally move more like a Tango dancer, others more like a Hip Hop dancer, and some people move more like golfers or pool sharks. This isn’t actually coordination–it’s simply that out of the infinite ways your body could choose to move, each of our brains starts off with an initial guess as to what’s going to work.

Similarly, we all react to music differently. If your natural instinct is to kick on the downbeat (eg. the 1), then you’re an instant sensation in Lindy Hop and Charleston, but as a ska or shag dancer you’ll need to make adjustments. Some dancers start off hearing the downbeat and upbeat in swing music as equally important, which causes them to seem “off-beat” to other swing dancers. But it’s not because they couldn’t find the beat–they just hear all of them!

Finally, there’s the connection. Lindy Hop has a more rhythmic connection, Balboa’s is very subtle, and West Coast Swing draws it out a lot. If you’re lucky, all of those make sense for each style of dance. But if you’re not lucky, you have a different instinct for how to connect–maybe you draw out the Lindy connection too much, or connect too rhythmically in WCS. It’s not a lack of coordination or musicality, it’s just that beginner’s luck didn’t work in your favour this time.

That’s why the same person could take a while to learn Tango, but learn Lindy Hop in a heartbeat–or the opposite.

The good news is that it’s not permanent by any stretch! All you need to do is to recognize where your instincts aren’t compatible with the dance style that you’re trying to learn, and to be willing to change. In fact, with some hard work your “unlucky” instincts will one day set you apart as a dancer, because you’ll have greater range of movement and interpretation.

Eventually, even the dancers with the most “talent” still have to work hard to become great dancers. Don’t worry too much about being a “natural” or having “talent.” After a few years, the hard work is all that matters.

As it turns out, what’s most important is making the fundamental technique as solid and instinctive as possible. Years ago after doing a performance with the Swinging Air Force at la Place des Arts (Montreal’s largest music theatre), our client said to us, “it’s amazing how you look like you’re having so much fun!” I replied that in order to actually have fun on stage, you had to first put in enough hours of dance training and rehearsal that you no longer had to think about the movements or the routine. The bottom line: for it to be truly fun, there had to be a lot of work first.

Adrian Cho has a great post on his site, the Jazz Process, about this: how great innovation comes from great execution, in both jazz and business.

This is a principle that we use a lot in our swing classes at Swing Dynamite. A huge part of the strategy behind our course design, in particular for beginner swing classes, is keeping the order right for those steps. Learning technique first helps the execution. But we also have to keep it fun!

Improv isn’t just a central part of swing dancing–it’s also what makes the dance so exciting! And as it happens, any classically trained musician will tend to agree that if you spend too long working on technique without improvisation, it’s very hard to improvise. So how do we teach enough fundamental technique yet also introduce improvisation?

The key is in using a cyclical rather than linear approach. We start off in our first beginner swing classes (eg. Swing I) by introducing very simple rhythms and patterns. The simplicity means that we can drill the rhythms and basic lead/follow principles until they become instinctive, and the basic patterns fade into the background. That’s when the improvisation can occur. The idea is that if the basic pattern is simple enough for a dancer at that level to master, then we can start introducing variations on the pattern.

This cyclical approach repeats throughout the classes. You start with a basic pattern, you learn how to mix it up, and then you revisit how you can improve your technique so that improvising around the pattern is easier. And then you’re on to learning a new pattern.

Of course, part of this learning process is that in order to learn a social dance like Lindy Hop or other swing styles, you need to social dance–to simply get out there and dance with random people. The secret is that after doing enough social dancing, the basic patterns you’ve learned become imprinted in your brain and it feels like your body can do them on its own. That’s when you’re ready for more.

Running a dance school is enough of a challenge, but running a dance school dedicated to the little-known dances of Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, Balboa, Blues, Shag and so on, is the kind motivation for entrepreneurship that they warn you about in business school. You’re supposed to start businesses that will make money, not just make people happy.

But for us at Swing Dynamite, it’s always been about spreading the happiness and excitement that we find in Swing dancing. Natalia, our artistic director, was speaking not long ago with her father, who said he was proud of her because her work makes people happy. It’s exactly right: we all began swing dancing because it was fun, because going out dancing and interacting with people made us happier. And we started teaching and performing in order to spread that joy of swing dancing to more people.

What’s really amazing, though, is when we can go beyond just spreading happiness through the dance, to changing people’s lives in other important ways. Since not long after we founded Swing Dynamite, we’ve been involved in doing charity work, organizing benefits, teaching classes at reduced rates for underprivileged children, and doing performances for fundraisers. Recently we managed to raise money for Haiti and medical aid to Cuba, as well as performed and offered services for a few different charity organizations such as the Canadian Paraplegic Association. For all of us, this is an important contribution.

There’s a hidden benefit to companies working with charities to offer services: recent research shows that non-profits are often seen as less competent, offering less valuable or professional services than businesses. Think of it this way: you might want to support a charity, but would you rather buy a TV set made by Sony, or by the Cancer society? It’s an extreme example, but when businesses get behind charities they can increase the perceived value and professionalism of the organization. If you can buy a Sony TV and have some proceeds go to the Cancer society, it’s a win-win, right? Similarly, we hope that as one of Canada’s top swing dance groups, our participation makes people even more excited about attending charity events, helping to increase the attendance and funds raised. It’s one thing to attend a 40′s themed charity ball, but (we think) something much more exciting to attend when Swing Dynamite is teaching dance lessons and doing performances to set the mood and create excitement.

It’s great when swing dancing can be about something greater than the dancing, or even our little dance community–when swing can help to change the world just a little bit.

Personally I’ve found that a simple notebook is a big part of keeping dance notes. Lately I’ve been favouring a small Moleskine notebook using tabs to index the subjects. I used to use a larger Blueline notebook but I found that it was a little bulky to carry around everywhere.

That’s part of my personal secret in terms of taking notes: instead of having one notebook dedicated just to a single subject–eg. Lindy Hop, or even swing dancing–I just use one notebook for everything, and I date every entry. I’ve found it’s often easier to find things chronologically in any case, and the fact that I use one notebook for everything means that I’m less likely to forget it. Any sections that are really important, earn tabs–I like the little plastic ones made by 3M.

Also, lately my iPhone has become a secondary note-taking device since it’s always with me, but it’s not as quick to take notes on as a paper notebook.

I’ve been experimenting lately with a great online/offline tool, Evernote, to keep all of my note-taking organized. Evernote stores your notes from various media, whether it’s scanned documents, audio notes, etc. and keeps it all in the cloud. It even does optical character recognition on your photos and indexes the text.

To help you prepare yourselves, I’m going to be profiling each member of our astounding teacher line-up. One bite at a time–remember to chew.

———-

Tina “Sweet T” Davis is easily one of the world’s top blues DJs (I’ve borne witness to several standing ovations in response to her sets) and has been widely recognized as such for many years. But more recently, she has been gaining notoriety for her dancing and teaching, as well. It’s no surprise: Tina embodies the spirit of blues more than anyone I know; I distinctly remember learning more from one dance with her than I had from years of study. She is a woman of power, sensuality, humour, and grace. Her big booming laugh is tempered by striking humility and a quiet dark side so delightfully wicked that, should you ever catch a glimpse of it, you’ll feel strangely blessed. She is not unlike any of us: strong yet vulnerable, troubled yet hopeful, captivatingly beautiful and yet not immune to moments of ugliness. Blues music, she writes below, “cuts through all the crap and the walls that people build up around themselves… it gets to the essence of living and being a human being.” Humanity: deep and complex, yet as eloquently simple as a blind man on a porch, strumming his guitar to the tune of the sweltering heat. The difference between Tina and the rest of us is that Tina is brave and ardent enough to bare all of her humanity on the dance floor.

Have you always been a fan of the blues?
I’m not sure if I can say definitively how long I’ve been a fan of the blues or blues music, but I’ve listened to music as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I used to make mixed tapes all the time. I listed to the radio constantly, literally going up and down the radio dial soaking in different types of music. So for me, the Beatles and the Supremes were as real and relevant as Duran Duran or Run DMC or anything that was on Top 40 radio in the 80s. If I was exposed to Blues music as a kid, I probably slotted it under the heading of “oldies”.

I think being exposed to different kinds of music growing up definitely helped me when I started partner dancing (first with ballroom and eventually with Lindy and Blues). It definitely made me appreciate different types of dances and adapt to them more quickly than the average person walking into a ballroom studio at the time.

Now that I dance, teach to and listen to more blues music I realize that blues music is everywhere and has been the basis for a lot of music. I hear that “blues shuffle” everywhere.

What is it about blues that speaks to you the most?
The emotion and universality of the music. Everyone has experienced heartache. Everyone has experienced loss, or tragedy… or great joy or overwhelming desire. I think that all music certainly reflects the human experience, but blues music cuts through the crap and the walls that people build up around themselves… it gets to the essence of living and being a human being.

How would you sum up your dancing philosophy?
You gotta have fun!!!! If it stops being fun, don’t do it.

Your teaching philosophy?
More of the same… I try to teach with a little fun (which is the best thing about teaching with Don), but I also try to get students to be the best dancer they can be in their own skin. I don’t want them to emulate the latest, greatest Rockstar dancer on the planet. I’d much rather they be their own Rockstar.

And finally… what’s the one thing you hope people take home from your classes?
Just one??? I guess I would say that quality and clarity of movement is a big deal and can hide a lot of sins. I said something a couple of weeks ago during a class that will probably be the brightest thing I ever say during a class – passion without control is just chaos.

Authenticity is the quality of being real, originating from the right place. Legitimacy is endorsement by others.

Lindy Hop didn’t evolve by prescription. It wasn’t created by committee. Millions of young white kids were drawn to this African-American dance in the 30′s and 40′s for that very reason. It allowed them to escape the rigid norms of European dances for something more free-form and liberating, yet structured enough to create a common ground between dance partners.

In the modern revival of swing dances, the culture has changed, mostly because the dance is nurtured in professional dance studios and university multipurpose rooms instead of the streets and ballrooms of Harlem. It makes it so much easier to fall in the trap of seeking legitimacy–doing it the “right” way, seeking to be certifiably “good.” Which goes against the whole reason we fell in love with swing dancing in the first place.

The holy grail of Lindy is authentic expression, movement that comes from inside, from baring open the heart to share with others. Open heart Lindy, the dance without pretence.