Dear God please stop snowing
This week, DJ Lee Tucker,
Will not be spending Tuesday night in gym socks reading Guns and Ammo magazine, like last week. Instead he will be at The Jam Cellar, playing music to the hordes of people who were locked up in their houses all weekend after forgetting to go buy bread at the grocery store before the blizzard, and thus survived mainly on the fig newtons at the back of the pantry that expired in 2008.
Performance Class Extra Practices
For those in our Performance Class, Kate and Bobby will hold additional 30 min classes in "the other room" from 10 to 10:30.
March's Inter/Adv Classes–(March 2-March 23) HOLLYWOOD AND HARLEM:
Classic Moves and Styling
In the original days of swing, Hollywood and Harlem were the nation's hot spots for swing dancing. Though each dancer was unique, East Coasters and West Coasters tended to share certain styles and moves in common with others from their areas. In this class, the Jam Cellar crew will teach many of these Hollywood and Harlem styles and moves, to give inter/adv dancers great tools for leading and following, and to give their dancing that classic look. (It'll also help you understand why you feel such different swing-outs from different dancers). Throw in a lot of discussion on the history of jazz dance, and this thing's a steal. 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays, March 2-23. $55 for entire series. $15 drop ins. Students should be comfortable with all the material in our Building Your Basics series.
March 30– AERIAL TASTER CLASS
Are you a guy who doesn't know how to pick up a girl? Are you a girl who doesn't know if she wants to be thrown? Now's your chance to try it out, as a little taste before our month-long aerial series coming this summer. We'll learn a basic aerial or two, to get you used to the idea. This class is specifically geared towards creating good aerial posture, attitude, and practicing technique. $15 gets you into the class and dance. 8:30 p.m. March 30. Partners recommended, but not necessary. However, we do recommend comfortable clothing and sneakers for both boys and girls. (Practicing aerials can be a work out.)
A Quick Note on Floorcraft*
At two recent events, I went to some dances that were packed, and thinking I'd try to show some students a good time, I made the horrible mistake of asking them to dance. I just as well could have asked someone to join me in getting kicked in the soft part of the ankle for three minutes.
And these weren't the random, apologetic kicks of someone who misjudged their Charlestons. These were the far-worse, apathetic kicks of people who simply didn't give a damn about anyone else on the dance floor, even their partners, because THEY were feeling the music. (Actually, to be more precise; they were more likely trying to make everyone, including themselves, think they were feeling the music.) I got kicked so many times I can't count, and only heard ONE SINGLE APOLOGY.
This of course happens all the time, (it was even part of swing back-in-the-day; the movie Twice Blessed used it for comical affect.) I just happened to experience it twice in under a month, a thousand miles apart, and at a time when I was exhausted from teaching people how to be considerate to their dance partners all day. I was also jet lagged and in the general mental state one gets when being woken up at 4 a.m., and thus I had dropped any silly niceness my normal demeanor has and could despise these people with the proper amount of hatred they deserved.
I could write a long essay on floor craft, (and I did for today's email, it even involved the phrase "The Texas Tommy the Nazis used on POWs" ) but I'm going to cut it short by simply saying: If you want to engage in partnership dancing, your first priority should be making sure your partner is not in any danger. Otherwise, try solo dancing.
Likewise, if you are going to enter a tight dance space, let me know what logic you're using to make you think you can dance like it's your space alone.
I might adopt that philosophy; and make sure I find a space next to you. ***
——————————————————————–
*–I just love footnotes. Even when they're pointless.**
**–Just kidding. The (*) footnote symbol was leftover from when I looked up from the original draft and realized it had grown to three pages worth of writing, and I wasn't anywhere finished about talking about floorcraft. I then put in the (*) footnote mark, pointing to a footnote that said: "Of course it's not quick. It started off that way, but this is Bobby writing, so, of course it's long as hell."
***–Original ending of this short note added the sentence. "And trust me, there's one hard-cor mother f*cker waiting to come out of me."**** Which Samuel Jackson would have nodded in agreement at looking at me when I wrote it. It felt great to write, a cathartic moment writer's live for. I guess I have some pent up feelings on floorcraft.
****–If you question the amount of hard-core ness that is available in the body of a dorky anglophile theater nerd, then you haven't seen me play basketball against hypocritical theologians.