harvesterofhearts:

swishyswingskirts:

Every single video in that playlist is so much fun to watch, seriously, people, get on that. 

RE your rant: I was trying hard not to get the queer angle in there because wow, that opens up another can of worms right there -.- 
I’m not going to talk much about this, because it’s making me sick to my stomach and sad. All I’m gonna say is “Love Me or Leave Me” in Paris in 2011. 

…I’m all for men being feminine! I’m all for blurring the lines! But it fucking sucks when a performance goes from “Look! I’m doing this things with my butt that looks great!” to “Look, I’m going this thing with my butt so over the top that everybody MUST understand that I don’t mean it! Haha, no homo, all in good fun.” 

No. 

(You’ve got me wondering.. if the two guys gyrating were openly gay, would people cheer, or would that be considered “out of place” again..)

It is for these reasons that I had extremely mixed feelings about this video that a lot of people shared on facebook. I mean, especially the ending. Is that really necessary :/ ?

It really can be hard to navigate performances of homosexulity - heck, any sexuality.  When is it fetishizing? When is it sincere? When is it parody? When is it problematic? When isn’t it?  Sometimes I just don’t know.  

I do know that there are many gay men and straight men who - wowy zowie, they can FOLLOW.  They can perform typical feminine stylings, they can show sensuality with their male partners who can reciprocate in a sincere way that respects femininity  queerness, and not party-tricks it.  Sometimes it’s easy to see when people are being jerks and when people are actually expressing themselves.  There’s an empathy that’s either present or missing.

RE: Max and Thomas “Love Me or Leave Me”

Their performance in 2011 is actually a reprise of one of the first viral Lindy Hop videos.from pre 2006??

• 2006? here?
• 2007? here and here

It’s a parody of a famous Kevin & Carla routine!  I think that some of the humor comes from audiences giggling over omg a man dancing with a man, but I think a large part of the comedy comes from how well they mimic Kevin and Carla’s distinct ways of dancing. Thomas is a great follow, too!  He actually can pull off a good parody that doesn’t mock Carla’s femininity.  He CAN do it.  And it reminds us of Carla.  And it pokes fun at the choreography, that as the years go by, reminds dancers of what used to be more popular, great ideas that have become gimmicks, moves and stylings that we love to hate.  It feels like homage to me.

Back then it wasn’t as easy to get videos and so many dancers were very familiar with this vid of Kevin and Carla.  It would have been immediately clear what Max and Thomas were up to.

(Source: veronicaofithaca)

swishyswingskirts:

veronicaofithaca:

Seeing as this is a discourse that we’ll be bringing up in my scene in the coming weeks, I thought I’d pose it to tumblr: how normal is it for female identified persons to lead and male identified persons to follow in your scene?

Read More

I don’t even know you but I LOVE YOU GUYS ALREADY! YOU’RE ALL SUPER CUTE

Also, on a less squee-ful note, here some observations. 

As far as I can see, men and women are encouraged to lead, probably because there simply aren’t enough men interested in dancing to have a 1:1 man/woman ratio. On the other hand, only women are encouraged to follow. 

…I’m half tempted to go into an angry rant here about why two women dancing together isn’t a big deal, but when a man follows, suddenly everybody is forming a jam circle and going “Look how great!” (I’m guilty of that, tbh. Doesn’t mean I don’t view it critically..) because obviously it’s obvious by now that women can do everything that men do [♫everything you can do, I can do better. I can do everything better than you!♫) but men still aren’t comfy doing “women things” because ick, cooties! ..so we have to be extra supportive of them!!1! 

But I’m not gonna rant, noooope, not at all. 

RE: Angry Rant

I NO RITE?  It used to be the all the rage to hold same-sex/gender contests at late nights on big weekends, and I used to always enter.  I had a few women friends who could both lead and follow.  We could actually dance! We could switch clearly between roles and do banging dancing.  But it was always a garbage disaster.

What wins at those things isn’t good dancing, but who can do the most shockingly homoerotic stunts.  I hate the fetishization of homosexuality, that a straight guy gyrating against another straight guy is some kind of bold party trick.  Like it’s sooooo exciting and oh my god they went there and ngh derp.  

Yuck on men showing off by following poorly, vamping as feminine without actually dedicating consideration that following isn’t an inherently feminine act, that following isn’t just a sexy show that it’s an integral part of the dance.  Yuck on following as a stunt!  In those situations, their performance of clunky feminine performance is far more rewarded then actually following.  Which is hard.  Which is beautiful.  Which is really cool.  

*Yes, following can be an expression of feminine sexuality, it can be funny.  That is all valid.  But fetishizing it so often rings problematic for me. 

So I refer everyone to my playlist again.

veronicaofithaca:

Seeing as this is a discourse that we’ll be bringing up in my scene in the coming weeks, I thought I’d pose it to tumblr: how normal is it for female identified persons to lead and male identified persons to follow in your scene?

Read More

Ooh, good stuff!  I’ve been thinking and discussion issues like this for awhile and so at the end of my post I’ve got a bunch of links that might inform your discussions.  

In the Iowa scene, I wouldn’t say that ‘switching’ is very common at all, especially compared to the typical pairing.  Within that, it is far more common to see women leading other women.  I would say that for the most part people find it acceptable.  (As they should!)

I’ve been turned down by a dance before and the person explicitly said they’d prefer not to dance with another woman.  I’ve also seen local competitions seemingly limit women leading and men following by the way they word the event descriptions.

Personally, I almost always compete and teach as a follow, but socially, I lead about 40% of the time.  More if the dance is follow heavy and I simply don’t wish to wait.  Here is a story of me competing as a lead in a little Jack and Jill.  

(Some perspective on me: I’ve been Lindy Hopping since 2001, and began leading in 2003 to help teach at my school and because my best dance friend was a follow, too, so we both learned to lead.  I started really working on my leading in about 2007. I have taken workshop weekends as a lead. This blog post has a few thoughts on being a woman lead in a big workshop weekend.)

And now here are some links. 

• A list of links about the discussion that went around the blogging community a few years ago.  Lots to read. A lot of ‘everyday’ dancers pitch in, especially in the comments sections, and pros weigh in as well.
• This is a YouTube playlist of women leading and men following with names and dates.  It’s mostly competition footage, but also vintage clips and social dancing.

Just got back and I’ll say this: I had some great dances, there was some great music, met some cool people - feeling good.  ^^

Despite some travel anxiety and forgetting how to people, when I was dancing, it was footwork well, well spent.  My only regret is the same regret even when I dance every song of the night - there were some people I missed.  ^^  It’s a good problem to have.

HSF is a very follow-heavy event (are there any that aren’t nowadays?) so I did a good deal of the asking to dance, and lead about 50% of my dances. It’s becoming part of my typical dance experience these last five or so years.  In the past, I asked less often and usually got a surprised (but polite) response.  Most follows complimented me on my leading.  But since then, it’s become more common (at least in this area?) for women to lead and lead well so I ask more often and the follows are rarely surprised.  I get fewer compliments, I think, because it’s more normal.  My capable confident leading (if not all that finesseful or diverse) isn’t as anomalous   My partners don’t seem any more surprised we had a good dance than if they’d been asked by a male partner.  

That feels good.  That feels comfortable.  It feels like I can just be dancing and it’s not a party trick.  

And as usual: the absolute highlight of leading is getting to dance with my women dancer friends.  

It’s a real treat to dance to live music - hell to dance with anyone who knows Lindy Hop at all these days!  

Thanks, HSF.  Twas fun.  ^^

i’m kind of excited

swishyswingskirts:

thatfresnoblog:

Last night, I went to Wednesday Night Swing. One of the dance instructors was figuring out what all of the dancers of the Lindy Hop community had in common. He concluded that were are all nerds. Chloe and I added that everyone is a little socially-awkward. 

I think the same goes for just about every Lindy Hop community. Most dancers I meet are mathematicians, engineers, scientists, or historians.

I sort of want to cry-rant right now, because saying that most Lindy Hoppers are socially awkward nerds (who dance!) makes us sound like the ultimate Tumblr unicorns? And that feels weirdly elitist to me, mostly because “nerd” and “socially awkward” are non-labels used to make oneself sound more “special” in a way. And that bugs me? Dancing Lindy is plenty special enough, I think? 

I’m not exactly trying to argue against your point, I just don’t think your interpretation of what you’ve observed is spot-on? 

Most Lindy Hoppers I’ve met were indeed very passionate on a wide variety of subjects (not excluding science, but also including a lot other things not considered “nerdy” per se, like fashion and sports, of course.)
And what makes these people great dancers is just that: Passion. Dedication. Is that nerdy? Maybe, yeah. But then everybody is somewhat nerdy and again, it’s a non-description. 

Most Lindy Hoppers I’ve met were fun and nice and, after a dance or two, even easy (for me) to talk to. Does not being able to talk well to a stranger instantly make a person socially awkward? Not really. It’s normal. You’re going up to a stranger, offering to dance. Then you’re sharing this close physical contact with said stranger and you’re supposed to say smart and impressive things (because one should always say smart and impressive things, of course)… and that just creates tension. 

I dunno, I’m not generally disagreeable of the idea that Lindy provides an open and accepting surrounding for people to show nerves and nerdiness, share all the eccentricity and their other interests? That’s rather nice. 

I just think that slamming labels onto a really varied, colourful community is complicated. Not everyone is a nerd, not everyone is socially awkward.  And yet, we’re all Lindy Hoppers and now we hug it out, yay. 

I think I agree with swishy.  ^^  In my time (10+ years, mostly in the US Midwest), the Lindy Hoppers I’ve met are a pretty diverse group.  Lots of different occupations, I mean, lots of different side interests.  And social awkwardness is certainly a label I wouldn’t use to describe the Lindy Hop community as a whole.

Perhaps, social awkwardness appears more prevalent in a beginners environment because it’s a new situation for most people.  But that’s as far as I’d take it personally.

I think I read that fresnoblog wasn’t using nerd as a negative thing (I think people rarely use it negatively these days).  That s/he felt comfortable knowing that s/he had something in common with her fellow dancers.  

Get to go dancing in a couple weeks. 

GOING TO DANCE ALL THE TIMES!

Hawkeye Swing Fest - who’s all going? I think you tumblr hoppers are not super nearby me though.  Hmm…

scarymerry:

Hey, do any of y’all also sew your own clothes for dancing? One of my sewing buddies and I are thinking of creating a flickr group and possibly a blog dedicated to sewing for swing dance. I’m curious about what kind of audience there would be for such a thing, especially since I would probably make the blog a tumblr blog. There are plenty of vintage sewing blogs out there, but none of them seem to focus on sewing for dancing.

I would follow it!  I love sewing and I make my own clothes from time to time.  Someone else mentioned it, but I also do some recycling projects, modifying old clothes into something new.  I don’t specifically sew for dancing, but I do happen to wear clothes I made to dance in sometimes? :) 

sailsflyseaward:

Tumblr hoppers, I need your know-how!

One of my most glaring dance problems that need fixing is relaxing (which isn’t exclusively a lindy hop thing, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). A friend told me that my arm stiffens up sometimes and that makes it hard to lead me in certain things — it’s not the first time I’ve been told as such and I make a conscious effort to loosen up, but it’s hard going.

Is there something I can actively do to achieve a state of lindy zen or is it something I’ll eventually reach with time?

There are two kinds of relaxing that Lindy Hoppers and other movers talk about.

1. Making muscles and joints supple and responsive.

2. Being calm, being present, being ‘lindy zen’

These things are not the same! Although they can interact with each other.  Here’s my hot and fast methods for doing both.

Becoming Physically Relaxed

I strongly feel this isn’t some kind of magical thing - it’s muscle memory we can work towards! It’s a skill! Try and think about what ‘relax’ means.  In Lindy Hop, what we’re trying to achieve as follows is responsiveness and a feeling of being ‘there’.  Or body weight is connected to our arms, and to our partner so they can feel us.  Too much tension in our arm muscles can disrupt or disguise that.

So to work on this, I would practice doing it wrong.  Experiment with being ABSURDLY LOOSEY GOOSEY AND SOFT.  How can you make your muscles do that? How does it feel? How does it affect the dancing.  Do the same on the opposite side.  How does really ramping up the tension to being more wrong than you would imagine actually feel.  

In doing this, you start to know how to make your muscles do what you want because you’re testing it out.  Try the extremes and then begin calibrating to the middle.  

I also visualize being squishy, but not limp.  Springy, not jerky.  Those mental pictures help me find that middle.

Becoming Lindy Zen

Sorry. No advice.  

Just kidding.  I think dancing with a feeling of contentedness and joy and relaxation comes from being confident and focusing inward.  I mess up and suck at following as soon as I let my mind wander away from my partner and what we’re doing, to judges, to audience, to my clothes, to how I look, to other dancers.  

It also helps to know that it’s okay to make a mistake because I know concrete tools to handle those mistakes!  I don’t have to worry so much on being right all the time when I know how to handle accidentally letting go of my leads’ hand, or what happens when I step down on the wrong foot, or misinterpret a lead.

(You can practice being wrong, too.  Just do the wrong thing on purpose and see what happens.)

I feel Lindy Zen when I have no worries other than having a great time dancing, in that moment, in that movement, to that song.  

*obvs, these practice things will go better if you’re practicing and not social dancing.  I do mean ‘practice’.