Btw Nando eventhough we have our disagreements and arguments I have to say one thing...

way to go on calling out eden

Quoted from "jester"

Quoted from "bryn"
Well in Nando's case, he's been to blues events and is familiar with non-grindy blues.

actually thats funny because I have been to a good amount of blues events and oddly enough have only seen Nando at one of them... I noticed him because he was busy sucking face with someone on the dance floor for most of the night.

I'm sorry, but was I using my crotch to make out?

Otherwise, Kissing Bandit... present.

Quote
Face it nando, the only reason you are reeling from these make out comments is because it is something you use to do! You had run off to your hole for awhile because it has burned you time and time again.

Wrong! I still make out. But I like to make out with more money.

Quoted from "grasshopper"
Even Devona and Ogden, two people I highly respect in the Blues scene, have agreed that much of what's seen in lindy event blues rooms just ain't really blues.

I guess that's what happens when you go to a "blues dance" and hear more tango nuevo, urban, R&B, soul, funk, and westie music than anything else. I've sometimes felt like being the sole Democrat at the Republican National Convention.

Why all the non-blues music?

Seems to me that blues dancing is technically so flexible that people steal liberally from every other dance form they know and mix it in with the blues dance base; whether it's some kind of slow drag, fishtails, mirrored rock-steps, or simple weight changes. They take that, mix it with their full dance vocabulary and discover that it really works to almost any kind of music.

I'd argue that with blues dancing's accessibility and flexibility, it's not really surprising that it's getting danced to (getting diluted by?) all of the non-blues music out there. Hopefully it's progressing but that remains to be seen. With luck, we'll avoid the tango salon/tango nuevo schism.... nah, probably not. :lol:

Quoted from "LindyChef"
I think Devona also hit a nail when she said that many people don't know how to dance to blues music. I personally don't think alot of the dancers out there have enough tools to connect to the music.

Excellent point. Seems like most people's first introduction to blues dancing (the non-swing kind) comes from slow, sensual blues music. First impressions are everything. They see the slow blues room, mimic the type of dancing they see, and perpetuate it.

This is all well and good, but that form doesn't work with all of the different types of blues music out there. Some blues music feels better to westie to. Some of it's funky. Some of it's swingy. Some stuff asks for molasses bal (Willie bal), and it feels good. Really, all you can do is give people the tools to express themselves to the music. Once they have the tools, they can build whatever they want.

At STLBX05 I was delighted to see Charlie and Heidi introduce a hundred people to a fast blues routine. If we want people to be better blues dancers, I think we need to augment their blues dance vocabulary, otherwise they'll default to what they know and we miss out on delta blues, Texas blues, and <insert your blues offshoot here>. This is already happening at events like STLBX, Camp Jitterbug, the Emerald City Blues Festival, and all of the other blues practicas and workshops.

Seriously, I'm a big ho for a blues workshop. More, please! That's how we will maintain blues dancing's authenticity and grow the community.

-Joshua

can't we all just get along :dunno:

Quoted from "Dr. Feelgood"
I DJed last night at Friday Night Blues in SF. [...] Very little ballrooming, which is what I was aiming for but I have to be patient I guess and musically seduce the crowd better perhaps.

The FNB floor is generally way too crowded to allow for couples moving freely around the floor, LOD or not. Particularly when there's a couple doing contact improv at one corner :-)

I agree, Steph. The more I actually blues, the better my whole spate of dancing becomes. I find I'm much better able to understand any lead thrown at me, and to MUCH better be able to follow those leads whose lead is extremely subtle. It used to throw me. Now I get it.

It's taught me better muscle isolation. There's a deeper understanding of and connection to music.

I grew up around blues, and I grew up in a hotbed of hot culture (Mississippi/ Louisiana). So I've always had a more sentimental and cultural connection to blues than a sexual one. For me, even the "dirty" dancing is just a natural reaction to the whole picture. When I hear blues, I think of black water, fried food, music on the street on a hot summer night... And why wouldn't that make anyone hot, honestly?! :D

But modern blues, essentially, is about the interplay between connection and musicality. It's, I think, a more interpretive dance than anything else under the "swing-ish" umbrella. You have to have good connection, and sometime close connection, to be as interpretive and as musical as blues calls for.

I might get my ass kicked for this, but I'll be honest. Bumping and grinding can be a hell of a lot of fun. But it's certainly not necessary. Nor is it always (or even most of the time) appropriate.

Basically, if you're out bluesing, and someone is clothes-on-copulating on the dance floor, and that's not really you, I have two suggestions:

1) don't dance with them,

and 2) keep dancing the way you want with people who don't squick you out.

IMHO, it's really that simple.

So if blues dancing is developing now in much the way that Lindy Hop was developing in 1998 and 1999, then "Sexual Healin'" is modern blues' "Jump Jive and Wail."

Ponder that.

Ron

please let this thread die...