As I travel, take workshops and meet all these great instructors in the dance scene, I started to realize that they have persevered through many of the challenges we face as growing dancers. We all focus to get us to that next level/tier/awesomeness we forget about what keeps us inspired beyond the moves and techniques we learn. So here I ask, to those we look up to what words/advice do you have for us dancers to keep us inspired, or really what do you want to say to all dancers.

At some point, I may refine upon the ideas, but here is what I have collected thus far.

Lastly, thank you to those whom have participated so far: Virginie Jensen, Steven Mitchell, Peter Strom, Naomi Uyama, Nina Gilkenson, Todd Yannacone, Andrew Thigpen, and Karen Turman.

Didn’t bring extra flashes or umbrellas this time around as I was in Toronto predominantly for work and had to pack accordingly. I stuck with a fairly light setup of one SB900 with flash bounce card and rented a canvas stand and “vintage” backdrop from Vistek. Putting it all together was a breeze, maybe five minutes tops with some help from two tall peeps (curse of a filipino) to raise the stands as high as it can go. There were a few close calls with the backdrop falling on people but that was because they stepped backwards onto the stands hehe.

An interesting situation happened – my two flash cards were nearing maximum capacity about half way throughout the night. I had to switch from camera RAW files to FINE JPG to squeeze out the last fifty or so photos. I’m not sure what the arguments are for having the photos compress directly to JPG but I was unimpressed with the results. It looks just a bit more washed than I would have liked but I will have to re-test for my next event so I know it’s not actually my post-processing that’s affecting the quality. Still, it was a great option to fall back to when the only alternative was to pack it in.

Till next time.

I did something a little bit different and filmed from the back of the room this time for Followlogie 2012 cabaret competitions. While it was neat to see a performance from the other side and to see the crowd’s reaction, playing it back just feels a bit off. In any case, lesson learned, next time I’ll head for the front of the crowd.

This is the routine of the cabaret winners by the “W-Project” girls here in Montreal. I’m a bit biased but this was definitely kickass (although all the performances were great!).

So Tien and I have deemed 2012 as the year of executing and getting stuff done. We got a lot of ideas moving forward… crazy hippie ideas… but exciting never the less. What are those crazy ideas you might be asking? Well, let’s not get too carried away now. These ideas might uber-suck but let’s just say they involve more dancing, more pictures, and more coffee. Crazzzyyzyzyzyzy I know!

2011 was kind of a blur to be perfectly honest. After I wrote last year’s “in review” post, I promised I would never write one ever again (holidays + computer = sad randy cat) but if you must know, here is a quick re-cap of the year:

Randy – moved to Montreal, continued to grow the Toronto blues dance scene, joined a few dance troupes, ordered a latte for the first time en francais, danced with blindfolds on, got his own office, and is still searching for a new liver.

Tien – moved to Vancouver, competed in WCS, helped bring out Damon and Heidi to Toronto, took pictures of what he ate, and did a bunch of things called “fusion”. Also met a girl who wears abercrombie and fitch, he’d take her if he had one wish, but she’s been gone since that summer, since that summer.

This site is probably going to change within the coming weeks as well. Right now, we have it as “social dance culture” which is a bit misleading because social dance culture really means being out there and being social. You can imagine the dilemma of having a blog about social dance culture on the interwebs. Most of our deleted blog posts (the ones that never made it on the site), consisted of the following:

“Went out dancing, met a few new people, talked to some old friends – great times. Should have been there”.

So, we are looking for a new motto! Being indecisive, we have the following:

• Hamfats.ca – Pictures and Stuff
• Hamfats.ca – Randy and Tien’s Excellent Adventures
• Hamfats.ca – Google “hamfats” for a Definition
• Hamfats.ca – Not in Toronto Anymore
• Hamfats.ca – Messin’ Around… har har har.

edit: Randy you missed an event ~Tien

Tien and I checked out the Careless Lovers in Kirkland (just outside of Seattle) for a weekday showing and took a couple of pictures and shot this impromptu vid:

They were missing their trombone player but they were still super fun to dance to and really interacted with the audience throughout their sets. I’m sure we all know this to be true it it’s still worth mentioning – it really does make a difference when musicians are also dancers!

You know what’s neat in VanCity? Neat jazz music at an even neater indie-hipster venue!

On Wednesday, I stopped by Guilt & Co. and listened in on the Jen Hodge All Stars band in a venue that looks straight from prohibition-era Chicago. All that was missing was a bouncer in front asking for a password before letting you in. Having learned my early swing dancing in Vancouver, I was pleasantly surprised that the dance scene came out to support live jazz even though it’s not really a dance venue. I was also pleasantly surprised that at least more than half of the dancers who came to listen actually took the time to get dressed up, like you know, what normal people do when they go out. I remember the times when “lindy-bombing” in Vancouver was a bit of an embarrassing affair – a bunch of poor university students in tshirts and jeans not buying drinks and blocking the for the rest of public.

The word on the street is that the lindy hop scene in Vancouver is in a bit of recession, with Jungle Swing doing less and less events. However, it might be a worthwhile trade-off if there are neat places like Guilt & Co hiring awesome jazz bands to listen to and there’s just enough space to dance a few jigs. What do I know though, I’m only here every couple of months ;-)

Sundays – Blues (Brouhaha), Lindy Hop vintage/fast swing night (Swing Connexion)

Tuesdays – Swing (Le Petit Medley), West Coast Swing (Dance Conmigo)

Wednesdays – Lindy Hop w. live music (Les Bobards)

Thursdays – Lindy Hop (Le Rialto, once a month), West Coast Swing (Studio 88)

Fridays – Lindy Hop (Cats Corner), Blues (some late nights at Cats Corner)

Saturdays – Swing (Studio 88)

Original list by Balboa Fred!

If there is an important lesson that I learned this year from being a quasi dance organizer is to accept that shit will always hit the fan. Once you accept this fact, it really is quite endearing – like a really bad joke that you haven’t heard in while being used an exactly the right moment that it’s instantly hilarious again.

Here is a really great quote by Carl Beuchner that I have been using for inspiration for the last few months for the Toronto Blues Dances, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This year I really worked on not worrying about things that doesn’t effect the overall awesomeness of your dance. Obviously you always want to learn from those mistakes but it’s not the end of the world if it does happen. What I did work on however is making sure that everybody who comes through the door feels welcomed (and that it’s great to see them again!), the volunteers who help out know they are making the event possible and are actually appreciated instead of being looked on as FREELOADERS, and that the DJs and the musicians who entertain the dancers get positive feedback throughout the night from community.

You would be surprised by how something as easy as telling your friends that if they really liked the music that night to let the people responsible know, can have a profound impact on the rest of the night. Second and third sets immediately have that much more OOMPH to it. Your DJs suddenly feel like they are doing more than just hitting play on their laptop and your musicians really start feeding off the energy of the room.

The same thing goes for your door shift volunteers. Some dances that I have door-shifted for have made me feel like I should be grateful that I’m coming to the dance for free and therefore I should be indebted until my shift is over. That is totally the wrong way to approach any volunteers because they are your first point of contact with dancers coming into your venue. They are the ones who are greeting new dancers to your community, the new dancers who will hopefully continue to come to your venue for years to come. Why treat your most enthusiastic and fanatic community members like a cheap work force?

An event you organize is really an extension of who you are as a person. If you genuinely are passionate about dancing and really care about your community, it will shine through at your dance. You might not open the venue on time and have everyone waiting outside in the freezing cold but I promise you they will walk away telling their friends what a great place it is to dance.