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 ;-)
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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!
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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.
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by Randy
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