Hamfats.ca » Mambo

Medley Photos

Randy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:25:02 +0000

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Thanks to Tien, we have pictures from the Medley!

The ladies starting off the medley routine..

then the guys come in to funk it up.

Gil and Joey flying through the air.

Group shine.

Ending pose!

Doh! I look silly.

More Pictures!

Toe Taps and Body Rolls

Randy — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:19:35 +0000

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Performing an all footwork and shine routine for five minutes is hard enough. Now try doing this with fifteen other dancers. Deadly.

I love mambo shines. Every since I first saw Frankie doing his “Welcome to the Party” routine, I have been obsessed with moving my feet faster and turning my body into a flexible rhythm machine.

I’m no Frankie, but this is one step (get it?) to mambo nirvana.

For more pictures, head on to: http://hamfats.ca/photos/ifs_green

Video

I have also included our shines routine which I have nick named affectionately as “The Swarm”. Hehe…

Mambo Performances – Backstage Photos

Randy — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 05:48:00 +0000

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Performing is a funny business. The punch line usually involves long wait times punctuated with last minute frantic running and yelling. Since I usually have nothing to do backstage until performance time (besides drive my dance team members batshit about me complaining about nothing to do) I kill time by taking photos.

Shoes… one must always have their shoes prepared. And make sure everyone else in the room knows that your shoes are ready :)

Getting some shut eye before the big show. Me pretending I’m getting some shut eye.

Dance competitors waiting to perform at the Toronto Salsa Amateur Competition.

Chillin like villains.

Competitors anticipating the winning couple being called down.

Killing some time with some hoops.

The always impeccable Marlene.

Jason the latin talent of the IFS dance company.

Miss Lam doing her thing…

For more photos of this event, click on this link: http://hamfats.ca/photos/ifs-2009-circus-backstage.

African Fantasy Performance

Randy — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:01:42 +0000

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Here are some shots from my performance with Joey, Marlene, and Laura. We performed a choreography to Bobby Montez’s “African Fantasy”. I have included a few pictures here and a short video filmed by SalsaTO.

Joey, Marlene, and Laura resting the day before the performance. @ Mad for Dance studio.

Uh… “fierce”?

Joey and Marlene warming up before the performance.

Joey and Randy. This is how I warm up.

This is my point of view right before performing.

This is us being silly…

In the following images below, the flash did not fire unfortunately:

Check out more photos at: http://hamfats.ca/photos/salsa-performance-may-31

Videos

Social Butterfly (Dance Card) Event

Randy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:03:41 +0000

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United Salseros hosted an awesome event last night that involved the use of “dance cards” and an emphasis on making sure that beginner dancers have a good time.

There were dance hosts consisting of “regulars” in the Toronto salsa scene who were instructed to actively seek out the beginners who usually fall by the wayside during normal socials and club events. Definitely, one of the best dance ideas I have seen executed in a long time in the world of social dancing.

Pictures

iFreestyle Training Session

Randy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:23:30 +0000

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As some of you might know, I dabble in various organizations to further my development as a dancer. The mambo dance team that I have had the fortunate opportunity to be a part of this this year is Caryl’s iFreestyle mambo training team.

This weekend, we had our first “SYTYCD-esque” challenge where we had to prepare our own solo choreography in which we fused a dance style with mambo shines. For my piece, I chose to fuse boogie soul together with NY cha cha to Joe Bataan’s song “Too Much Lovin’”. The following pictures below are from that event. My main source of inspiration was actually one of the main weaknesses of my own dancing – arms/hands styling. I wanted to force myself to actively put together routines showcases not just my fast footwork but also complimentary movement from my other limbs.

Sadly, being an avid photographer means that there are no pictures of me. Actually, that’s not so bad because I’m sure I look ridiculous.

Pictures

For more photos of iFreestyle team members, head on over to the photo page: http://hamfats.ca/photos/ifreestyle

Outta my way ’08! Here comes ’09!

Tien — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:44:02 +0000

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What a long, overdue post! 2009 is into the end of it’s first month and things are well underway with my goals. Still, there is much to do and I hope this will inspire all those who are looking to see growth in their dancing this year.

Like most, 2009 kicked off with a reflection of last year; my growth in personal and dance life, achievements, goals, opportunities (taken or missed), expected and unexpected happenings.

2008 was the start of a different life, a new city with little to no friends, living on my own and finding my way through dance. I kicked off ’08 with the New Years Swing dance at Dovercourt and what an awesome way to start, and it set the tone for the rest of the year.

Let me put this out now, I had only started dancing Lindy Hop late-spring/early-summer of 2007 with only a small number of lindy classes taught by Jungle Swing in Vancouver. By the time Seattle Lindy Exchange rolled around, I was about 3 months into it. My resolution for 2008 was to expand and train more in swing. This led to a huge growth in my dancing.

’08 Milestones

2008 Annual NYE dance
3 classes a week with Bees Knees Dance (for 3 months)
Stompology ’08 in Rochester, NY – May 30th – June 1st
Soul and Lockin’ class with ShabbaDoo @ Broadway Dance Centre in NYC
MezzJelly Blues with Jeff Benoit & Kristen O’Neill in Waterloo – June 20-22th
Kevin St. Laurent guest class for BeesKnees Dance
LindyStock ’08 in Toronto – Aug 1-4th
Joined BeesKnees Dance as a Junior/Assistant Instuctor (I’m a male prop)
Started going back to Salsa/Mambo
Swing Explosion III with Zack Richard & Maryse Lebeau in Ottawa Sept 26-28th
Swing Out to Victory – Nov 15th

As for salsa, mid-’08 was when I started to pick up salsa again, this time with mambo/on2. This kicked off with Randy’s multiple visits to Toronto. Randy = more salsa.

Salsa classes with Frankie Martinez in NYC
Salsa classes with United Salseros
Joining the United Salseros student performance group
Salsa dancing at the Howard Johnson in Vancouver

Just to reminisce a bit. Here are some photos I have found of me dancing in the streets during an extremely hot day in Seattle. Terrible yes, but we all started somewhere :)

Seattle Lindy Exchange ’07

Uploaded on August 13, 2007
by realcherylcrow

Uploaded on August 9, 2007
by mistystarfire

Uploaded on August 6, 2007
by physibeth

’09 Feels like an awesome year.

It started with a killer workshop weekend with Mike Faltesek and Casey Schneider from Seattle and shortly after, the Toronto University eXchange 2 which took place last weekend and it was KILLER! Kudos to the students that came from all around to enjoy and take part in the Toronto lindy hop scenes; McGill, Western (UWO), Kingston, Ottawa and of course the local Toronto students (UofT). The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday night dance with Swing Toronto with live music from the Rainbow Gardens Quintet.
The next workshop is in February with Steven Mitchell & Virginie here in Toronto with a few other events coming shortly after. I’m excited with all these lindy events so far, it gets better and better each time which will help improve my dancing.

Lindy Goals: Swingouts, Vernacular Jazz, triple steps, transitions from lindy to jazz steps in social dancing.

I’ll probably have a number of posts about this throughout the year so watch out for it.

Next, salsa, my gateway to the world of dance, is something that I have been looking to get back into for the last 2 years. To push myself, I have started performance training with United Salseros with 2 classes a week, one performance training and the other a regular mambo/on2 class. What I have enjoyed with United Salseros is the focus on techniques in the class, mixing body isolations with the steps and patterns as well as control over each move that is made.

Goals: Mambo/On2 steps embedded as default movement, 360 Crossboddy leads, spins, reaching my former level of competency in salsa (I give myself 3 months), shines and body isolations.

I have always believed that all dancing is related and that each borrows ideas and movements from other dancing, thus I will also focus on other aspects of dance in order to help improve. These goals are: More focus on lead/follow connections, more locking and arm movements (maybe wacking), overall body finess.

Finishing off, this year, I would here are a few lindy events that I would like to attend for ’09.

Frankie’s 95th Birthday Festival (http://www.frankie95.com/) – New York – NY
LindyBout III Apr 17-19 – Vancouver, BC
Stomplogy ’09 – Apr 17-19 – Rochester, NY
Lindyfest 2009 – Mar. 12-15 – Houston, TX
Camp Jitterbug – May 28-31 – Seattle, WA
Seattle Lindy Exchange – Aug 7-9th – Seattle, WA
Lindy Bomb II with Peter Strom & Naomi Uyama – Mar. 6-8 – Ottawa, ON
Vietnam Lindy Exchange (at a beach!) Mar. 20-22 – Ho Chi Minh, VN
Canadian Swing Dance Championships (CSC) May 15-18 – Montreal, QC
Kevin St. Laurent & Emily Hoffberg Lindy Hop Weekend – Jun 5-7 – Toronto, ON
Swing Out New Hampshire – Sept. 2-7 – Hebron, NH
Lindy Focus VIII – Asheville, NC

Obviously, I will not make it out to all of them, but ideally, I would like to be there.