At our dance venue on Yonge & Bloor, people mess around with the temperature of the studio all the time. To combat this, Kevin Sue installed a case-lock around the studio thermostat so that you would need a key to open the case to be able to have access to the studio heating system. Great idea in practicality, except when the key is no where to be found. So if you went to the drop-in lesson and live blues dance last night (and why wouldn’t you have gone?) and were sweating buckets, there was a greater force at work :-)

But yah what a night eh? Brian Cober and Aslan Gotov, for their first time playing for us blues dancers in Toronto, were great great great. Everybody was walking up to me throughout the night and asking where I found them. Well, actually, my israeli friend Kim found them but they have been playing in venues all around Toronto for a while now (ie. Grossmans Tavern). If you know more great blues musicians, remember to refer them to me!

The first blues dance in Toronto went pretty well, thanks to our good ol’buddy Patrick Tevlin playing some sweet sweet tunes for us. For the dance, we brought in a live band to play the equivalent of one DJ set (1 hour’ish) just to mix things up. The responses from the community have been pretty positive so far and we’ll definitely be integrating Toronto’s great blues musicians into the scene as much as possible :)

Patrick Tevlin – Toronto Blues Dance – Blueberry Hill from Hamfats.ca on Vimeo.

Patrick Tevlin, Suitcase Sam, Robin Hatch
January 14, 2010

are always best when stolen.

So I have been driving down to Seattle the past two Tuesdays to their weekly blues event, Burn Blue (http://www.burnblue.org) and have been taking notes. The ideas? Having official hosts for the dance and unofficial taxi dancers. [Side note, if you do not know, I'm currently out in the west coast doing some what I am calling dance training but it can be more accurately described as an honest butt wuppin'.]

Dance Hosts – Burn Blue has rotating official hosts that are in charge of answering questions, making announcements, and generally being the go-to person for the dance and the organization. Wow. This is a great idea because so far there are numerous people in the Toronto blues dance scene who are a lot more charismatic than me yet default to directing to me. This is probably my fault, truth be told. Having official hosts for the dance hopefully will remove the idea that the scene is run by a single person. I also have a fear of public speaking, so having someone do announcements would be better for everyone involved.

Unofficial Taxi Dancers - at the entrance of the venue, you can grab yourself a glow stick that designates you as a “taxi dancer”. What this specifically means is that you are open and willing to dance with people who asks you. So simple, but from what I can gather, seems to put a little bit more friendless to the entire dance. You also encourage everyone/anyone to be a taxi dancer instead of pre-selecting people like our swing dance association. The costs would probably be under $5 CND but the awesomeness of knowing who to ask to dance when you are new to the dance or the scene is priceless.

So yup, there you have it. Two ideas i’m gonna “borrow” for when I get back to Toronto ;-)

Kevin and Alcina teach the drop-in class for the blues dance.

So I’m sitting here at Starbucks underneath the Yonge & Bloor Studio after Toronto’s monthly blues dance last night. I’m replying to emails and Facebook messages about classes and future dances with a giant stupid grin on my face. Why you might ask? Well we just had a fantastic dance last night that was well attended by a fair amount of aspiring blues dancers and new dancers (as opposed to 100% new dancers) and I think I can say that Toronto’s blues dance scene is here to stay. Huzzah \o/.

Time to quit!

Joking… maybe.

Honestly though, it might have played out differently if we had tried to continue to push through the idea that we should try to appeal the blues dance to everybody and specifically the swing dance scene. I’m pretty convinced that this would have single handedly killed the blues dance scene before it even had the chance to take off the ground. The fact is these days, the majority of the dancers going to the dance and taking dance classes are from other dance scenes or complete beginners. Obviously, in an ideal world the dancers from swing would come to blues because, well, they already are fantastic leads and follows. However, instead of us waiting around for blues to be accepted by our friends in the swing scene, we’ll build a great scene that will be waiting for them if and then they decide to come (with open arms).

Pictures from the June 04, 2010 blues dance :)

Standing for Something

I was talking to Marvelous Martha this afternoon and she sent me a link to a leadership video about having a belief. It got me thinking about an exercise that we did for the Yonge and Bloor community about what we stand for. It took us half a year but I believe that the Yonge & Bloor blues community is starting to find its own footing in the overall social dance scene in Toronto.

Just in case you missed it, this is what we stand for at Yonge & Bloor Blues:

#1 – Blues is a dance in its own right.
We believe that blues dancing is an art form all its own, which requires the same amount of study and practice as any other dance style. It is not just a dance done at the end of a lindy hop night nor is it done only at house parties.

#2 – Blues music for blues dances.
For blues dances, DJ’d or live music, we like to dance to blues music. There is a rich history of blues music including but not limited to jazz blues, delta blues, piedmont blues, and rhythm and blues.

#3 – Respect each other as dancers and individuals
On and off the dance floor we try to treat one another as we would like to be treated. Blues can be a very close and intimate dance, but only if both parties/dancers are comfortable with each other. Respect each other’s space and comfort level.

#4 – Build a community of dancers
We are a community with a shared passion – dance. If we focus on our shared passion, the fruits of a community naturally happen.

#5 – Pursue growth and encourage sharing of knowledge
We work as a community towards common goals – to learn and grow to become better dancers and to spread that knowledge to other people. We’ll try hard to provide opportunities for this to happen and we’d like you to try hard too.

To say that we came up with these beliefs naturally and easy would be a lie. We thought and debated about each point long and hard before committing to them. There were decisions made in drafting these beliefs that were not very popular with some of our existing community dance members in Toronto (and to some extent, still not, but it’s gotten significantly better).

In our community, we have some dancers whose personal preference about blues music is something that you might see at a lindy exchange, where the earlier part of the night is up-tempo swingin’ tunes before slowing it down later on, maybe after midnight. An all-blues music dance night is not for them and I understand and respect them for it. We all have our own personal preference for music and dancing and as any dance organizer knows all too painfully well, you can’t please everybody.

The change by introducing an all-night, blues-music-only dance in the community had its risks. We definitely received mixed reactions but all we could do was weather the initial knee-jerk reaction to change and keep pushing for something that we believed in. We wanted blues dancing to be it’s own dance in Toronto. Blues music for blues dancers.

Making a stand for something is not free from hassle; it does not mean we won’t alienate some lindy hoppers and we may even lose some dancers whom we don’t directly cater to in terms of musical or dance tastes. Not everyone will agree to our style of blues dancing and blues music, but that’s okay. Standing for what we believe in means that we are willing to lose a few people if it means we have others who LOVE blues dancing even more. They are also the ones constantly introducing new people to this dance and getting the word out. They are the ones really building the scene.

More to come later.

Previous entries:

• http://hamfats.ca/toronto/rebuilding-blues-part-2
• http://hamfats.ca/toronto/rebuilding-blues-part-1
• http://hamfats.ca/toronto/rebuilding-blues-part-0

Wow what a great first class for our (Kathleen and I) first progressive beginner blues series! I can’t even describe how pumped up I am about having dancers come out and support blues dancing in Toronto.

So how did we do it? Honestly… it’s easier than you think.

1. just lots and lots of hard work. Eep…
2. relentless scene building non stop even with hurdles and naysayers in your path.

I’ll have a more detailed blog post to come within the next few weeks, I’m just super excited right now and had to post up something! :D

When you are organizing dance events, it’s important to keep things fresh as much as possible not just for yourself but also for the tireless volunteers to help out to make that dance event successful. Here are a few quick things that we did for the Yonge & Bloor Blues dance event, “Jelly Roll Blues” to keep things fresh.

New Blood – DJs and Volunteers

We got a new upcoming and blues DJ here in Toronto and his name is DJ Hong Kong John Wong! He’s super stoked about starting to DJ and honestly that enthusiasm is contagious. Of course we also have the ever talented and fellow hamfats blogger, Kevin “Fats” Temple, who comes every month from Kingston and spins some good oldies and newsies. Check out his previous blog post about ending a dance. With the cultivating of exciting blues djs, we are ensuring that future dances constantly changes and evolves musically and never gets stale.

We are also getting interested new blues dancers who want to help out and volunteer for the dance. Big win.

Sweets and Other Nick-Nacks

Jelly beans and jelly punch for the Jelly Roll Blues dance. Get it? We thought it was pretty clever ;) They were definitely a big hit and provided a nice place to hang out and chat when not dancing.

Facebook Advertisements

In order to spread the word about our dance, we started thinking of creative ways to promote our event on facebook. Here is one of our ads:

Not Stress about the Little Things (but it’s all about the little things)

The eventual goal of the monthly dance event is to have it run so smoothly that even if myself, Jaclyn, or Kevin Sue were not around, it should still be able to run without any difficulties. Part of that involves not worrying about every little detail but instead entrust and empower each organizer and volunteer to make decisions that affect the dance.

Pictures + Taggin’

People love seeing dance photos of themselves. We conscientiously tried to take as many photos as we could during the dance so that we would have something to share and talk about afterward.

Content

Having lots and lots of content available for your group members and potential dancers keeps people interested in the dance, the culture, and community of your dance event.

Last night, at the end of Yonge and Bloor Blues, after our last blues song we turned back on all the lights and I played a couple soul/motown songs  to wrap up the night. The people who were still around and still wanted to dance got a chance to bust out the moves one more time and we got an upbeat end to the night.

I did it without thinking much about it, but when discussing it with Randy later, I realized that I did it because I don’t like anti-climactic ends to the evening. Maybe it is just a personal preference (I walk out disappointed when the end of a movie is anti-climactic, I prefer things to be wrapped up in a neat little package), but I feel that I have more fun at a dance when I get a chance to release any residual energy and dance hard one last time at the end of the night. There can be the instinct as the dance progresses to lower the energy level and then call it quits, but I think that the best DJs/Bands will respond to the dancers’ energy level and but then push them to dance harder when the energy gets low.  

It is like the fade-out/defined ending distinction in songs, but at the macro level. I (and many dancers) prefer it when songs end with a defined bang instead of fading out into silence. Plenty of great songs with fadeouts, but ideally most of them would have a distinct ending. Ideally the night should be ended on a high note and the dancers should be able to get some closure.

In the dance world, it can be difficult to accomplish this defined ending, because dances will sometimes run for an undefined amount of time (i.e. until people get tired/bored and leave). At Yonge and Bloor, we don’t have the problem because a large majority of our dancers leave in time to catch the subway, so our dances come to a natural end about 1ish. (And then Randy tries to convince people to get Pork Bone Soup)

At some lindy hop events organizers give a satisfactory ending to everyone’s night by having concurrent lindy hop and blues rooms until the end of near the end of the dance. People can choose their own adventure, and if they want to dance hard just before they leave to wrap up their night, then they can. Alternatively people will finish things up with swing and soul or gospel sets before the end of the night so you get an extra chance to get your groove on.

I have a bit of a pet peeve about organizers/DJs/whoever is responsible (no time for the blame game) who come to a foregone conclusion about how the night is going to go down and where the energy will be at any one time. At lindy hop dances, the pre-determined (insert arbitrary time here) is not “blues-o’-clock” in which you play progressively lower energy music until people get bored and leave, nor is it necessarily “west-coast-o’-clock”, or “disco-o-clock”. It all depends on the dancers, and only partially, they should be pushed in an energetic direction. Don’t decide that people are out of energy, because when you do so, you are killing the night instead of keeping it on life support for as long as possible. If it is indeed disco-o-clock, better make sure that it is a welcome change of pace that will ultimately inject new energy into the tired/bored/uninspired dancers. None of this wimpy lullaby disco stuff. (While disco was an arbitrary illustrative choice, I do firmly believe that a disco afterparty is a great idea.)

These are all just my personal thoughts, I am sure that I am not the only one who likes to wait for that last good dance before leaving, and I hope that I am not the only one who likes to see dances end on an energetic note. (Energetic organizers yelling at people to leave doesn’t count).

Possible times to close out the night:

• Energetic-Lindy-Hop-o’-Clock
• Those-Blues-Songs-That-Really-Get-You-Moving-o’-Clock
• Soul-o’-Clock
• Disco-o’-Clock
• Hip-Hop-o’-clock
• Charleston-o’-clock
• Surf-Music-o’-clock
• Rock-around-the-clock

-Your (Somewhat) Friendly Neighbourhood Kevin Temple