Tandava

I took monastic vows today, accompanied by the assumption of my new spiritual name: Tandava. Neither of these events requires the other, but they go well together. A spiritually meaningful name can act as a beneficial focal point or affirmation, and the change itself is an interesting exercise in non-identification with one of our most identifying aspects: our names. I have to admit also that I simply thought “Brahmachari Graham” sounded a bit dumb, and so if I were ever going to get a spiritual name, it might as well be now. So, with that bit out of the way, there are a lot of interesting things to say about the process and reasoning behind the specific choice.

I first encountered the term “Tandava” earlier this year, when I was learning a chant for the Shivaratri kirtan. The chant goes “Jaya Shiva Shankara, Voom! Voom! Hara Hara / Hara Hara Hara Hara, Voom! Voom! Hara Hara.” I was just absolutely delighted and tickled by the voom-vooms, and mentioned so to Dambara, who informed me that this is the sound made by Shiva’s dance, which is known by the name Tandava.

Fade that into the background, and fast-forward to the night I decided to look for a new name for myself. I went by the library and checked out a dictionary of Sanskrit names. I flipped through it a little bit that night, noticing how it was arranged alphabetically and also in thematic groups. I planned on making a systematic search through it, writing down potential candidates to review later, gradually narrowing down the list, etc. Then I woke up the next morning and had a name. So much for plans. I looked it up to make sure I’d remembered correctly, then the book just sat around on my table for a few weeks until I returned it. I told Asha about the name, and she liked it enough to pass on to Swami Kriyananda, who said it was a beautiful choice and gave it his blessing.

The association with Shiva appeals to me because Shiva is the Mahayogi, the great meditator, but is also active in the world -- it’s his dance that creates, sustains, and finally dissolves all of creation. He dances his Ananda Tandava, a dance of joy, to celebrate and enjoy creation, but he is detached enough even to destroy it all (with the Rudra Tandava) when the time comes. That wholehearted joy and enthusiasm, combined with inner detachment and freedom, is very much what we’re trying to embody at Ananda, and in the Nayaswami order.

The dancing aspect of Shiva is known as Nataraja, the Lord of the Dance. I had to laugh when I realized that connection. Several years ago, I was given the name Anachoron by Eric, who always assigned new names to friends he referred to on his blog. He explained that it was from the Greek: anax (lord) + choros (dance). He didn’t even know at the time that the melody to “Lord of the Dance” (a.k.a. “Simple Gifts”) had been my personal theme music for years.

And this brings me to why I like the specific connection with dance, which I expand to include all of music, since dancing for me was always just another way of being a musician. I’m not drawn to actually get out and dance much anymore, but it feels right for my name to commemorate the transmutation of it into spiritual qualities. Dance and music gave me a lot of my early experiences with spiritual principles and attitudes, before I even knew I was on the spiritual path.

Attunement is one of the most significant of these principles. I’m reminded of Richard’s “what can you dance to this?” exercise that he would often do at the end of a Social Dance course. He would play a wide variety of music in quick succession, switching from style to style, and from simpler to trickier tempos and rhythms, challenging us to find the right dance for each one. Every time the music tripped us up unexpectedly he would call out “What’s wrong with the music?” to which the correct and resounding answer was always “Nothing!” The music is simply something to attune ourselves to, letting go of whatever we were just doing a moment before, letting go of our expectations, and finding the right way to move our bodies with what’s trying to happen around us. Similarly, the Tandava dance I want to do is not a dance of my own creation, but movement in attunement with God and Guru, whatever music they may play for my life.

In dancing, of course, you don’t have only the music to consider, but your partner and the other dancers on the floor as well. Though trying to express the ideals of the music, you have to bring them into physical manifestation in a practical way. What is your partner’s level of ability, and how can you work with it? How much space do you have to maneuver? How can you adapt creatively to sudden changes and unexpected obstacles on the dance floor? And through all that, how do you maintain your connection to the source of the inspiration? Inspiration naturally changes to a certain extent as it gets “translated” into a physical manifestation, so you have to stay open to seeing how it will work out, and not get fixated on one particular idea.

Dancing this way is an expansion of consciousness. You become intimately aware not only of your partner’s every movement and momentum, but also the enjoyment and ease with which she’s dancing. You get a sense of the dance from her center as well as from yours. Leading and following happen as much by magnetism as by physical movements. Along with the focus on the partner connection, your awareness also spreads out across the dance floor (especially in a traveling dance, like a waltz), to the other dancers, to the musicians. When you have all of this in a perfect flow, the self-consciousness just drops away into a pure, joyful experience.

Dance can also embody the quality of calmness in the midst of even intense activity. Many times in fast waltzes and especially polkas I’ve deliberately slowed and deepened my breathing, centering myself in the spine, even as my feet moved faster and faster. This was a way, I realize now, of focusing and directing my energy precisely where I needed it, as we do in meditation, in the Energization Exercises, and eventually in all of life.

And so that’s some of what I had in mind in choosing “Tandava” as a name and an affirmation for how I’d like to develop: focused energy in meditation and activity, expanded awareness, compassion for others, and a joyfully engaged enthusiasm combined with the ability to let everything go when needed.

SYTYCD Solos

One thing I was appreciating during this latest season of So You Think You Can Dance was the solos. It seemed to me that more people were actually putting some thought into choreographing their solos to the music, and we had less of the "just turn on some song and do your stuff" kind of thing. I find that hugely important, since to me dance is inextricable from music. If you really want to have the biggest impact, you've got to get the most out of each part of the equation.

Brandon, however, deserves special props for taking this to still another level during the penultimate week of the show. He went beyond simply choreographing with the music, and also optimized both his choice and editing of the music. I didn't know the piece he used, but it was orchestral, choral, and hugely dramatic. Not only that, but he used the ending of it, with a powerful, bravissimo!-sort of ending that practically commands you to stand up and applaud your hands off. Combine that all with the fact that Brandon is a fantastic dancer, and it's no surprise that he got a standing ovation from the judges.

In fact, I think it's incredible that I've seen 4 seasons of this show now and this is the first solo like this that I remember. You'd think it would be a no-brainer, but so many dancers just let their music get cut off wherever the 30-second break comes. So even if it was a beautiful solo, you're left with a sense of frustration at the interruption, rather than a sense of satisfaction from the completion of an excellent performance.

As for the actual results, I thought Brandon had it in the bag after that solo. But Jeanine was tied with him in my own preferences, so I was quite please with her winning in the end. (And she had a wonderful tango-esque solo the last week.) I was surprised at Evan making it into the top 4. As much as I love him, Ade was honestly the better dancer. But oh well, it was still good to see the "nice guy" get that far.

And as for the choreographies, I thought the final competition show was kind of weak for a finale, aside from the Paso Doble, which was probably the best one of those they've had on the show yet. Throughout the season, though, there were some really good routines, so the final results show with the judges' favorites was excellent. I thought the hip hop routine that started the whole season was excellent, and I was also very impressed with the "Addiction" contemporary piece, and Brandon and Jeanette's tango. Lots of good stuff.

Dance Limericks

In honor of Limerick Day, which I only just found out existed, I dug up a bunch that I wrote probably about 8 years ago. In Richard's social dance classes, we had to write a one-page "essay" each quarter, to justify him giving us an actual unit. After a few years of this, I occasionally had to get more creative, like when I submitted the following collection of limericks. Many of you Richard-Powers-groupies out there may recognize some of his teaching metaphors. :-)

An arrow protrudes from my chest,
And a laser beam comes from my vest,
I take the blow with my back,
As we roll, Jill and Jack;
The waltz tends t'wards violence, at best!

The hustle, as a dance, isn't funny,
Except when one hops like a bunny,
I simply can't stand,
To see a one-two-three-AND --
It just makes my insides all runny.

Occasionally persons pontifical,
Say the waltz is a dance quite centrifugal,
But whether forces act out,
Or around and about,
Is a question considered most difficul'.

There was a young lady named Cindy,
Who danced a remarkable lindy,
Her skirts and her hair
Just flew through the air,
Whether or not it was windy.

Some people may think you are odd-ish,
When the ska plays, and you dance a schottische,
With a one-two-three-hop,
And some pivots on top,
That makes their legs tangled and knot-ish.

There once was a dancer named Luke,
Who made a bet with a good friend from Duke,
That he could waltz 'round and 'round,
And around and around,
And around, until ready to ... stop.

While attempting to waltz on my toes,
I repeatedly fall on my nose.
It is quite a treat,
To get off of my feet,
But my nose flows a rose on my clothes.

Son of Contra Plus!

So if you missed out on Contra Plus!... well, you missed out. But Bob and I are going to be DJing for the first couple of hours at Big Dance this Friday, so you can come get your fix of contras + couple dances there. We won't have the incredible band we had a week ago, but we've still got plenty of good stuff lined up, so it'll be fun. Come dance! (And then stay up all the rest of the night and dance some more!)

Contra Plus!

Bob, Lacey, and I have been organizing a new dance event. It's called Contra Plus!, and will be about half contra dances and half couple dances -- waltz, swing, polka, tango, etc. The music will be awesome, Decadance will be performing for us, and Bob and I will be calling. If you haven't done contra before, just come to the class beforehand and we'll get you up to speed right away. If you're primarily a contra dancer, it'll be a fun chance to do more couple dances. Full event details are on Facebook -- feel free to pass it around and invite all your friends!

Waltzing in Bozeman

Lacey and I flew out to Bozeman, Montana this weekend to visit Antonia for her birthday. (And in the process, met Keri, another visiting friend who, it turns out, lives just a few blocks from me.)

I must admit that I was moderately terrified of leaving comfy California for somewhere with highs that barely cross freezing temperature. But it turned out to be not too bad. Going to the Norris hot springs at night was quite a contrast, though. It's very daunting to change into a bathing suit in 20° weather and make the scurry over to the warm water. (Which you want to go into slowly because of the dramatic temperature change, but also quickly to get out of the cold.) Then your body gets all cozy but your head is sticking out in the freezing air. Golly. But the core warmth stays with you for a while afterwards, which is really nice.

We spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the weekend. In addition to actual meals, we made oatmeal raisin cookies, brownie bites, an apple pie, several lemon cheesecakes, and perhaps other stuff I've forgotten already. Most of these were snacks for Sunday's event. Oh, and Antonia has the most wonderful gigantic drawer of tea. It's an absolute delight to behold and sample from.

On Sunday night we had the "excuse" for the whole visit: Bozeman's first ever Waltz Night. Antonia has always liked Friday Night Waltz out here in the Bay Area, and has been wanting to take the concept out to Montana for a long time. So she organized it all and I agreed to help by teaching a cross-step waltz lesson and DJing.

It was a very satsifyingly successful dance. Not a huge group for what I'm used to, but for a smaller town and a brand-new event, it was very good. We had contra dancers and tango dancers and ballroom dancers all show up, and we did the usual FNW sort of mix of dances, plus a contra and a circle mixer. The last waltz was fun, too, since we developed an amoeba of about 9 or 10 people that found several amusing ways to all dance with Antonia at once. A lot of folks thanked us for running it and seemed very happy about it overall, which made us all glad.

After the dance, we had a celebratory late night "dinner," which in my case consisted mostly of ice cream and cheesecake. Which didn't help me sleep much last night. Which in turn made it harder to get up at 5AM for the plane flight this morning. So I'm probably going to go to bed soon....

Camp New Harmony

We got back from Camp Harmony yesterday afternoon, and camp was, in a word, fantastic. At the peak day we had twice as many people attending as last year, so there were lots of new friends to make as well as old ones to see again. And since everything is volunteer-run there, having that many more people just meant that much more great stuff to do. Camp has been needing to have a knock-it-out-of-the-park year for a while, I think, and this was it.

The new location (Camp Newman, in Santa Rosa) is quite lovely. It's still nice and woodsy, which I like, and it's decorated all over. There are murals on all the buildings, tile mosaics lining the pathways, etc. It's quite hilly, though, which is rough on people with bad knees, and dangerous when frosted over and slippery, so you have to be careful. There were a lot of good workshop and jamming spaces. I was worried about having to rent a portable dance floor, but that ended up working out quite well. There were a wide range of accommodations. At the top end they have a few buildings of what are basically two-bedroom, furnished apartments, complete with a small kitchen, living room, couches, and everything. At the other end they have the "youth dorm" that we stayed in: rickety metal bunks, saggy crinkly mattresses, cold tile floors, and a miniature space heater working day and night to try to keep the place warm. The cabins in between were probably the best places to stay, in terms of being more comfortable but still with lots of your friends.

I taught three dance classes. The first two were beginning East Coast Swing and beginning Lindy Hop, getting people ready for the swing dance evening. I was super lucky to have Sylvia Herold and a bunch of other great musicians playing music for the classes. It's hard to get used to interrupting fantastic live music just so you can teach another basic swing move, but it was really a privilege to have them there. And the lessons went really well, I think. I also taught a Cross-Step Waltz class, again with live music. Lacey and Rowyn very graciously helped out by being my lovely assistants.

Sylvia was also teaching a swing guitar class all week, so I went to all of those. Swing guitar has always seemed frightfully complicated compared to the folky stuff I'm used to, but she did a really good job of breaking it down and making it accessible. I'm going to have to see if I can keep that up and get better at it.

It was a very swingy camp for me all around, actually. The swing night was my favorite evening dance. There were a number of new campers this year who were good swing dancers that I got to dance with. And a lot of the younger kids are also starting to pick things up. I danced with several of the girls who don't have much in the way of basic steps or technique but who could still more or less follow all sorts of stuff, which is wonderful. In fact, I'm just getting more and more pleased with that next-younger generation overall, because more of them are getting to the point where they're really participating in the music and dance activities at camp. I was thrilled one evening when I saw Adam and Mary dancing an excellent cross-step waltz that they had just learned in my class that afternoon. They told me later that they were on a mission to become "superdancers" like me and Lacey. Talk about melting a Graham's heart.... I caught them practicing a few other times throughout camp and piled more moves on for them to learn.

I played tunes for the Irish dancing again, as usual, and also got in a couple nice late-night sessions. The new location had drawn in some more of the Lark in the Morning contingent, so there were some Irishing folks I haven't gotten to play with before. I also played some Quebecois tunes, though I only know a handful and they're hard to pick up on the fly. I mostly did fiddle the whole time. Never even took my mandolin out of its case, since I didn't figure my wimpy calluses could handle that after the guitar classes every day.

New Year's Eve was good, though strangely it felt smaller than usual. Probably because the dining hall there was bigger and because people were off in other places around camp as well, and not all congregating at the same place. The real heart of camp for me, though, wasn't so much the New Year celebration as Bob Reid's annual kids concert. He had an even bigger crowd with an even wider age range than usual this year, and it's amazing what an intense emotional experience gets created between everyone. We laugh like crazy, and some of us bigger kids go down the crying end of things, too. When it was all over we had a giant hug pile on Bob, and then just stayed there for a while, milling around the room, hugging people and playing with some of the littler kids. That's the time you really remember that everyone there is really just one huge family, and it's beautiful.

Other fun stuff:

• Shapenote singing. (Missed one session but scheduled a second to make up for it.)
• Calling my first contra dance. (On minimal preparation, but it went well enough.)
• Mask-making for New Year's Eve outfits. (And "leading" the workshop for Quena who was on a quest to retrieve her missing dance shoes from Davis.)
• Katie's surprise birthday party. (With 12 silly people crammed into a small, dark, stifling room for 20 minutes because she was late.)

Anyway, all around it was a very successful camp. I was glad to sleep in my own comfy bed last night, though. Now it's sort of sad, post-Harmony time, but there are also a lot of music and dance things that I'm inspired and excited about, so that's good. Happy New Year!

Predictions, Wrong and Maybe-Not-So-Wrong

The So You Think You Can Dance? finale is tonight/tomorrow night. I missed the first season, so this is the third one I've followed. It's interesting how sometimes you can pick out a clear winner right from the start, and sometimes you can't.

In Season 2, Benji was just so ridiculously fun to watch that he was a shoo-in from the beginning. The fact that he actually won made me believe in the "wisdom of crowds." Last year was different. Nobody jumped out at me so much, and I probably would have been happy with several different winners. Luckily, Sabra was one of them.

This year is wacky. First of all, Evan Kasprzak completely sold me in the auditions, but inexplicably failed to make it through the Las Vegas cuts. Then, for most of the season, Will Wingfield seemed about as clear a winner as Benji had been. He did absolutely everything beautifully. He was stuck with a weak partner for a while, which was too bad, but it almost didn't matter because it was usually hard to watch her anyway, with him on stage. And at least as important as his partner routines were his solos, which included actual variety. I tend to think the contemporary (and ballroom) dancers have the solos that are the most same-seeming, and get the most boring after a while. So being able to do something noticeably different each time is a big plus.

But Will got voted off! What was America thinking? Ironically it was on the night that Nigel had reminded everyone to register to vote for the presidential elections as well. This does not have me looking forward to November. Anyway, that leaves me with Katee as my pick for the best remaining dancer, with Joshua as my second choice. The two of them have definitely been the best partnership of the show, doing a lot of my favorite routines. I don't think either of them has ever been voted into the bottom yet. Twitch could have a chance just as a personality favorite, but he still has weak points in his dancing, so I don't think he'll take the whole show.

But if we learned anything from Will's elimination, it's that this competition is about America's favorite dancer, not best. So I'm not going to get too attached to any of my own predictions tonight.

Three-Person Polkas

I got pulled into a polka with Tracey and Bob at FNW last night, and it turned out to be quite successful. When I've been in this sort of situation in the past, I've usually resorted to a very vertical polka redowa step. This makes it less important which foot you're on at any given time, since you aren't trying to reach and step line-of-direction as much. (And that's important because you can't do 180° turns anymore with three people, so you're always at different angles and you don't have enough feet to handle them all.)

What we ended up doing this time was basically just a traveling basket-hold buzz-step swing, right feet in the middle, paddling ourselves around with our lefts. I didn't think to much about how we were actually accomplishing the traveling, but it seems to work out okay just to aim somewhere and let your propulsion naturally bias itself that direction. We also tried putting left feet in and turning counter-clockwise, but that was more difficult, perhaps just because we aren't as used to doing left-footed buzz-steps.

Another option just occurred to me as well, which would be to mix Newports in with regular polka steps. That way you could remain on a particular foot a little longer, until your rotation has changed so that it's convenient to switch to the other foot. E.g. instead of going 1&2-1&2, you could go 1&2&3-1&2, or 1&2-1&2&3. Obviously you'd be having hemiolas all over the place, and it could be tricky to figure out exactly when to do the switch, and there might be times when neither foot is really convenient to be on. But it might be worth an experiment, especially if you can make sure your threesome can consistently get 360° around every three polka steps.

Stanford Dance Weekend

It felt like it had been a while since I'd done one of the Stanford Dance Weekends so it was a lot of fun to come back to it this year. I came out of it tired, but not unreasonably so, and quite happy with the dancing and learning both. The dancey goodness included:  

West Coast Swing. Michelle Kinkaid taught four classes in this, so I jumped at the opportunity to try to recover some of my atrophied WCS skills and took all of them. They were good classes, but with a rather high talking::dancing ratio. I think her active/passive lead theory is really helpful, but will take a while to be able to apply properly. 

Musicality. This was the only class Lilli Ann Carey taught, but she deserved a lot more time (and space), I thought. I didn't really learn anything new there, but it's an interesting discussion topic and I wanted to see how she taught it, since it's a topic near and dear to my heart. 

Fusion Waltz. Ari Levitt was mixing things like tango and latin into his waltz. I only made it to one of his classes, but I liked it much more than expected, having been ambivalent about "fusion" stuff. (He's teaching it at Friday Night Waltz in a couple weeks, too, if you want to check it out.) 

Cha Cha. It was a bit of a risk taking a beginning cha cha class in the middle of all my west coast, but I did it anyway and didn't mess myself up too much. Joan said the term "Latin-phobic" in her class description was inspired by a conversation with me years ago. Glad I could help. :-) 

Cross Step Waltz. Richard, as always, wins the prize for clearest, most efficient teaching. The "new variations" class especially left me with a bunch of good stuff to play with (which really did all seem to be new). I got some good following practice in the lead-heavy pivaloops class, too. 

Dancing! The dances on Friday and especially Saturday night were some of the most satisfying I've had in a while. Though there were more people I would have liked to have there, I got to dance with some of my favorite partners (including my visiting sister), and with many nice new people as well (including several of the teachers), and it wasn't too crowded. I also had some of the most incredible flying redowas ever with Rowyn. Good stuff all around.

FNW DJ

Rowyn and I are DJing Friday Night Waltz in Palo Alto tomorrow night. We'll have some current favorites, some old favorites, and some new or newish songs to keep things interesting. So if you like the kind of music we like, come and dance to some of it!

Triple Triple Big Dance

This last weekend was the 15th annual Big Dance, and my own personal 9th year in a row making it all the way to 6 AM, which makes it my "Triple Triple Crown" year. (Now that I think about it, that puts Richard at his Quintuple Triple, for being there all 15 years. Wow.) The dance felt a bit smaller than usual, though we still had 144 people make it all night.

The performances were all really good this year; I even enjoyed Los Salseros quite a bit (nothing against them in general, but salsa's not usually my thing). Danse Libre did a great job kicking off the 1920's theme early on, though the guys must have been dying in their tuxes with that heat. Decadance rocked, as usual, and I especially liked their new country piece to "All Things Considered." Swingtime didn't have a very clean performance, but they did have some of the most entertaining Cat's Corner solos I've seen in a long time. Good stuff.

The competitions were mostly okay, though I think I would have designed some of them differently. I also think it's time to retire Swing-with-Props and Tacky Tango, at least for a few years. (I know, I know, don't complain if I don't want to be on the committee.) Bob and I were all set to completely trounce everyone on the schottische race when we found out it was a three-legged schottische race. Since they used wimpy little streamers to tie our legs together, everyone was hobbling around like geriatrics trying not to tear them. Oh well. And here's a tip if you ever find yourself in a cross-step waltz freeze-tag competition: pretend to be frozen until the very end, then start dancing again just in time to not get tagged for real. Credit to Rowyn for that bit of brilliance, though unfortunately it came too late to save us.

I was very happy to not only get a good set for the Dawn Mazurka but to remember all the figures, even at 5:20 in the morning. Thanks to Jeff for explaining the Tiroirs figure on Thursday -- I had been confused about that. And thanks to many other people for all the other good dances, especially Rowyn for the lullaby gauntlet, the last waltz, and many others.

Chalk Talk: Constant Acceleration

As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently taught a class with Bob on the Bronco variation for Schottische. In an email discussion about it beforehand, Bob said something that really clarified for me why I like it so much.

For those who don't know it, there are three parts to the Bronco variation:

• Counts 1-2: Two leaping steps, like a flying one-step, lead backing.
• Counts 3-8: Two Newports, a 1-&-2-&-3 waltz pattern (this is a hemiola).
• Counts 9-16: Turning two-step polka.

When you're dancing, of course, you have two kinds of momentum: directional (how you travel along line of dance) and rotational (how you rotate around your partner). If you're doing a standard rotary waltz, these two things will be roughly constant throughout the dance. Lindy hop swingouts will have rotation, but you don't travel (at least, not around the room). Other dances will have their own patterns.

What Bob pointed out for the Bronco, though, is that these two kinds of momentum are not only both cyclical, but offset. At the beginning you're just charging on ahead, but not rotating at all. (I wish I had a name for this step. I usually just think of it as leap-leap, or run-run.) With the Newports you start rotating, 6 counts for a full rotation, but you necessarily slow down a bit in your forward momentum. By the turning two-step you're getting around in 4 counts (faster than the Newports) but that pulls you in a bit more, since they're rather more vertical than a regular polka.

What this means is that something is always accelerating. You're either speeding faster ahead or spinning around more. It's absolutely brilliant. I liked it so much that even gave it a "chalk talk" (as Richard says) during the class to draw a diagram on the chalkboard, which I will reproduce here (the 1's, 2's and 3's are just shorthand for low, medium, and high):



Neat, huh?

While I'm here, I'd like to give many thanks to Ryan and Monica for teaching the Bronco at Waltz Week 2002 (or 2003?) which is where I learned it. Bob and I have had great fun with it for a long time now, and are hoping more people get into it as well.

Camp Harmony

This was our last year of having Camp Harmony at its long-time location in the Santa Cruz mountains. The new location will probably be very nice, I'm sure, but this year's camp was tinged with a bit of sadness at the thought that we won't be back again. Aside from the fact that I inherently like redwood forests, there are 13 years of memories there for me. But moving on from that thought, this was a very good year, so I'm pleased that Camp Campbell is going out on a good note. I think I got a good mix of everything I usually want out of camp, plus the weather was beautiful and nobody got significantly sick.

Music-wise, I played a lot for the Irish dance and classes again. This was mostly fun, though there were some interpersonal frustrations with the pickup band on the dance night, but we worked those out. Had a good session after that dance, too, and in general I felt that my fiddle playing was in surprisingly good shape for the modest amount of practice I've had recently. I learned another awesome Liz Carroll tune, and wrote down a gorgeous waltz that I haven't had a chance to actually learn yet. I also resurrected a number of Québécois tunes at a workshop, though most of them have left my head again already. Quena and I experimented with two-person, one-fiddle duets, which was amusing.

With the singing, I was lucky in that there were two shape note sessions, since I missed the first one. I experimented with singing tenor this time, which worked fairly well considering how we pitched most things fairly low. I need to try that again when I start going back to the Palo Alto sings (soon). I was unluckier in that Madge and Tom weren't at camp, so there was no Balkan or Barbershop, which I really wanted to do again. But Katherine did a Weird Al songs workshop, and that was fun.

For the dancing, there were some very nice contras (thanks partly to Quena's calling). I also had some nice waltzes, mostly in the post-midnight New Year's dancing. Cass had hurt both her ankles recently, so she hadn't been dancing. So on that last night Quena and I picked her up and carried her through a waltz, so she wouldn't be left out. No swing this year, but there was some Scandinavian dancing, which was a nice change, and even included a couple nyckelharpa players.

I did some more teaching again this year. I didn't do a whole series of music theory classes, but instead just went for a single class trying to explain the concept behind music theory itself, rather than just giving people the rules that result from it. That might be an interesting thing to do another blog post on. Lacey and I also did an intermediate waltz workshop, mostly focusing on rotary waltz technique and a couple of moves (underarm turns and canter pivots).

I even got some good artsy-craftsy time in. Quena led a mask-making workshop, and we made some fun masks for the New Year's Eve party. I was quite proud of mine. It's cut out of a large manila folder, with a collage of cut-up origami paper on it. The paper had a fade-out on the colors, which added a little extra dimension to it.

Bob Reid's concert was a high point as usual. He jokes that he doesn't actually get any kids at the kids concert anymore, but he does. There are just a lot of us 20-somethings mixed in there as well. Some of those songs will never stop being wonderful, or bringing the occasional tear to my eye or grin to my face. Lacey and I came up with a new verse for the Foolish Questions song as well, which we wrote entirely on the walk between the dining hall and the concert, and Bob let me sing it for everyone at the end of the song.

The New Year's Eve celebration was exactly the way it always should be, though we cut it closer than ever, running in from the dance hall at the 12 second mark in the countdown. Singing with and hugging so many of your best friends and family is the best way to start a year, I think. And then a good two or three hours of waltzing, of course. We drew Angel Cards that night, rather than waiting until morning. Mine is especially appropriate for the way this year looks like it will unfold: Adventure.

On New Year's Day, after leaving camp, Lacey and I came back to my apartment and invited along Quena, Cass, Jonathan, and Antonia. We called Mom and Rowyn and had them come over to join us, making 8, which about maxes out the chairs here (including piano bench, though there was still the couch, I guess). Then we improvised a tea party with various snacks Rowyn and I had left over from different parties, gingerbread Antonia had made, a gingerbread house Quena had made, a bit of stuff we brought from camp, and of course, tea (I at least had plenty of that). This was a very satisfying way to end camp, easing the transition much better than a cold, empty apartment. It was still a bit of a wrench to go to work the very next day, but at least I was in good shape for it.

Happy New Year!

Back to Blues

I've been vaguely wanting to get into blues dancing again since Herräng this summer. Recently I've been reminded of it by random other slow dances, like the gorgeous last waltz I had with Jessica when she was up visiting a few weeks ago. (Michael's Mazurka, by Childsplay. Never thought I'd be able to say I'd danced blues to a mazurka, but we did. Luckily, it's not actually too mazurky.) And then last week's Faster Polka had a couple waltzes that were too slow even for cross-step, so there blues-ifying it just made more sense.

Anyway, R.A. Blues is right here in downtown Mountain View, and I'd never been (at least not since last year or so, when it was down in Campbell). This week they had a live band (The Insomniacs, from Portland) so I decided to finally get myself out there. And it was awesome.

I went for Mihai's lesson before the dance, and it was a good one. We did a lot of exercises on listening to your partner's dancing, which I think was probably the best single thing that could have happened for my blues dancing at this point. The point was to get things from being nearly 100% leader-driven to more like a "conversation" between leader and follower. Not necessarily all the way to 50/50 perhaps, but much more balanced. The beauty of this is not only in how it makes for a much nicer dance on both sides, but also in how leaders can actually learn from followers. I think one of the most difficult things about being a beginning lead in most ballroom dances is that if you only know three moves, that's all you get to do. Whereas the follows can dance with experienced leaders and get led through all sorts of new stuff and learn much faster. This approach to blues evens that playing field a great deal. The way the exercises worked, it also really reinforced the concept of not having "moves" but just moving, and it helped me be a lot more comfortable with that.

As for the dancing itself, it was exactly what I'd been wanting recently. One of the things I love most about dancing is being a musician with it, and good blues dancing feeds that incredibly well. The music becomes like a third partner in the dance, being channeled through the two human beings, and all three elements are drawn closer together by the intensity and focus of it all. This can happen sometimes in other dances, like a waltz, but it's harder when you're doing something with a fixed "basic" step, because it's so easy to relax and put things on autopilot for portions of the dance. With blues, on the other hand, you have be be there and in the flow of it at every moment. (I have another post to write about Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow, but for now suffice to say that an activity that forces you into it is inherently enjoyable.)

I'm going back next week. Come join me!

Deca Dancing Decisions

So about a month ago, a slip of the tongue at Friday Night Waltz resulted in me telling Merry I'd audition for Decadance. Never one to go back on my word, I started thinking more about it, and realized that if I wanted to join any dance group these days, Deca would be the one. I've had a lot of fun, the last couple years in particular, watching all the fun and creative stuff they come up with. So I went out for the first auditions on Oct. 3rd. For the record, this is the first thing I've auditioned for since VB Opening in 2001-2002, and probably the first ever that was entirely of my own free will (as opposed to following someone else there).

The auditions were actually surprisingly fun. Aside from just dancing with a lot of nice people, we also got to learn the beginnings of two choreographies: Swing It and Go-Go, which is a routine that never fails to make me happy. So I made callbacks and was there again last night for round two. We got to learn more of those choreographies (harder parts) and also did some of those "convey a randomly selected emotion through dancing" exercises. (Which, by the way, drive me nuts. Musician that I am and actor that I'm not, I can kind of work various emotions into arbitrary dances, but not into arbitrary music. Argh.) Anyway, it was all challenging and interesting, and that took us into the decision phase of things, for me as well as them.

On the pro side of joining Decadance is, obviously, their dancing. I especially love the fact that they happily blend whatever styles they can get their hands on. If I got to join, I'd have a chance both to polish things like swing and waltz, and to take a shot at a bunch of styles I haven't done before. Learning choreographies also just inherently appeals to me because the range of stuff you can do with it is different than in pure social dancing. And after getting more experience doing group choreographies, I might even like to start choreographing stuff myself. I've been needing more creative outlets recently. Dancing aside, I also think it would be nice to just be part of a group like that, and have that kind of an extended family.

High on the con side, though, is the fact that I'm not a performer. There's a sense in which Decadance is purely a performance/entertainment group, even more so than specifically a dance group, and a lot of people thrive on that and do it well. Personally, I have nothing against performing, and I don't think I even get terribly bad stage fright (from my limited experience in this kind of thing). I even agree that it's fun sometimes. But it's not something I need the way some people do, and it takes a significant effort to try to project myself out to an audience, even just at the level of auditions. So net result over the long term would be a drain on me, psychologically and emotionally. To adapt a quote from James Thurber, no other thing can be less what it is not than a Graham can (excepting pigeons, of course). That's how I feel when I try acting of any sort, which includes trying to really "project" my dancing.

Even with all that, though, the balance between yes and no is very, very close, and this could still be something I could find ways to have fun with. Unfortunately, there's also the additional issue of commitment to consider. Between rehearsals and performances, Deca would take up all my currently allotted dancing time, and probably cut into other stuff, especially if I still wanted to go out social dancing or taking classes. Also, the current state of my life, for reasons I don't want to get into here, has me feeling like a lot of things are very uncertain and up in the air, which makes me reluctant to give a full year's promise to something like this that I would want to take very seriously. There's a lot of balance that I need to get figured out, which needs to happen gradually, letting everything settle into place together. A large, immediate commitment like joining a performance group would be throwing that process considerably out of whack.

The net result of all this is that I didn't sleep much last night. Then this morning I saw a Decadance email in my inbox, and heard a little voice in my head hoping they'd turn me down and take the burden of the decision off of me. That was the final gut check I needed to convince me that the balance was tipped. So when I read the email and saw that they were very kindly inviting me to join, I responded and respectfully declined. That said, I still love the group, and I'm very grateful even just for the auditioning experience, and for the vote of confidence expressed by their offer. Major congratulations go out to everyone who does join, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they come up with this year.

To end on a happy note, really, just watch the Go-Go video :-)

Sabra Can Dance

I watched the finale of So You Think You Can Dance last night. I was somewhat surprised that Sabra won, but extremely pleased. I had expected it to be Neil, and wouldn't have been disappointed with him, but was hoping it would be either Sabra or Danny. Lacey was the only one I didn't think should have been in the top four (I'd rather have had Lauren stay on instead). My thoughts on various dancers:

Danny - Most all-around beautiful dancer. Probably just didn't engage the audience enough to win.
Sabra - Like a little sprite. Always fun to watch.
Neil - Didn't care for him at first, but it got better. Gotta love the leaps, though, and that plange over Sabra on the table.
Lacey - Performed too explicitly. Hard to relate to her as a real person because of it.
Lauren - Took me a while into the season for her to grow on me, but she certainly did. I can really feel how happy dancing makes her.
Pasha - I liked him a lot, but he didn't need to be going all Dimitry-shirtless on us all the time.
Sara and Dominic - I was consistently amazed at how incredibly well the two breakdancers picked up all the partnering stuff.
Hok - I had huge hopes for him early on. He did my favorite solos but could never quite cut it on the partner dances. Sigh.

As for the choreographies this season, I was less consistently impressed with them than I was last year. There was nothing on the same gorgeous, memorable level of Ivan and Allison's hip hop, or Travis and Heidi's contemporary. There were a few good ones, though. Neil and Sabra's "negotiating" jazz dance was really good, and I enjoyed Lacey and Sabra being foxes much more than any of the judges did. I also liked the Wade Robson solo that everyone did individually several weeks ago. (And I appreciated the opportunity to make that kind of a comparison between contestants as well.) There were some others that I enjoyed re-seeing during the finale, though they hadn't made a huge impression on my the first time around and probably still won't be too memorable. I was excited to see the first Lindy Hop on the program ever, though it seemed pretty low energy. Hard to blame them, though, since they've got to be worked to death at this point, plus it was an incredible amount to learn in such a short time.

Recessional

Last night I went to a Swing Kids "Jasmix" (I think the "s" is for "summer") on campus, and I have to thank two people for making me glad I stayed awake all the way to midnight: Jason for the last waltz he played, and Rachel for dancing it with me. Three people, perhaps, since I'll extend the gratitude to Vienna Teng for writing and recording "Recessional" on her latest album. In spite of it not being a cross-step, it's my new favorite last waltz.

The magic of this song is in how you have to let yourself be completely and utterly absorbed in it. While we were still nominally leader and follower, the only way to really dance to this was to both be followers of the music. The fluidity of the tempo changes, the fermatas, the pulses, all prevent you from letting your attention stray for even an instant. But the closeness and intimacy of it draw you in to the point where you don't even want anything other than to be a part of it. The incredibly restrained vocals especially give the impression of hearing her heart speaking directly to you from inside her chest. You not only have to listen to it, but to really feel it and experience it, to "breathe with it" as Jason said, so that it's flowing through you. Ending the dance was like waking up and having to come to terms with the real world again from scratch, though we'd only left it four minutes ago.

Vienna Teng has described "Recessional" as a sort of reverse emotional strip tease. It begins at the most open, raw, touching point, and slowly covers itself back up. It took me a few listens today, though, before I realized that it's still chronological, and not going backwards in time. The music helps show that, and once I realized what was going on it made the song even more intense and poignant. The emotional effects of this song have stayed with me most of the day today.

The "Other" Ballroom Dancers

I caught some of last year's IDSF World Championship competition on KQED today, and it was really interesting to watch how (mostly) familiar dances are done in very unfamiliar (to me) ways. Unfortunately, I only got to see a few dances, and only two of them included the solo dances, as opposed to groups. Though I did get to see one woman get her scarf draped over her head and waltz around like that for a while until it fell off, because neither partner would free up a hand to fix it. That was funny.

I have to say, the Viennese waltz was really horrible. I don't know if it was the strict steps they were doing that looked funny to me, but most of them barely even seemed to be dancing with the beat. I think there were only two moves besides the basic step (a fake-out non-dip, and a skitter-around-in-place thing) and they weren't even used very musically most of the time. I don't know if the music is a surprise to the contestants (it probably is) but still, I could do way better choreography on the fly than all that.

And of course, the basic ballroom hold always seems extremely wrong to me. I know the motivation behind it, since it's about impressing judges, rather than connecting with your partner and the music. But I guess I wouldn't make a very good judge, since I don't actually like to see arched backs and heads sticking out at odd angles. Oh well.

One thing that did really intrigue me, though, was the quickstep. This dance seems to be what ballroom types do when they want to polka and only have swing music. They pulled out a lot more musicality for this dance, too, compared to the Viennese waltz. I've never encountered quickstep in the world of social ballroom, but it looks like it could be really fun. Entertaining footwork and some really fast traveling possibilities. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for opportunities to learn some.

Herräng, Sweden

Our final week of the trip was spent in Herräng, for week one of the Herräng Dance Camp. This year is the 25th anniversary of the camp, and they've got 5 weeks of dancing madness there. Herräng itself used to be an ore-mining town, and now is just a small village of ~800 people. That population probably doubles or triples during July, depending on how many people are attending camp on any given week. Though I think a lot of the natives bail during the summer and rent out their homes or rooms to dance invaders.

The way classes worked was interesting, since I come from a Camp Harmony sort of background where everything is very flexible and on-the-fly. At Herräng you have to register for a specific class series, which gets marked on your Herräng "passport." They actually have a passport control squad that does random spot checks in the classes every day, to make sure nobody's sneaking around. I was signed up for Int.-Adv. Lindy Hop, so that's what I did, though I would have checked out some of the beginning Boogie Woogie classes if I could have. (Boogie Woogie was the non-Lindy focus for this week; each week is different.) We had about three 80-minute classes a day, some of which really pushed me, and some of which were easier, so I think it was a good level for me. There was a good variety of teachers, too. We spent the most time with Daniel and Åsa who I think made a really good backbone for the week. They seemed the most well-rounded teachers, covering musicality, fancy moves, footwork variations, niggling basic details, and other stuff. There were some other good teachers we only got one shot with, though, like Ichtiandras and Solveiga, who I would have liked to have seen a lot more of.

Frankie Manning is sort of the patron saint of Herräng, though he didn't arrive until mid-week because of some events back in the States for his recently released autobiography. I got a copy at camp and got Frankie to sign it, then read most of it on the plane flight home. Absolutely fantastic book all the way through, but worth it even if all you read is his description of creating and performing the first air steps (aerials) ever. One of the classes for all the lindy hop students was actually just an hour with Frankie Manning and his son, Chazz Young, on stage telling us stories of what it was like dancing at the Savoy back in the 1930's to bands like Chick Webb and Count Basie. Frankie is 93 years old and says he's been dancing for 94 years, and he can tell you about all of them with such complete joy and humor that it's a delight to listen to. His voice comes through extremely well in the book, too, so I highly recommend reading it.

One camp tradition I thought was a little weird until I experienced it was the daily meetings. At 9 PM each day there are no dances or classes or anything else scheduled and everyone goes and crams themselves into the main Folkets Hus room (fire safety limit: 150 people, actual limit: waaaay more) as well as a couple other rooms where they have live video broadcasts. Then Lennart Westerlund comes out on stage completely deadpan, sits down on a stool, and leads some of the most entertaining hour-long meetings I've ever been in. They include not only general camp information and announcements, but also video clips from previous camps and old movies, occasional performances, ongoing sitcoms with various teachers and staff, ongoing in-jokes (ice cream! salty fish! bugaloo!), and updates on projects such as trying to get the King of Sweden to visit the camp. It was well worth being packed in like sardines every night. (They'd have you cram in as far as you think you can, let you rest and get comfortable for 10 minutes, then tell you to squeeze in even more to get the latecomers in.)

When I needed a break from camp a couple times, I took a walk down to the beach. The beach itself is an extremely modest little strip of sand with a dock and a picnic table. But there are also some interesting areas with remains of the old mining operations. Like enormous pits, or huge dirt/sand dunes in different colors. And giant, rusty pieces of equipment, like enormous iron wheels and railroad ties. It kind of reminded me of playing Myst years ago, exploring a deserted area and finding remnants of past civilizations. Also near the beach were some beautifully forested areas with some lovely paths to follow. So it was a good place to go and recharge if I got a little over-lindied once in a while.

Miriam and I stayed in the general accommodations, which are mostly in the small school building and its gym. All furniture was removed from the classrooms and the entire thing (including hallways) was packed with bunk beds. They left the decorations up, though, so there are still little kids' drawings and dioramas on the walls, and a solar system hanging from the ceiling. Our classroom had 15 bunks, so 30 people. One one side, my bunk was flush up against another one (luckily neither of us were rollers). On the other side, I had to squeeze in sideways to fit between the beds. We were told we only had this much space because it was week one. Apparently in the more crowded weeks people are sharing beds and sleeping on the floor. As it was, it still got pretty unpleasant after a few days, when it just became a warm, damp, smelly petri dish of sweat and germs. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, I got sick midway through camp, and you could just hear the cough traveling from one bed to another. No way to keep anything quarantined in there.

Getting sick meant that I had a pretty rough time of the last half of camp. I still managed to attend classes and learn some stuff, but I wasn't able to dance much or have much fun in the evenings. So it was kind of a depressing end to the trip, having gone all the way out to Sweden for this and then blown so much of it. I'm not sure if or when I'll go back in future years. Part of me wants to, to do it right, but part of me would rather just spend my travel time and money on new trips. But someday, maybe, who knows.