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I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine. |
Friday, June 26, 1998
One year ago: The Van Buren Gang
There was a broadcast about swing dancing and the dance revival today on a local public radio show. I'm pleased to have gotten in on the ground floor, but I hope this fad doesn't get too big! The inevitable bust will follow a boom, and I'd hate for all the great swing places and bands to go out of business through growing too fast.
Confession: there may be an element of snobbery in this feeling. Just as sometimes I don't read books just because they are on the bestseller list, if something gets too popular I find I'm less likely to do it. Cultishness is a positive value for me. But I won't let this feeling stop me from dancing, even if the swing revival hits the cover of Time magazine.
How do these crazes get started? It reminds me of the Frederik Pohl story, The Sources of the Nile, in which a researcher finds the family that starts the trends.
* * * * * * * *
I was debating today on whether to go dancing, or go to a Clarion West party. I wanted to see my fannish friends, but dancing won out!
Dance practice with the Savoy Swing Club was first. Earl Ryan caught up with me as I was walking the few blocks to the dance studio. We hadn't run into each other at practice before, since neither of us attends every week. We kicked off practice together.
I really dig the anticipation and excitement of first walking onto the dance floor. The lesson tonight was on musicality and styling. I loved it! Linda took us back to the basics on feeling the pulse of the music, listening to the different lines, and expressing them with our bodies. We did isolations (moving just a part of your body, which part being specified by the instructor for purposes of this exercise) and danced with our eyes closed, to free up the inhibited. Then we moved around the room, choosing what emotion and what melody or rhythm to express via our dancing. This is all pretty basic stuff for those who have studied dance as an artistic medium, but a valuable reminder all the same. I know I felt the benefit later on in the evening.
I took the bus over to the Century Ballroom and arrived just as the pre-dance lesson was ending. Earl said he was too tired to go! Jack was there; he's out dancing almost as much as me these days. So I sat at the same table with him, though I didn't intend to be sitting down very much!
Jack is a man of about my age. He started his working life as a scientist, and is now a muscian around town. I haven't heard yet how that happened! He had a lot to say about the band we were listening to. He thought that the majority of them couldn't be the regular players with Eddie Reed, the name performer. There was roughness and even some mistakes and miscues in the first set of the evening. Reed is a bandleader from Los Angeles, but we only had a sextet, not the big band depicted on the posters. Still, the music was fine and danceable. I don't know if it was worth the price, though!
I danced several times with Hugh Sutton, another musician around town, as well as regular partners Doug, Dan, and Antonio. I danced with a few new guys. Asking new partners is always a risk; many men will say yes when asked to dance, when they don't know how to dance at all! I'm not saying that they are beginners; we all start somewhere, and I don't mind dancing with beginners. But these guys (sometimes they've been imbibing) don't know that they don't know how to dance. Their arms are like noodles, except when they suddenly become like steel cables and I get whipped around when not expecting it. They also hop up and down in a random fashion. *sigh*
I danced with Nancy Goudy, with her leading. We've done this before, but not for a while. Her leading has improved, as she said herself.
Since I wanted to get my money's worth, I stayed right till the end. The third set was the only one with a vocalist, Meghan Ivey; she had been singing on the Tonight Show, and then flew up to Seattle. She was very pretty, and I liked her voice, but she seemed understandably tired. The latter part of the evening I was lucky enough to dance with Benjamin whom I danced with my very first night at the Century, last September! I've learned a lot about dancing since then, and Benjamin is always a pleasure to dance with!
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