| September 19, 2008 | to | September 21, 2008 |
Oh Canada! I’ll be flying north soon to Toronto for a weekend of Peabody, Charleston and Lindy Hop workshops. Easily one of our favorite places to dance (and perhaps the coldest locale we’ve ever taught in—New Year’s weekend a few years back), Toronto is diverse, has a lot of good dancers, and is home to Tim Hudson (as in Timothy’s donuts and coffee).
For full details about the workshops, visit OddSocks.org.
Posted on September 15th, 2008 by chad
Filed under: Events, Workshops | Comments Off
For those interested in historical texts related to the Big Apple, here’s one of two pamphlets that I know of about the dance. You’ll really need to zoom in to read.
Posted on March 13th, 2008 by chad
Filed under: Footnotes in Dance History | Comments Off
| June 6, 2008 | to | June 8, 2008 |
Jam Cellar has invited us back to Washington, D.C. for their Big, Big Event (BBE) to teach a little Peabody. We are absolutely thrilled, particularly because the dance is in June. When we traveled there to teach in March, last year, we drove in near blizzard conditions (4.5 hour drive=11 hour drive). It’s unlikely, though with global warming you never know, that we will have to deal with these conditions. (But now that I’ve opened my mouth, we’ll probably have a tropical storm, instead.) If you haven’t been to DC for dancing, then you are missing out. It is truly one of the top places in the country with a great community and one of the world’s best venues (Glen Echo). We were sad that we missed last year’s BBE, but we were already traveling in June to celebrate Indy’s 1st birthday. For us, personally, this year’s event will be a big, big event. It will likely mark Midori’s return to dancing following much needed bunion surgery in November. They say it’s 6-weeks to recover, but they mean bear weight on your foot. It’s really like 6 months to return to dancing. Yikes! She has recovered as well as we could have possibly hoped and now has a nice incentive on her calendar. I’ll post more details about the BBE when I have them.
Posted on February 10th, 2008 by chad
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Another piece of dance history will face the wrecking ball: Fazil’s has closed Thursday to make way for another luxury hotel in New York. (We really need another one?) I called to book the space for a private lesson and learned the terrible news. Personally, Midori and I have great memories of rehearsing at the dance studio over the years. Midori learned from tap legend Chuck Green at Fazil’s. We choreographed some of our best routine and had most of our tap rehearsals there. For those who are not familiar, Fazil’s was the unofficial home of tap and flamenco dancers. You would walk up several flights of stairs from its street access point on Eighth Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets and enter a home of happy feet. In some of its lower level rental studios, the ceiling would quake with the stomping of dancers above. The floor was not as polished as other rental studios. OK, the floor may have last been polished decades ago. But we never got tired on it. Perhaps I reasoned this was because the floor was hardwood layered over years of hardwood. But I also loved to tell folks that the ghosts of the studio’s past lightened the impact of its floor—a version of dancing on the shoulders of giants. While I knew the studio space as Fazil’s, the studio’s story merely ends there. The beginning dates back to the 1920s. A few years ago, the New York Times posted an article on the studio, which touched on this past. They have several other articles from 1989 to 2005. I guess that we drew inspiration from this rich dance history. We felt like rehearsing at Fazil’s carried a story forward that has started long before us. I couldn’t wait for us to start tapping for fun with our son, Indigo, at Fazil’s. Unfortunately, we won’t get the chance. Fazil’s may move on. The staff said they are working on finding a new space. But those ghosts will be lost, however. I’m still in shock. A piece of my neighborhood and my New York will just disappear. I guess that’s life in the Big Apple.
Posted on February 9th, 2008 by chad
Filed under: Footnotes in Dance History, News, Research | Comments Off
| February 21, 2008 9:00 pm | to | February 22, 2008 1:00 am |
| April 17, 2008 9:00 pm | to | April 18, 2008 1:00 am |
Looking to get your groove on? Join me for some swinging good and hot jazz music and more at Yehoodi’s Frim Fram. Thanks to the good folks at New York’s venerable swing dance webiste (David Jacoby in particular), I’ll be DJing on February 21! I’ll have a little something for everyone from Lindy of all tempos, Bal, Shag, even maybe a Peabody or two. So save the date and me a dance.
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by chad
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We perform and teach popular and historical social dances of the Jazz Age and Swing Era and have appeared on stage, independent film, and local and national television. Known for our performance and our research of social dancing, we also consult and choreograph for period productions, particularly those set in the Roaring Twenties. Though we do not regularly compete, we have placed in a number of competitions, including 1st in the 2004 American Lindy Hop Championships Fast Dance division.