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Maybe they'd have to hold each other when it rose, all organe and full and close. Maybe that's where our romantic notions about the moon first came from. Two people holding each other to keep their hearts from breaking, because everybody they knew was dying in the cold rocks and dust piles a quarter million miles away...
The Brothers K
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mandag, august 09, 2004
The weekend was amazing. I can't believe how much I learned (and hopefully remember!) in the space of 15 short hours. I think the biggest highlight of the entire weekend was seeing Frankie Manning and his son Chazz Young (both quite senior...) doing the shim sham at the Saturday night swing party. The organizers had planned lots of surprises for Frankie's 90th birthday, with all kinds of performances (a cute Charleston piece, and an in-house piece that was sort of a combination of DorN peppered with some Radical Vintage-esque stuff) during the band breaks, and during one they asked if Frankie would oblige us and dance the shim sham. I tell you what, there is nobody who can dance as good as that man can. He completely stole the entire show and he's freaking 90 years old!! He was unbelievable, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to meet and learn from him. I hope there are lots of people out there carrying on his legacy, as close to the original as they can be.
That said, I'm going to try to type up a detailed notes list of what I learned, so that I can teach it when I get back. Frankie did two choreos, the Lindy Chorus and what I'm going to call the Russian Cha Cha Cha b/c I'm totally uncreative right now (I might be coming down with something and my brain isn't always working very quickly). Chazz taught four jazz steps to put into lindy choreos (he probably taught more on the second day but I only went to his on the first day), which I only barely managed to catch and will hopefully be able to master before I return. Buddy Schwimmer is quite a character, and taught us (in theory) close to 60 different moves, along with some technique tips and lots of philosophy on dance, love, and politics, for West Coast swing. I'm going to make some of you men learn West Coast when I get back so that I can have good West Coast leads; the dance is similar to hustle but can be done to a much larger variety of music. It's also sexier at times, so I bet you could like it more ;) Woo, I'm really excited about everything that I learned! I'm gonna get back and know all this stuff that none of you guys have ever seen hehe :)
I'll post pictures and movies and stuff later. I've got so much to catch up on - my psychopath roommate wants me to wash the floors with a broom, and not only have I yet to do that, I've yet to figure out how exactly to do that. Plus, I have to get groceries, do laundry, fix up my own pigsty of a room, write postcards, and maybe then I can sleep and eat. Sigh.
Start of the term was today too - weird to see the campus teeming with a million people. At some point I'll probably take advantage of some of the opening parties and so forth :) For now though, it's more treebanking for me.
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