Frantic Dance

An ecclectic combination of experiences, musings, and things that make my soul go all fuzzy

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OLX2015 was sweeeeet! :D

As is traditional i only managed a single semi-decent photo in between dances which should tell you something in itself. The bands were awesome (Little Moaner & The Tantrums!!!), the late night blues kicked ass (Little Moaner & The Tantrums!!!), and everyone was on top form (Little Moaner & The Tantrums!!!) 

Also I stole a beermat from one of the church hall venues because drunk pupil-dilated Jesus made me giggle :)

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Couple of decent pics of Ieva and me from Oxford's monthly Hop the Hall social. I definitely need to play with my little camera more as the results aren't bad for low light high speed point and click :) tog credit: umm...i think Anne had my camera at the time...probably Anne.

[iraffiruse]

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I rarely reblog. This is worth reblogging.

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Aww man, I love Wilton's Music Hall so much! This is me coming either 3rd or 4th in the speed shim sham elimination on Saturday (it was judged by audience noise so hard to tell exactly where i placed!). I entered by accident; i thought it was just a shim sham :) Awesome night as always...almost enough to tempt me into looking at moving down the road to London every time i go! tog credit: Mark Wheeler

event: Step out with Swing Patrol at Wilton's Music Hall London

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This made me giggle like a child. A credit card accepted nowhere, advertising in a country where you cannot pay for anything on a card. Way to go diners club.

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Ecuador is one of the most stunning places I have had the pleasure to visit. Outright squalor to exceptional mountain vista's in the space of a chicken bus ride, and the most amazing company. Also seriously fuck Miami international airport. No idea how it is for US citizens but what a horrible place to transfer through (JFK and Charlotte were grand though so you pulled it back from a precarious brink).

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Mama's tasty tasty stew!

So proud of our solo jazz class tonight - perfect timing on the boogie back claps on the 2nd fastest version I know of stew-able tunes! Massive grins!

Also you can totally fit a Sharon leg swivel into the down step hop hop (no idea if it has a name), although it loses some of its grace at high tempo :)

Sleepy feet

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So the Oxford Frankie100 video is done (a bit late, but hey, swing rhythm right?).

I feature heavily, mostly looking confused and trying to catch a glimpse of what the next move is meant to be...i am so bad at choreo! :D Thanks to Aphroditi for following like a champ, Griff for cutting most of my mistakes out in the edit, and the OLH/OLX team for general awesomness (oh and Andy Flemming for managing to cram the whole choreo learning sesh into an hour the week before) ;)

Youtube upload is from the OLH account, so full video credit over there

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" . . . And then when I turn, and she hit my back, and I flipped her over, and she hit the floor right on the music, and as she hit the floor, Chick Webb say, 'Damn!' and I say 'Yeah, man, we got them now.' "

Frankie Manning in interview

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Went to lovely Steph & Ben's wedding. It was lovely. Loveliness abounded. It was also in my old village that i havent really been back to for about a decade which was...lovely.

Here is the marquee looking lovely and me looking pensive.

Photos: Tim Wright

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We did a thing in the thing. More people stared curiously than shouted slurred insults, so i count it as a win. Photo credit: AJU

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So...this happened...

I've made it to BBC 1 at last - how do i get an agent? ;) full show here, the swing dancing bit and my starring role is around 40mins in 

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So we are collaborating on this little baby with Swing Patrol in January, and it is going to be awesome! Live band, performances, lightweight comps, taster class and more dancers than you can shake a stick at, as well as a taster class from Scottie himself and some friendly taxis for the n00bs :) Early bird tix stop being a thing on Sunday so grab em while they are slightly more cheaperer! Go here for details and booking and ting (gave up battling HTML editing vs phone autocorrect) : http://www.swingpatrol.co.uk/spevents/swing-ball-reading/ See you there :)

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New strolls class happiness

Kicked off the first session of my new strolls class last night, aided and abetted by the lovely Jenn, and surprisingly it all went rather well... I don't do a lot of dance teaching as i tend to a) defer to other people who i think have been at it longer than me, and b) hate formalised lesson structure (i just want to one on one every single student - it annoys me not being able to address things individually because of the effect it would have on the pace of the group). This group were fantastic though - shot through the lesson significantly ahead of schedule and we had a pretty bloody tight first half of Sing's Charleston Stroll down by the end of the session, with people (from a very mixed ability class) trying out variations all over the shop. I love swing strolls most when the whole group is playing and you get little ripples of different styles popping up and merging back down again into the mass, and something with lots of sharp turns like Sing's really showcases it. For a group that was thrown together from wedding guests that saw us dancing and the remnants of Shimmy-Lin's funtime Charleston class, they have awesome focus - Top marks to the lot of them and looking forward to the next few weeks as we build up their vocab and slowly wean them onto solo jazz (shh! they don't know this yet) :) Happy feet :) **edit** If anyone in the Reading area (UK - not the American knock-off Reading) wants to join in we are upstairs at the Rising Sun mon nights - prod me for deets, you would be more than welcome!

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MOAAARRR PHOTOS!!! Real Ale & Jazz Festival in Caversham at the weekend. Anyone in SE UK knows just how insanely hot and humid this weekend was. It was like dancing inside a hotbox, inside a sauna, to some pretty bloody pacey rock n roll. I swear all of the dancers shed at least a pound or two of water weight in the first 30mins!

Most interesting dancefloor for a while - each 'tile' of boards was gloriously polished, but slightly offset vertically from the ones next to it, leading to tripping up anyone shuffling their footwork (and several drunk people at the end of the night too)

Also, surprise reunion of the Floozie Perverts to top it all off (almost, Ash was otherwise engaged) :)

life lesson for the night: Chilli and Ginger cider is the shiz. Drink more of it.

photos by All Jazzed Up and Michael Bungey

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My appearances on the official Oxford Lindy Exchange photos (plus an awesome jam circle pose from Ana and Marko!). There were about 50 from filming the Lindy Chorus, but i think everyone is a bit bored of seeing them now until all the cut together vids get posted.

Just posting these brings back what an awesome weekend it was - soooo much fun - Oxford we love you!

photos: all credit to Bjoern Eiben and Meike Clever.

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Photo Credit: Gabs

Winchester Hat Fair in all it's glory. Well, it was raining most of the day so the level of glory is relative, but great fun nontheless :) We made our own show with brollys, had a mini-shim sham, more or less mastered catalogue poses for photos, watched the most dangerous cup of tea in the world being brewed, watched some folk fart about on an Island with interpretive dance, watched the bellhops, went to the pub and rocked my flower crown like a floral boss :)

Going to bring my own hat next time... (and possibly a less mouldy tent)