Al and Leon's shim sham

Today, I learned a solo routine I've been craving to learn for a while. Ok, craving might be a little strong. But I've had this with the Trunky Doo routine too, watching it and watching it again so many times that I knew it before dancing it. Those are fascinating routines. And this one, especially, and mostly, when you watch it danced by Frida and Sakarias. I've watched this video over, and over yet again.



Meghan recently moved to Montreal from Calgary. She adopted Cat's Corner as her dance home.
I love listening to her stories about Herräng (the Mecca of swing dancing happening every July in Herräng, a little town in the North of Sweden) and all her insights about lindy hopping and swing culture and people, and we finally took the time to get together and practice our solo dance. I'm already looking forward to our next practice. As you understood, we're working on this Al and Leon's shim sham revisited by our Swedish heroes. And she sent me this link earlier today of two other Swedish dancers, Daniel and Asa, doing it. And I've had again a WOW moment with this routine. Just watch and see by yourself. This is why I'm so passionate about this dance.



The routine is not difficult in itself. We got through the routine in an hour. But the fun, tricky and most essential part is in the interpretations of each jazz steps. This is how it gets wild ! Just look at Daniel ! Isn't he cool ? like the definition of cool. Look at Asa at 1:15. Oh yes, shake it mama ! And Daniel at 1:06. When it hits the music this way, the cells in my skin start hopping.
Oh I'm having fun. Loads of fun !!!

Prochain colloque CEETUM

This will be my first talk on my thesis subject. I'm excited and a little anxious about it. 

The subject has been decided not long ago, around mid november, after a kind of "illumination" on what would be my field of research. I've been working on the concepts of "Conscience minoritaire" and "Politique du minoritaire". But I've been feeling a lack of empirical groundness for a while, and couldn't find a satisfying "subject" to apply my conceptual intuition.

I found my inspiration in Max Weber's sociology of music and decided to finally do what I've been thinking about for a couple of years : a sociology of lindy hop, the most popular African-American dance of the 30's in North America that has become my passion for the last 5 years. More than alive, as you can see if you take a look at my blog and do a quick research on youtube. It's a worldwide phenomena.

So here it is, the abstract of my talk. It's going to happen at le Centre des Études Ethniques des Universités Montréalaises. The program is accessible through this link. It will happen on the 23-24-25th of this month, February, so next week. My talk will be on Friday between 3:15pm and 5:15pm. The session should be interesting. There will be also a talk on female rap singers, female Muslim Quebecers, immigration and race. 

The following English text is not the exact translation of the French one. It's the abstract I submitted for the International Conference on Body Image and Contemporary Society held at the City University of New York in April.

Les corps de la transculturalité du lindy hop : Rencontre éthique dans la danse sociale 

Cette communication entend mettre en relation les rapports de genre et l’histoire raciale d’une danse de couple et sera axée sur une problématisation intersectionnelle des rapports sociaux des danseurs contemporains de lindy hop. Cette recherche mobilise à la fois une méthodologie classique et expérimentale et une perspective théorique critique vis-à-vis des frontières disciplinaires.

Le lindy hop est une danse sociale africaine-américaine apparue dans les années 1920 à Harlem, dont la culture, « swing », est devenue une des plus grandes cultures populaires de l’Amérique blanche des années 1940 et 1950. Depuis les années 1990 en Amérique du Nord, le lindy hop refait émergence dans un contexte social radicalement différent. Les motivations et les représentations des danseurs mobilisent des concepts d’« authenticité » culturelle du lindy hop et de « progrès » social qui mettent explicitement en jeu des questionnements sociétaux fondamentaux comme les relations hommes/femmes, Noirs/Blancs, gai/hétérosexuel, etc.

Cette recherche est en continuité avec une réflexion développée antérieurement sur le concept de « conscience minoritaire ». Elle s’appuie sur une observation participante dans la « scène swing » montréalaise, sur une analyse du discours de danseurs-blogueurs et sur des séquences visuelles de danse. Elle s’intéresse à plusieurs dimensions de la danse que sont : l’héritage socioculturel et racial ; la forme genrée de la danse-à-deux ; ses techniques corporelles ; sa pratique sociale.

De là, nous montrerons comment cette rencontre pluridimensionnelle de la danse avec l’Autre traduit, dans un langage verbal et non verbal, une rencontre résolument éthique.

« T’ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it »: Body representations and transculturality in Lindy hop dance

This paper analyzes the relation between identity and difference in the lindy hop couple dance by studying a contemporary community of lindy hop dancers and their world of representations.

Swing dancing, including lindy hop, started to appear in ballrooms, clubs and other social scenes of Harlem in the late 20s, with racial segregation as backdrop and at the same time the birth of a new African-American identity and pride. In North America, since the 1990s, the dancers take their inspiration from emblematic figures of the swing era, playing with gender relations and esthetic conventions, using offset movements and discordant voices.

This work is based on several dimensions of social couple dancing that are: 

• The socio-cultural heritage of an African-American dance
• The specific and gendered form of the couple dance
• Its body techniques and social practices. 

From this social activity and its discursive universe emerge a certain "conception of the world” within a culture claimed today by White people and totally unrelated to the social conditions of its predecessors.

This multidimensionality of the dance translates, in a non-verbal language, into an emphatically ethical encounter.

The W Project at Followlogie 2011

Last week-end, my all girls team participated in a competition at Followlogie, a swing event entirely focused on the girls and followers role and dancing.

We won FIRST place ! Yes. FIRST place among four other teams from Montreal and Ottawa, with unanimity of all the judges (Jo Hoffberg, Evita Arce, Nina Gilkenson, Mickael Jagger, Mickey Pedroza).

We, the W Project, are composed of 5 friends, Sylwia Bielec, Christina Rooney, Mélanie Leblanc, Amanda Fong, and myself.

If you're wondering what "W project" means, well, just continue asking yourself.
The project, started in the office of Cat's Corner, one night at the Friday Downtown Stomp, a weekly swing dance night in Montreal.

Inspired by Rosie the Riveter

The idea, I think, came from a common desire of doing something between girls, and between friends with whom we thought would be easy to work with. But mostly, and it was very important for me, we wanted to do something that was different from what is usually expected from an "all-girls team". We banned the idea of having sexy costumes, shiny stockings, or anything that would emphasize the so-called "woman body". We also tried to have dance movements that were feminin, but not too sensual, strong, musical and jazzy. We also worked on keeping each other's individuality and self-expression while building a team cohesion. I think you can really tell from the costumes we chose, expressing distinctive characters among women of the swing era, but the most important of all, from our choreography and our 5 personal presences and ways of interpreting a jazz step. To do this we all did our share of the choreography. Some of it we did all together during a practice, some of it was partly done by one of us (the saxophone was Chris and Mel's part, the trumpet was Sylwia's, the piano was mine).

We were also concerned about giving each of us an equal share of the "spotlight", and not have a lead character, or on the contrary, a complete uniformity.

In the end, all of this took quite a long time to shape itself, but we succeeded to achieve everything we worked for as all of those qualities have been mentioned by the judges and the public when they came to congratulate us after our performance.

So thank you girls, from the bottom of my heart. I loved spending this time with you, creating, thinking, working, laughing, joking, training, talking ... I'm amazed how easy it's been to do this with you, and to see we could share such a common idea of the dance. I'm so glad we did this and that I got to know you better. You are awesome !!!!

I want to thank also my love and partner, Aleix, for supporting, helping, loving, caring and sharing so many things with me and training us in the last few practices.

Thank you Adrian whom I believe helped also Sylwia in the choreographing process,

Thank you Alain Wong for encouraging and pushing us,

Thank you Alain Fragman for your advise and critics

Thank you all of you who's had anything to do with this, by your kind words, your encouragements and, ... anything, really !

And last, but not the least, FATS WALLER the most joyful jazz pianist of all time, who makes everyone smile with his voice and smart fingers. I love you !!!!

We can do it ! And indeed, we did !

... Yes, Yes, Yes

:-)