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

:-)