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I haven't been to swing for about two or three weeks -- I went out yesterday night and felt like I had completely forgotten how to dance! I didn't stay too long; I was tired and wanted to curl up with rats, and it's sort of embarrassing that so little dancing made my hips sore.
But today someone from swing emailed out that a swing band would be playing at a local outdoors mall for free! It's part of an outdoors summer jazz concert series, so it wasn't officially a dance. Some people from the dance community went anyway, and we commandeered a little spot by the very side and back of the stage, and people were out there, lindy hopping in the hot summer air.
There was actually a pretty big audience for the band, which was great, and it was so funny, standing there and dancing with no preparation, the wrong shoes, a giant crowd of people who probably thought we were nuts, and having tons of fun anyway. I nearly kicked off my flip-flops just to dance in my bare feet, but decided that swiveling and twirling and jumping around on the mall concrete would probably be just as painful as trying to dance with the flip-flops on.
I didn't dance that much; it was 90-some degrees outside today, we were right out in the sun, I had the wrong shoes, and I had forgotten to bring water. But I watched other people dancing: an impromptu shim-sham line to super fast music, the swing teacher from a local swing place just kicking out steps to the riffs in the music and playing off her partner's cues, people doing Charleston together with legs flying every which way. And afterward, an older woman came up to the swing teacher and said that she had been watching, so happy to see people dancing the things she had danced back in high school years and years ago.
( So You Think You Can Dance )
But today someone from swing emailed out that a swing band would be playing at a local outdoors mall for free! It's part of an outdoors summer jazz concert series, so it wasn't officially a dance. Some people from the dance community went anyway, and we commandeered a little spot by the very side and back of the stage, and people were out there, lindy hopping in the hot summer air.
There was actually a pretty big audience for the band, which was great, and it was so funny, standing there and dancing with no preparation, the wrong shoes, a giant crowd of people who probably thought we were nuts, and having tons of fun anyway. I nearly kicked off my flip-flops just to dance in my bare feet, but decided that swiveling and twirling and jumping around on the mall concrete would probably be just as painful as trying to dance with the flip-flops on.
I didn't dance that much; it was 90-some degrees outside today, we were right out in the sun, I had the wrong shoes, and I had forgotten to bring water. But I watched other people dancing: an impromptu shim-sham line to super fast music, the swing teacher from a local swing place just kicking out steps to the riffs in the music and playing off her partner's cues, people doing Charleston together with legs flying every which way. And afterward, an older woman came up to the swing teacher and said that she had been watching, so happy to see people dancing the things she had danced back in high school years and years ago.
( So You Think You Can Dance )