I've recently had several independent conversations about what I think fusion is, or what I think of fusion, etc.  There's a big muckety-muck of a debate raging on forums (ok, all debates rage into muckety-mucks on forums), so I decided to do this here, where instead of jumping into a philosophical mosh pit, I can simply make a statement about what I think.  No beehive-poking intended.  (I'm going to focus on tango-into-blues influences here, since that's the easiest place for me to draw examples, and I suspect that's the easiest thing for most of you to relate to).


First off, what is fusion?  
I think fusion can have a couple of meanings.  The first meaning is essentially just crosstraining- for instance, at Buenos Aires Blues this year, the idea was that people would work on blues skills, and tango skills, and walk away stronger dancers.  I think the same can be said for a lot of cross-over events.  My thoughts on this?  I think it's fantastic.  There's a biological term for this: hybrid vigor.  One purebred dog may be susceptible to some recessive deleterious genes, while another purebred of another breed may be susceptible to other recessive deleterious genes.  However, when you cross them, the first generation offspring, possessing one copy of each gene, will not show either of the weaknesses of the purebreds.  The metaphor would get weird after that, so I'll stop there.  Likewise, a purebred beg/int blues student may have a really great embrace, but have pretty weak balance (generally, I don't see blues students start drilling balance hard-core until pretty late in the game).  They go to a tango workshop, and the 2nd thing of the day is balance and rotation.  The student walks away with a better understanding of the importance of balance, hopefully practices, and splits weight less often.  Everyone wins.  


The second thing that happens under the name of fusion is basically move-stealing.  Students go to a fusion/crossover/different-dance workshop, and find things to add to their primary dance.  The most common example here is ochos, although other elements like parallel systems, volcadas, and calecitas have also been seen from time to time.  It's pretty much a guarantee that if a blues scene has any tango influence, it also has ochos.  More on my personal feelings on this further down the page.


The third thing that happens under fusion is the mixing of many dances.  I have strong feelings about this, both encouraging and cautionary.  There is a lot of music out there that tells me to move.  And some of doesn't say, "move like  a _____ dancer;" it just says move.  So I'm perfectly fine with taking the elements that I have in my mind/body, and combining them in a way that I think makes sense to that song.  Am I creating a new dance?  Sure.  A dance that will be well-formed, and get passed from dancer to dancer?  Nope.  I'm just dancing, in the moment, in a way that feels good.  Maybe you've heard a jaded old dancer like me snicker about playing a non-blues song at a blues event (Sweat, Fire, songs like that), and thought, "but that song makes me want to dance!"  Sure- but that doesn't make them blues songs, and what most of us crusty old-timers have found is that they don't make us want to dance in a blues way.  So next time you hear it played, dance if you want- just don't label it blues, and I've got no issues.


For those of you who were at DIY last weekend, and heard my "What IS (and isn't) Blues" lecture, you already know the punchline.  But I'll fill the rest of you in.  Defining a dance is not about defining the steps of the dance.  You can watch Rumba, Foxtrot, Tango, and Blues, and define each of them simply by watching them walk down a line.  Defining a dance is entirely about the way the dance is done- the place where the dance spends most of its time on continuums like rotation/liner, expansive/contracted, relaxed/engaged, etc.  Which means that to me, there are very few elements that you can't steal, and make legitimate.  The key, of course, is making it legitimate.  One of my favorite blues couples has a video on youtube (I'm not posting it, because I don't want to throw them under the forum-troll bus), where they do 3 historically tango moves in a row, but the sequence is unquestionably blues- they're blues dancers, do a blues dance, with moves that started off as tango.  


So here I've said that you can take elements, mix them up, and make new compounds- here we have the ultimate dance lab.  So I'm a fusionist, right?  Well, I think the key to successful fusion is this: keep your reagent stock clean.  In order to pull elements into blues (or any dance) successfully, you must be able to define your home dance.  You need to know that your base is blues.  You need to know what makes that dance what it is- the history, the music, the traditional moves, and most importantly, the elements that define it.  What I'm not ok with is the idea that everything is legitimate.  Ok, that's not true- all dance is legitimate on its own.  But not all dancing is legitimate blues dancing.  And that's not my call to make- it's a combination of a personal decision for you, and a collective decision by the blues community as a whole.  So in this sense, I'm a purist.  


So I'm a purist/fusionist lindy/balboa/blues/tango dancer.  Anyone else confused?


Much love and many swingouts/ochos/fishtails/sugar-pushes/wagon-wheels/up-holds/tuck-turns/volcadas/circles......
-m.

This weekend, those of you who are clever enough to be at GirlJam will get a peek at something very frightening for me- a bonified genuine original Mike-the-Girl choreography.  Sure, I've done choreography for big events before, but they've always been shared endeavors- which is to say that I had someone else to hind behind.  But for this choreography, I decided to bite off a pretty hefty bite.  I recruited 4 of my favorite lady performers from the region, picked  a song I that had wit and style, and committed.  While that part felt good, I've had to wrestle with a lot of nervousness along the way:

Source of Fear #1: My under-played, interesting, perfectly-tempoed song had apparently caught the ears of some very talented dancers.  At Lindy Focus, Juan and Kevin did a fantastic Strutting routine to the very same song.  WAIT!!  Don't go look it up!  If you haven't seen it yet, wait until after you've seen mine.  Look it up on Monday.  I can't follow that act!  I decided to stick with my guns (and song), though.  While following Kevin's choreographic interpretation of a song is pretty terrifying, I totally believe that this song is the right one to use for this choreography.  And these ladies are not only bewitchingly beautiful, they're also charismatic.  Which means watching them perform is delightful- to say nothing of their mad dancing skills.  So I have faith in the song, and faith in my performers, which means that I'll have to override any lack of faith in myself.

Source of Fear #2: My dancers don't live within a hundred miles- of me, or each other.   Representing the NE this weekend, we'll have Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, and Rochester.  This has made rehearsing a little tricky, to say the least.  We had one weekend when we were all in the same city, but since I'm a slow learner, I thought we'd be able to make a decent amount of rehearsal time.  Fortunately, we live in a time of cheap and easy... technology (you thought I was going to make a joke about your mom, didn't you?).  I used a google document to make a spreadsheet of the choreography itself.  Then, over the course of several afternoons, 37 additions to my playcount, and several shots of scotch (that's not actually true), I filmed each section of the choreography for each dancer.  Needless to say, I know everyone else's parts... 


Source of Fear #3: The real deal.  There's a great deal of vulnerability in art, and while this piece is not exactly a statement on the human condition (if you're happy and you know it clap your hands?), it's nevertheless a submitted, prepared piece.  If you guys don't agree with my kinesthetic opinion of this song, there's no blaming it on a conversational mishap- no siree.  This isn't raising your hand in class- this is submitting your thesis!  


The good news: Proportion.  Ok, this isn't a thesis.  It's more like a 10-page paper in a class with the "writing intensive" label on it.  If the choreography turns out to be boring, or weird, or generally unpleasant, it's just another weak choreography, and there will be others.  And, more importantly, it's a chance to watch 5 ladies doing silly things on a stage.  How bad can it possibly be?  And that's the real issue- that's what keeps me from turning into someone who lives in their mom's basement and never goes out for fear of embarrassing herself.  An embarrassment is simply a moment.  A more or less forgettable moment.  Chances of great success are slim, chances of moderate success are very high, chances of epic failure are practically none.  


So while there are some very real reasons for reservation, logic tells me that fear here should be totally overridden.  Maybe the choreography will be great, maybe not- either way, the world won't end.  


Who knows- maybe I'll start tackling other irrational fears next- pronouncing foreign words in front of knowledgeable people, singing when sober, starting a conversation with a stranger, or even asking a balboa rockstar to dance (yes, that's a fear of mine.  Someday I'll finish that blog post... ).  At the end of the day, fear has a useful biological function, but logic should decide whether the fear is justified.  So look out, stage, here I come!

While I hesitated to put that as my title, for obvious reasons, in the end, I just had to do it.  Allow me to explain.  Imagine that you have a skill: one that you've worked hard on, one that reflects your strengths, one that makes you feel accomplished and satisfied at the same time.  Now imagine that you've been hired to use your skills, but not been given an opportunity to use that particular skill.  You keep being given jobs that just don't quite let you use that skill.  You can imagine the frustration.  That frustration found release for me this weekend in Rochester.  


There's a skill that some lindy hop leaders have.  Usually it's leads who have danced for a long time, and/or trained under dancers like Steven and Virginie.  That skill, gentlemen, is taking movement through your legs, through our arms, and to my hips.  Which is where my skill comes in.  I love few things as much in lindy hop as a dance that lets me give the leader real stretch.  I don't mean leading the direction my hips are facing (I'm definitely not asking that you direct my swivels in swingout).


There's a continuum of stretch, and the places it goes.  There's a level where there's no stretch asked for/given- when the leader and follower are nearly exactly in sync.  That's a place I'd rather not go- but there are, of course, leads who lead that connection, so what's a girl to do?  There are leads who have stretch that goes through the arms, maybe even the back.  Here, you can see a lag, a separation- tension and compression happen.  But then there's my favorite- when a leader can use his hips to use my hips.  Straight up, it's just an advanced skill- you can't get this at most weekly lessons in most cities.  So most leaders just can't do it.  


[For my Philadelphia chickies, who may be thinking, "so why haven't you taught us this," let me point out that before I can guide you to the good stuff, you need to have really solid compression and tension stretching skills.  Which is also hard to get.  To be honest, I'd love to teach way more of this, but I think it's better taught with a lead and follow, so I'll keep bringing in out-of-towners (like Reuel, and Dan) to teach this stuff, and working on it as a lead.  Meanwhile, go take classes from Steven and Virginie!  Do it!]


I took the first three classes on Saturday as a lead, and man, I'll tell you- it's so hard being a leader imitating Steven.  Don't get me wrong- it's incredibly hard to be a follow imitating Virginie, but at least that's my native language.  I had a leader mention to me last night that he finds that learning dance is getting harder and harder- I told him that I think that means he's doing it right.  Taking an intro to lindy hop from S+V reminded me that the more deeply you get into the dance, the less likely it is that a lesson will be "too easy."  Trying to step into the movement of two advanced dancers, in one hour, is incredibly challenging- and hopefully, rewarding.


So I totally sympathize with leaders who haven't got the hips yet, but I also want to encourage you to keep at it.  The social dancing at the Saturday late night was some of the most fun I've had with lindy in months.  So keep on using me... until you use me up.




de duh, de-duh deeeeh duhdeeduhdee duh.  
-m.


duh duh duh duh duh.

This is a double post- two blogs for the price of one!


1. On Thursday, I was robbed.  Some scoundrel (or, as one theory holds, out of control self-replicating AI robot) broke into my car where I had foolishly hidden my laptop... complete with my firstmonth/lastmonth/security deposit for the next place, which was on its way to the bank to get deposited.  In cash.  Also in the bag: my fancy-shmancy new erasible gel pen, my external harddrive (where I keep all my music, image files, text files), my headphones, my chapstick (I love that brand, too), some travel receipts from BAB, and other miscellaneous items.  Not to mention, the bag itself.  Gah.  But Philly, my true love of cities, rushed to my aid.  Not one, but two rent parties happened over the next 56 hours, complete with a silent auction and dance marathon.  Dance marathon?  Why yes, dance marathon- people pledged $.10 to $1 for each song I could dance.  Consecutively.  Without a break.  The final tally?  (And I do mean tally) 45 songs.  Whew!  Philly made back a considerable amount of the money I lost (I won't be homeless after all!), and even provided a temporary laptop (I can keep working!).  I simply can't say how grateful I am, and think that in most cities, I'd have been utterly without hope.  But here, in the city of arts and commraderie, I'm back on my feet, back to a normal level of poverty (a place I'm strangely grateful for this month).  If I had any doubts about Philly, they're totally gone.  I owe this city more than cash- I owe it my sense of optimism, my love of people, and a very strong sense of community.


I love you guys!


2. With Love: A Portrait

There are few cities in the world quite as poetic, I think, as Philly.  Not the pretentious, beatnik, in-love-with-its own ideas sort of poetry, but the poetry of folk musicians (the good ones), who write about love and mundanity.  It's seven fifteen on a Monday night.  After mistakenly showing up three days early (but otherwise right on time) for a private lesson, I found myself wandering through Rittenhouse Square.  Rittenhouse, for those of you who don't know, is a park nestled in among the giant apartment buildings and skyscrapers of central Philadelphia.  Allow me to share it with you.

Temperature: probably very close to 80 degrees.  I'm not sweating (when I'm sitting still).  The light is indirect, but still looks sunny- sunset is quietly setting istelf up for a show.

On the way into the park, along the sidewalk, lay a single black slipper.  For those of you who don't yet own Carsie's new album, Buoy, you're missing the reference, but I'll fill you in, if you promise to get it.  Speaking of a heartbroken lady: "Now she lives, out in Arizona, lonely as a single shoe."  Sure, you see broken, dirty sneakers on the side of the interstate... but a pretty black slipper lost downtown... now I have a soundtrack in my mind.

The tiled fountain has an elevated section which spills over a wall into a large, 1' deep pool.  Standing on that divider wall, the chlorinated water rushing over her burkinstocks, a woman makes conversation with a nearby father and son.  Did I mention she's tethered to a giant, woolly dog, delightedly up to his belly in refreshment?

All around the center circle of pavement is a wall, and benches, where young people and artists sit and watch.  A group of african drummers (plus one coronet player) are chanting and singing to a trio of girls who shyly toss coins into a pouch.  Their father comes along, and next thing, an impromptu dance party has broken out.  Another pair of dogs drip by- it seems Woolly's idea is catching on.  

This is what so many cities doesn't get... the value of funding murals isn't that you have painted buildings, and the value of parks isn't just a photo for touristry brochures (although to two Asian girls getting their photo taken while perched atop a concrete frog is pretty priceless).  The value of funding the arts is that you get centers of joy, community, and creation.  Sure, there's a rat* hiding in the bushes across the walk, and yes, someone broke into my car, and I'm cranky about it.  But this city holds so much more than streets and gutters and police.  This city holds a space for growth.  While as nature abhors a vaccuum, art loves a space.  So keep your eye on Philly- musically, dancewise, and visually, good things happen here.


Epilogue
So here I am, sitting at Jon and Carsie's watching (occasionally jumping into) an advanced blues lesson (if you've never taken their classes, you absolutely should!), feeling utterly validated in my choice of home scenes, feeling thankful that I've landed in what, I think, is the best scene and city a gal could hope for.  

Much love, many swingouts, and multiple murals,
-Mike


*a note about the rat.  She's huge.  Really, really huge.  I mean, I kept rats for a while, and this lady is giant by well-fed standards.  However, she's doing her darndest to stay well out the way (and reach) of humans.  She's smart, and she's social.  And frankly, everyone's got to make a living, right?  She's cleaning up the garbage that disease-carrying humans leave.  She's an undervalued garbage-lady.  Who doesn't steal laptops.  Scurry safely, little one.  Scurry safely.

Being a teacher first, and organizer second, I will freely admit that my event-running is utterly biased.  I just returned from the most successful Buenos Aires Blues we've had yet, and I'm proud to say that despite my own flaws and "learning experiences," the event went off beautifully.  I chose, for a number of reason, to withhold class titles and descriptions from the site, and rather than leaving folks to think it was an oversight (although I had a few of those, of course), I wanted to explicate my reasoning.


There are occasions when I think that class titles/descriptions are not only justified, but required.  The most obvious example, of course, is any workshop where a student has to choose between classes at the same time.  Instead of only the dance form and instructor name, the class description allows students to create a curriculum that suits their weaknesses and strengths.  Then, there are times when the class titles are not truly useful, but provide a feeling of security- for instance, at a beginners' workshop, or an intermediate workshop, with only one track.  A basic, very vague topic is easy to stick to, while still providing the instructor with enough room to alter the class plan to fit the students' needs.  (One class on technique, one class on musicality, one class on moves[aka technique 2], one class on solo dancing.  Sound familiar?)


However, there are some situations where class titles are simply impractical, such as BAB.  Before Friday night, there's no way to know just what the levels will be.  The instructors are from all over the country, as are the students, and with tango and blues dancers in one track, it's hard to predict what skills students will bring.  Likewise, once instructors have talked, face to face, about what material they're teaching, the classes influence each other.  All of our instructors at BAB made changes to their class descriptions (which I didn't publish); some changes were minor, but others completely scratched their original topics.  The classes they taught were perfect for the levels, and flowed together way better than I could have hoped for.  However, if students had received class titles that promised other classes, we either would have had to stick to the original classes, or have lied to the students by publishing classes that didn't get taught.  


In a sense, my decision not to publish class titles was a decision made by a dedicated teacher, who acknowledges being a terrible saleswoman.  I knew ahead of time that class titles were a plan, from which we were free to deviate.  I'm not insensitive to the fact that students want class titles- I like knowing what's coming, too.  But I refuse to give my students a plan that doesn't mean anything, purely to make students feel like they knew what was coming.  Essentially, I refuse to pationize you.  This was my way of saying, "this workshop will be a collection of classes that make sense together, and flow from one to the next, by teachers I believe in.  Trust in your teachers, show up, and we'll teach you what we think is best."  Because that's what the student-teacher relationship comes down to.  We ask our instructors to give us overall topics for a workshop or series, but after that, we ask them to do their best, and teach us what we need to know.  


So thank you, to the instructors who put together a top-rate set of workshops, and especially to all the students who put their trust in the instructors this weekend.  I may or may not publish class descriptions at various events in the future, but know that at the end of the day, my job is to make good dancers, and make people love dance, and I'll do everything I can to succeed at that, in the most honest way I can.


I'd starve as a politician.  And that's from someone who eats Ramen now.
-Mike

I am struck, at moments, by the peculiar relationship between dancers and musicians.  Personally, I'd rather dance to canned good music than live bad music.  That being said, having a live band or musician who brings a good sound can move me in a way that surprises me every time.  Likewise,  there are some musicians who would prefer not to share a stage with dancers; an understandable hesitation, since dancers can be a distraction, and a musician's livelihood comes from being the center of attention at their shows.  There are some musicians who are downright hostile to dancers even being in the crowd (including one band who gets djed very regularly).  Then there are musicians who appreciate what dancers bring in the way of energy.  And, finally, there are musicians who use dancers as another layer of art, and make something together with dancers.  


I recently had the honor to perform with some truly talented musicians recently, at the August Heritage Festival (link at bottom).  Daryl Davis, Saffire (the Uppity Blues Women), and Fiona Boyes were kind enough to share their stage with us at the Blues Week concerts, and gave us more energy and fun than we knew what to do with.  Who's "we"?  Dan Rosenthal (formerly of Pittsburgh, now of Tampa Bay) was kind enough to take a week out of his life to be my "lovely and talented".  In addition to helping me teach the classes, he also made performances possible, for which I am completely grateful.  In addition to the rockin' tunes by the aforementioned super-talented musicians, we also requested a slow tune, and Joe Filisko (links at bottom) stepped up to the plate.  We ran into Joe the day before the show, and he asked how slow we wanted: 60ish bpm would be great.  He told us that, after seeing us over the course of the week, he had just the perfect song.  


The evening of the performance, Joe's first song was a fox-chase/train song combo.  I couldn't see how the audience took it, but the pros backstage were leaning out of their seats, shaking their heads: impressed.  Then Joe said something like, "for this next song, I'm stretching way out of my comfort zone; I've never done anything quite like this.  That last song was easy," leaving the audience to chuckle, bewildered.  From backstage, we heard Joe start a snap, or perhaps it was his foot on the stage.  Then Joe played the most ghostly, hauntingly sweet and eerie tune I have ever had the honor of dancing to.  Ranking right up there with Nina Simone's "Tell Me More and More and Then Some" (link at bottom), Joe's quiet, husky voice and the sweet, strange lyrics told a story of love, while the harmonica painted dark harmonies and juxtoposed intimacy with longing and loneliness.  The name of the song, I have found, is "Need by Baby," by Big Walter Horton, and it normally sounds nothing like the way Joe did it that night.  Making our way onstage, knowing that Joe was pushing himself artistically to create something with us, wrapping ourselves in character and dancing as the song itself... that will forever be one of my favorite memories of all time.  Was our performance flawless?  I don't remember, nor do I care.  Dan's dancing was the best I've ever felt it.  We had already decided to put in some things that were purely for the audience- some blues flash, and some a few bits of tango flash (if they fit, which they did).  My feelings on that?  Simple- we wanted to use any tools we had to move the audience: to create a visual for whatever it was that Joe was going to play.  We wanted to show a room full of musicians what we as dancers feel and hear.  It dawned on me, at some point during the song, that the audience was deathly quiet, in contrast to the rowdy cheers and hoots with previous performances.  There wasn't any time to question it, but if I had, my answer would have been provided when the song ended.  Joe finished his last note, and I get chillbumps remembering the instant transition from pin-drop silence to deafening explosion.  I don't think I've ever been as proud and honored as I was that night.  I cannot explain how absolutely grateful I am to Dan and Joe for giving me a chance to do what I love, and a shot at making art.


Much Love,
-Mike

Ps:  Links!

Joe Filisko's Homepage
Joe Performing at the National Harmonica League
Nina Simone's "Tell Me More and More and Then Some"
A typical performance of "Need My Baby"
Augusta Heritage Festival
Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women
Daryl Davis
Fiona Boyes

Pps: If I get access to the video, and permission to post it, I'll do that.  If I only get the video, I won't post it, but will have it, if you'd like to see it sometime.  As of right now, I don't have either.  Wish me luck!