I write this with greatly aching muscles almost 24 hours after CBC and I left Goodnight Sweetheart, our swing dance weekend. I don't have masses of amazing photos, the quality is pretty rough particularly as many were from the evenings but I thought I'd write about our experiences.
CBC picked me up from school on Friday evening and having had an awful headache all day, I was really in no mood for dancing, travelling or anything other than collapsing in an exhausted heap. We travelled to Watford, getting caught in pretty dismal traffic so it took a long time. Eventually we arrived, found some parking and headed off to Beachgrove to the Baptist church which was the venue. The church building is incredible, they have SUCH good facilities there. We signed in and received our wristbands and programmes for our Intermediate ability group and headed off across town to a gym for our first taster dance. This was a Balboa class, which is a faster form of swing dance that was developed when the dance floors got too crowded for lindy and for fast tracks. It is danced in a closer hold than Lindy and involves smaller steps. We did some work on moving around the floor. It was quite a small room so it was lucky there weren't too many of us. Jon and Jenna who were our teachers,from Nashville, were fantastic, really clear, informative and great fun in their teaching style.
After the class, we headed off to the church to get changed for the evening opening dance. It was a bit yucky having to get ready without a shower, a distinct disadvantage of not staying in Watford but driving home each evening. Eventually, at 9pm, the party began. The theme was 1920's and there was a great band, The Last Chance Ragtime Band.
Dodgy photo quality (phone as battery ran out on camera) but this is what I wore-a modern drop-waisted dress bought from some dodgy shop at some point plus charity shop pearl necklaces, gloves from Accessorize ages ago and a primark silk scarf plus an amazing vintage beaded bag J bought for me.
The dancing was great fun although I did have a headache still so didn't do loads.
The teachers were all introduced. The thing I like about JiveSwing and Joseph, the director of the dance group is how family and friendly they are.
Finally, we left at about midnight to drive home (an hour), feeling hideously exhausted, getting to bed at 1.30am.
The next day, we set off at about 9.30am, feeling absolute wrecks. We decided to skip the taster class and headed off for porridge and tea in a trendy artisan coffee house who gave me an egg timer with my tea! CBC, ever the romantic, had demanded we bring along a book of love poems we'd got from my Grandad's collection, so he could write my Valentines card (we were yet to write them)
I should point out that we ate very well that weekend. Delicious vegetarian fettucine in Ask on Saturday lunchtime, more wonderfulness at Wagamamas in the evening on both days.
Saturday's first class was in a really crowded room and I felt really dreadful and to my horror, started to cry in the class,so I had to take 5 minutes outside. The first lesson with Jenna and John again was good though was mostly about technique rather than learning new steps. CBC really liked them. I liked them but would have liked to learn something new.
After a lunch break of 3 hours in which we moved the car, went to Ask and bought some things in Tiger (a new umbrella and a picture frame) we headed off to our next class withDave Madison from San Fransisco, who is a blues teacher. He did some work with us on Musicality and listening to the music to form your lindy moves. It was useful and in a better room. After this was the best class of the day with Fabien Vrillon from France and Lisa Clarke from the UK. They taught us 3 really cool Lindy moves which we added to our repertoire. I thought they had a really cool and gentle dance teaching style and were my favourite teachers of the day.
The final class was a Performance class with Alison Marsh. We were learning a choreographed routine to 'Love me or leave me' with elements we had to decide on ourselves. This was great fun and had the added bonus/terror of our having to perform it in front of the whole of the GNSH audience on Sunday night. I love learning routines so it was a great end to the lessons.
After a brief trip to Primark to buy some much needed clean socks, a hand towel (and some tartans shorts to wear under my dress- we'd forgotten things) we had meal in Wagamamas with some other dancers from the Southend class we used to go to.
Again, we really felt like a shower would be lovely after all the sweating of the day but had to be content with washing faces in the toilets and the wonders of cleansing wipes!
The evening ball kicked off at 9pm again. I wore the Lindybop green dress CBC had bought me for Christmas (featured before but only the bottom half was visible) together with a Crown and glory silver heart bandeau. Pity you can't see it properly as it is enormous! It was ideally 1940's night but I don't have anything that I could dance in of that era/inspiration.
I was accompanied by my very own Matt Smith Doctor Who in Bow tie (Bow ties are cool) and tweed suit (and I am linking him up to
TARDIS Tuesday for that reason!). He did look handsome!
We had a few dances and danced a few with some other people. I had a bit of a crisis of confidence about my dancing. I wish I had the bravery to ask more people to dance but I was in a bit of a spiral of 'I am terrible, nobody wants to dance with me, I must avoid eye contact so they don't have to dance with me if they don't want to" which I know is stupid but since I had been feeling unwell and was still tired, this was to be expected. The teachers cabaret was amazing! Those teachers are so talented! There was also a great Andrews sisters-style group called the Polka Dot Dolls. Finally, we headed home at about 12.40am feeling very very tired!
The next morning, we headed off to Watford at 9.30 for a rehearsal for our performance group. It was at this point, I was volunteered for a central role by our teacher who loved what I did for the 'Blue, blue, blue' bit of the song and was made to stand in the middle and do my over-exaggerated looking miserable for that part. Apparently I had everyone in fits of laughter and people were coming up to me all day saying they loved it. The dance evolved from a routine to a staged and polished performance with rotation of partners and stage positions. There was one cool moment where we made a roueda with our partners and rotated like a wheel between partners. The whole process of putting the dance together over the hour yesterday and this day was hideously fun and a great bonding experience. We went straight into a Lindy class with Joseoh Sewell which was originally about improving some basic moves but we learnt a cool move called the Pop which involved some fast spinning (which usually means me careering off to the right)- I am not so good at double spinning and ended up treading on many toes and accidentally punching one partner in the face!
After a chilled lunch, we headed to more lindy classes with Jon/Jenna and Lisa/Fabien,both fun. I definitely preferred the one with Lisa and Fabien where we learnt some impressive looking Charleston variation moves.
The final class was a taster class in Blues with Dave Madison again.Blues was a dance form that came before Lindy and is much slower. We did some basic moves and getting the basic technique which is a lot more chilled than Lindy.
The final night was 'casual dress' although everyone really made an effort. I wore my Cath Kidston comic strip dress (sorry forgot to take photos), put on a simple heartprint Crown and Glory headscarf and didn't bother with the make-up!
I feel a lot more confident tonight, perhaps it was people being so nice about the routine? Anyway, I asked a few guys to dance which worked out well and fun. I had a couple of really fun dances particularly with a guy from my class and a guy from Hamburg who I had chatted to earlier.
We sat down to watch the Euro Jack and Jill Lindy competition. This is basically a competition where people enter individually. They then have to social dance to the music that is played and then dance with three different partners. Since they have not rehearsed together (as they don't know who they will be matched with), nor can do they know which music will be played, they are being judged purely on their following or leading skills. It is incredible to watch!!!
There was also a solo Jazz competition, where the competitors dance alone. The winner was this amazing crazy, quirky girl who won it last year. She's the one in the boiler suit below.
The next item was the Authentic Jazz performance (they were a set of people doing this exclusively all weekend) which was very impressive, then it was time for our routine!
You can see some pictures below of us in action. That's me in the navy polka dot dress (these are from the rehearsal)
It went well and people were very complimentary. A teacher from Essex said if she started a performance group in Essex, she wanted us to be in it. I was a bit scared at that- I can do comedy but I am no performing dancer!
The band was my favourite one- the Pete Long Swing Band, who featured guitars, double bass, piano, clarinet and vibraphone. They were really virtuosic.
We had a few more dances and even headed off to the Blues room a bit later. Finally set off for home at about 1.45am ahrgh, which was rather late and it was extremely foggy. Somehow made it home alive, achy but very happy. I'm so glad we decided to go to this camp, it was remarkable fun and I would love to do it again. I'd definitely stay there next time though- the driving wasn't too fun! As I said before, I love the way that Joseph runs Jive Swing, it does feel very inclusive, friendly and like the Jive Swing groups from all around Essex and Hertfordshire are one family. It takes a special group of people to do that.
Sorry this was a bit long but I really wanted to record how I felt about it!
xxx
Linking to TARDIS Tuesday with
Maricel
