This weekend, on Saturday, I attended Liz and Jeff’s wedding in Santa Barbara, California. I spent a couple of days in LA with Brooks beforehand – went out dancing but we didn’t really do anything touristy. We got to Santa Barbara Thursday night after meeting up with Jeff at LindyGroove. We got to our hotel which we were sharing with Sosh and Lisa) really late at night.  In the morning we met up with Liz and Jeff and most of the bridal party for lunch and Lisa and I took to wandering the main street for most of the day. It was so beautiful out. Warm and sunny. The guys went back to the hotel to enjoy the hot tub, I believe. Did I mention we were alongside the beach?  Oh yeah, the view was breathtaking. That night was the wedding rehearsal and dinner, then we went out for some local dancing. The venue was nice — amazing sprung floor — but sadly the music was beyond awful. I do not enjoy dancing to boogie woogie junk.

The next day we went out to lunch at a restaurant on the pier — again, great view. I miss the ocean so much. It was the day of the wedding. I must say the moment I saw Liz (before the actual ceremony) in her gown all dressed up and anxiously waiting, I gasped. She looked so beautiful. And then during the ceremony, when she made her first appearance, she looked angelic. I’m sure Jeff and others present would agree wholeheartedly. I can’t wait for pictures. I had a very hard time choking back tears.

The reception was very casual and fun, in true Jeff and Liz tradition. And the wedding band was a gypsy jazz quartet, Les Gendarmes du Swing. It was great. I love gypsy jazz.

The trip back home the next morning (early morning train to LA, cab ride, two flights, and ride home) was long… Thank goodness for good books. 

Congrats again to Liz and Jeff!

Ok. I finally got a job. Yay!  There are some awesome things about finally having something to get up early for every day.  There are also some shitty things… like the fact that it’s a totally lame lame job. I’m helping the FDA go digital with their old records. I sit in a room with some other people and we go through hundreds of old files/documents, organize them, scan them, tag them, and put hte files away. Exciting huh?  No. Not.

On the upside though, I get a paycheck. Pretty good since I have bills to pay now and stuff I want to do which costs money. That’s pretty much it. It’s kind of a struggle just to stay awake. Yay for money though!  :p

If you’re like most people, when you think of pole dancing you usually think of strip clubs, a seedy bar, and a nearly nude woman removing what’s left of her clothes while occasionally spinning around a pole. Today I came across a video that changed this perception for me. It can be an artistic and very beautiful mode of expression and movement.

My friend, Caroline Martin, posted the following video on her blog:

(An entry for the Dutch Nationals Artistic Poledancing competition)

I was very impressed by the stamina required for some of those movements. Poledancers must have thighs of steel. It really makes me want to take a class, and I’m not the only one, according to this article from CNN. I’ve now added poledancing to my list of things to try, along with trapeze and silks acrobatics.

So I know I’ve commented on my dance related pet peeves before. One of those was how I get asked to dance. There is a good way to ask for a dance, and many many bad ways. I just learned of one more last night.

At a point in last night’s dance my friends and I were standing together on the side of the ballroom, chatting. At one point I looked away and then when I looked back Lindsay was dancing with this older man, wearing a scared sort of expression on her face. I thought perhaps she got asked to dance and felt bad about rejecting him. Then at some point later I turned around and felt my arm tugged on. I was pulled by this man onto the dance floor and we started dancing.I think I was too shocked and surprised at what had just happened… so much that the easiest thing to do was to just dance. What I wanted to do was just stop the dance and lecture him on how that was not an appropriate way to ask for a dance. He didn’t ask! He basically just took a dance. Dance thief!

I felt bad. So I kept dancing. But I was clearly not enjoying it. He was old. But his name tag (and yes, he wore a name tag) also said “dance instructor”. How the hell could a dance instructor not be aware of proper dance etiquette? At some point later he spun me into a friend who continued the dance with me while slowly ushering me to the safety of the side of the ballroom (Thanks Terrace!). I think the man went and grabbed himself another victim after that.

So here’s my new rant. You have to ASK for a dance. That’s it. ASK!

I’m at RIT right now, sitting at Java’s with a coffee drink and a chocolate croissant… feels like it always did. Driving into campus earlier, it really felt like I was going home. And then I thought… Of course it feels like home! I lived here for 6 years! It’s weird to walk around and have to remind myself I don’t live here anymore. Kind of sad actually. I miss this place a little. And then again, the last two years here caused me a lot of grief… so maybe I’m just a little nostalgic. Missing the idea of having been here, rather than the reality.

Mmmm, I definitely miss Java’s coffees and pastries though. Tasty!

Yay! Patrick posted a video of our team’s award winning performance at ULHS!

Oh snap!   We won.

The day started out with competitors for the showcase and team divisions arriving early at the venue for a run-through/practice.  Once that was done the other event attendants were allowed into the venue and we began with the team competition. There were only two teams. Hot Rhythm Rising, and Keep ‘Em Flying, from LA. They performed the same routine they did at ILHC about a month or two ago. If you want to see the video of their routine before this weekend’s vids get posted you can look up their ILHC performance. Hot Rhythm performed second. It felt like our best performance yet.

The couple’s showcase was next. The new format of having a live band play the tune I think threw a lot of people off into confusion-land. There were only three couples in this division. Mike and Laura won with their super cute routine from ILHC. The Loose Marbles were awesome playing that tune.

After a dance break it was time for awards. Hot Rhythm Rising won the team division. I don’t remember most of the other winners but that will be posted soon somewhere, I’m sure.

After some more dancing they called for the start of the solo charleston competition. It was a “tap out” format. I knew way ahead of time that I wouldn’t make finals. I’m not that good… yet (imagine my devious smile here). I had a couple small goals in mind. Look up (not down at the floor), work on better arm control, hopefully don’t get tapped out at the very beginning, and have fun. To me, I won (i.e. I reached my goals). I was in my own little charleston world until at one point I looked around and saw a couple dancers sitting down that I fully expected to be throwing down in the finals. It scared the crap out of me. Then I got tapped out. Oh well. Things to take away from this…. Joanna, you need to be more aware of your surroundings. Don’t go off into charleston la-la-land just because you’re so into the music. Move around the floor more and let yourself be influenced by what you see others doing. I keep forgetting to let these solo competitions feel more like a leisurely charleston jam between friends. Gotta remember that.

Well, the most eventful part of that competition came later. Hurley, from Florida, got tagged out by the judges’ decision. But the crowd loved him. So they chanted and chanted his name until the judges sent him back into the jam. I don’t know what he was doing before that caused the judges to tag him out, but I’m thinking he adjusted because he busted out during spotlights and won the competition (by an audience vote). Actually… there were two winners of the solo competition. They chose a winning male dancer, and a winning female dancer by audience opinion (since final spotlights had an almost even ratio of men and women). The winning pair were crowned the king and queen of ULHS. It was sweet.

Now, it’s nearly 5am. There’s a late late night dance going on but I danced so hard this weekend that my feet are all blistery and hurty such that I can barely walk without some pain so I’m skipping the soul night and staying in. So so so exhausted. This event has more than lived up to my expectations. I can’t wait to see what comes of it next year when ULHS gets moved to New Orleans. Oooooohh, it’s gonna be good.

Holy frickin’ crap!

So yesterday were three competitions — slow tempo strictly (Freedom), fast tempo strictly (Liberation), and the Endurance competition (where you nearly literally dance till you drop).

OK, so the prelims…  Sometime earlier in the afternoon were the prelims for the Freedom and Liberation comps. The slow prelims were nice and mellow. The fast prelims as a whole, were actually kind of disappointing. No one truly “brought it”. And many couples’ swingouts looked incredibly sloppy as though unable to keep up with the tempo. There was so much going on on the floor during prelims that it overshadowed couples who actually managed to keep up to speed. In my opinion, nice and simple, I expected finalists to be the couples who kept swinging out hard throughout. I don’t (personally) care about aerials so much (especially in prelims). If your swingouts aren’t solid, I don’t care what else you do.

Finals were a whole different bag of potatoes. First they brought back two couples from the Medium finals for which the judges were undecided on placement. Dance off!  It was amazing. Then came the slow finals, which were incredibly sexy. The amount of body control from follows was impressive. I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Lastly, the fast finals. I was so so so happy and mesmerized and in awe. Every couple seriously swung out hard. There were some sweet air tricks too. I swear I was in lindy hop heaven watching this. It was so good it took all of my brain function to watch and process the movement. I couldn’t clap! It was like a deer in headlights moment without the danger of getting hit.  I can’t wait til people get videos of these competitions posted. I’m going to watch them over and over again. It was the most inspiring competition I’ve seen in a long long time.

The endurance competition was later in the night. I don’t know how many songs Brooks and I danced but we stayed in it pretty long. I felt like I was about to puke by the end just because my throat was so dry from breathing hard. It was fun though. The rule for that comp was this: no cheating with balboa or shag and such. Keep swinging out on time. Stay on time. They kept ramping up the tempo and my legs were going to fall off. It was wonderful!

Today is the team competitions and I am pumped. I’ve been dreaming our team routine and going over it in my head like mad. I can’t wait.

I, along with most of Hot Rhythm Rising, left Atlanta sometime Thursday afternoon. As for the flight– I’ll just say it was uneventful as far as flights go (which is a good thing) and we had a lot of fun thanks to some mini drinks Sosh brought along.

We got to MInneapolis and headed over to  the regular Thursday night dance. It was more popularly atended than usual thanks to the number of travelers in town for the famed riverboat dance. I had a really fun time. One of the first people I ran into was my friend Joel from RIT. He was pretty much the first person I ever danced with. It was really good to see him again and we’ve had some really fun dances this weekend so far. That first dance was so instantly inspiring. I felt myself being more and more creative. The music wasn’t great most of the time, but It was still a very fun night. We went to sleep, utterly exhausted, that night.

Last night (Friday night) was the official start of the event. We had DJ’d music, and two live bands (The Hot Swing Combo and The Loose Marbles). Music was awesome — varying from wild fast tempos to slow bluesy hot jazz al night. My absolute favorite thing about the music was that as the night wore on, the music didn’t slow down. It bugs me that at most events that music gets consistently slower as the night goes on almost as if by rule. Last night’s DJ’s and the band were really good at reading the crowd. I remember sitting down, sweating bullets and breathing hard, after a fast and kickin’ dance and checking my watch. It was 4am. It made me so happy.

There were three competitions last night. First, the Jack and Jill Prelims, in which I participated. There were a lot of people signed up for that competition so there were three heats of many many people each, and only two rotations/dances per heat. I had two very fun dances. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of my first partner for the slower tune, but my second partner was Peter Strom. I was excited. The song was really energetic and we were playing up the height difference bit. It was clear we were entertaining the crowd. I enjoyed it. At some point I fell on my butt but I got right back up and kept dancing. But that doesn’t matter. It was probably my favorite dance of the evening. I frickin’ love Peter’s swingouts.

After some more social dancing it was time for the medium tempo strictly (Revolution), which I was also competing in with my dance partner, Carl Nelson. Again, we got two songs per heat.  Those dances felt really good and I love that we managed to fit some side by side partnered time-steps into our dance. So fun.

Finals for both competitions were later in the evening. No, I didn’t make finals for either, but I also didn’t expect to. Compared to the couples that did make finals (and yes, they are the usual suspects), I and my dancing have a long way to go. It’s humbling and inspiring.

The last competition of the night was the solo blues comp. I’ll just say it was amazingly entertaining, and Ramona had one hell of a plan up her sleeve for it. Naomi was declared the winner by audience applause/cheering after a shimmy-off with Ramona. They are both such amazing dancers with such complete body control that I was torn and couldn’t decide which topped the other.

I’m so excited for today.

I have been looking forward to this event for a very very long time. Every year I’d look forward to the weeks following ULHS for the new and inspiring videos from the event’s competitions that were sure to be posted online. And every year I promisied myself I’d one day get to be there. Well, this year is it. I’ll be at ULHS, and not only that, but it’s the last ULHS in Minneapolis. I have really high hopes for this weekend.