Friday night was the kickoff dance at Eastside Stomp which included live music from Casey MacGill, teacher demos by Nathan Bugh and Gaby Cook, and the preliminaries for the Emerald City Solo Jam competition. Saturday was classes that didn't start till 1pm (Thank you for having late classes!) followed by another dance featuring the Rex Quartet and the contest finals. Sunday was more classes and the option to go to Century afterwards, but since I was so beat and that dance didn't start till four hours after classes ended, I went home and got some rest.
So Friday night was fabulous, even if for a large part of the night I was in a bit of a dance funk for some reason. I was having the hardest time keeping beat and following feel kinda rough, but I still managed to have a few really good dances. There were a couple in particular that I felt really good about and one went really well and I just feel like I hit all the timing right (a miracle that night!) and made me feel like I've made some improvement over the last few months.
Watching the prelims was awesome. I ended up watching from the front row, dead center, and watching everyone show of there best stuff was really fun. There were some really skilled dancers that were just a joy to watch. By the end my hands stung from clapping and applauding so much that I had "clap rash". Basically my arm starts looking rash-like from my wrist down after a lot of clapping. Does that happen to anyone else?
Saturday morning, after a rough night of sleep, I made my way to the ballroom for classes. When I arrived I found Ben outside of the venue waiting for the guy with the keys. 15 minutes before classes were supposed to start. But despite that and all of the last minute things that happened (judges being sick, bridge closures, etc) it all turned out great. So back to the ballroom, we finally get in and it's freezing, so I was happy when we finally started class and got the blood flowing!
So each day we worked with both instructors for two hours which meant us beginners started with Nathan and finished with Gaby. So we started our first class with Nathan and followed him with some basic moves to warm up. Durring that he realized we weren't good at fishtails, so he decided to teach us how to do them. I definitely improved on them, but I still need to practice the twisting and then moving the feet, as it feels really unnatural to me right now. Shorty George and boogie forward were next, both moves I "knew" but learned a lot on how to refine them and do them properly.
Next we moved on to charleston, where he asked us what the oddest kind of charleston is and proceeded to tell us how it's weird that most lindy hoppers learn side by side early on when it's not even the real way that charleston is done. It was also at this point that Nathan pulled me over to demonstrate the different types of swing charleston (which turned into a trend that weekend).
So we refined our charleston form, as we all pretty much knew it and used it to go into a break with a pause and some foot tapping. We also went over the scarecrow which included Nathan telling us that when performing it to make it a sudden surprise to the audience, but that it should almost surprise ourselves as well. Then we learned a turn that used a step-kick-ball change before crossing the legs and turning. That's one I have the concept down for, but need to practice the turning part a lot as I keep putting my weight on the wrong leg. And that was the end of our first class with Nathan!
There was a half hour between classes with each instructor and on the first day it was definitely needed as they decided to switch venues for the beginner and intermediate/advanced classes as the larger advanced class was in the smaller studio. Remember how I said it was freezing in the ballroom? Well we got to trade that for a warm studio.
We started warming up with Gaby and then we went through the whole shim sham with some stylization on certain steps. I've known the shim sham for a while, but just the very basic version, so I'm excited to have some style to add to it on Friday nights when we do it. One of the new moves I really like is the part on the break when you toe tap with your left foot then jump left, jump right, then apart then together (I have no idea if it has a name). After that we did some partnering where one person would do 16 counts of something and then the other would have to do something that contrasted it. That kinda stuff always makes me nervous, as I'm especially bad at anything improv related, but being pushed out of my comfort zone.
That was the end of classes on day one. There were three hours to kill between the end of class and the beginning of the dance and since some of us were hungry we went and ate together. Ben had mentioned that the Mexican place in the shopping center where the ballroom was had good food, so that's where we went. I got the chicken tacos, which were fabulous! Thank you Ben for the recommendation! After that there was still a bit of time, so I went to Safeway and Trader Joe's and bought some snacks, as I was starving the night prior after dancing all night and didn't want to do that again.
The dance went really well. We had more live music, the competition finals, a performance from the advanced class, and an encore that turned into a jam circle. I got to bed a quarter after 1am and I slept way better Saturday night, though I guess it was already Sunday at that point. Ha!
The first day of classes were great, but Sunday's classes were even better. The first couple hours with Nathan went by way to fast. he was inspired by the sound of the floor and small room to we started off with some tap. He had us form a circle and showed us all the different ways to use our feet to make tap sounds Then we went into a tap combo, which was one of my favorite parts, even though I'm still struggling a part of it. It was funny because he took a slow song and made it even slooowwwer, so we could get the pattern down, which was good because I'm not sure if I could do it any faster, but seriously. It was so slow! Ha!
Afterwards we partnered up and did a mirroring exercise in which Nathan used me to demonstrate again which was fun. We did the exercise with several different people and I have to say it was pretty fun! Then he showed us a couple more common moves and their names before we spent the rest of the time working on our Susie Q's. We went over all the nitty gritty of the move and I'm fairly comfortable with them now at slower speeds. And then I was really sad because our time with Nathan was already over.
After downing a Cliff Protein Bar and some granola on break we started our class with Gaby. She decided to show us the first part of The Big Apple, which made me really excited I've been wanting to learn it especially after watching a lot of videos of it recently! We started from the beginning and made it through the jump charleston and transition steps. There were a lot of moves that we did that I really liked, one of those being apple jacks. Doing the kick prep and then the move makes me feel really fancy and like I know what I'm doing. The jump charleston was also another favorite.
After that there wasn't a whole lot of time left, so Gaby answered some questions, Gaby had me help demonstrate as she answered one of those questions (She said my Little Mermaid shirt spoke to her) and went over a couple little combos. Like I said earlier, I skipped going to Century in place of sleep, but I did stop for some more tacos before leaving. And that is the end of Emerald City Solo Jam 2017.
I'd watched many video of Nathan and Gaby performing on YouTube, but seeing that much skill in person brings a whole new element of appreciation. Plus it's just way more fun. I could just sit and watch Nathan dance forever; every little movement is just memorizing. His teaching style was my favorite as I liked the way he broke down every little bit and had us repeat it many times. That combined combined with his personality makes for a great time in class. Then there's Gaby with her inspiring style of movement that makes me wanna dance better. Every movement was like a work of art. Also her clothing choices are adorable and she has the best jackets. I kinda want her wardrobe now...
And to end off this post I'd like to give a big thank you to Ben and everyone that helped him put on this fabulous event. You're all awesome.
