Topic: #dance

Yearly update! What a year of not very much!

Haha! I’m getting really good at not blogging for a whole year! In doing a summary, it does feel like, overall, not much has changed too much, which is excellent! There are lots of little things that are absolutely wonderful, but too little to write about (or we’d be here forever). Maybe I should write about them out of the normal yearly structure…

Another year with little posting! It’s been terribly busy and of course, setting goals for this year, means I might jump back on the bandwagon on blogging, but let’s start with a year in review for 2018.

2017 flew by with 0 posts! Well I turned 30, which was a small deal. I ended up hiking the Six Foot Track, just to get away from it all. It was a gorgeous 3 days.

And another year has passed. Looking back, it’s been quite a huge year in my personal life and in my professional career. Personally, I’ve enjoyed numerous gigs towards the start of the year (with less and less in the last 6 months), went viral for about a day over the Fast Food Cake, moved in with the girlfriend and so much dancing. I’ve now reached a comfortable stage in my Balboa dancing which was a goal over the last year, which I think is an amazing thing for my dancing. It’s definitely the new love. There were a couple competitions this year, which I did pretty well in, but the biggest achievement would’ve been coming second in a Lindy Hop Open Invitational at the Pan Pacific’s this year! The second biggest would be that I’m now a Swing Dance Instructor. It definitely has been helping with my dancing to take the time and analyse everything that’s going on with my movements.

The Sydney Lindy Exchange was on this weekend, which also included the Australian Swing Dance Championships. I only attended the social nights but there were classes as well as late night events. People from all over the country were there (including New Zealand!). It hasn’t been on since 2012, but its come back and was pretty spectacular. The first night was at St Peters Church - SCEGGS. Gorgeous venue. It held one of my first ever events - the Jack and Jill. Nervous as anything, didn’t get into the finals, nor did I find the fun in it at the time. I was so nervous I couldn’t even hear the beat of the music. I eventually got there after about 8 bars. The other events that night were the Balboa Open, Solo Jazz and Team events.

#sofarsyd - Another Sofar sounds. This time it was at St Peters at a warehouse sponsored by Trolly’d. This month, it featured, Molly Contogeorge:

I found myself heading to the Royal Sydney Easter Show on Easter Saturday in the rain. Luckily for me, I had a fantastic hiking poncho which did the job really well. I was also armed with my hiking gear to keep me warm and dry! Crowds were low, which only meant easier accessibility to free things. The main highlights were Bonnie Yard Dogs, Wood Chopping, and the petting of farm yard animals. I think it was my main goal to pat some animals. I didn’t end up staying till the final hours, but instead, opted to check out Harlem in Ashfield (Polish Club), which is partly run by Sharon (who is my swing dance instructor). It was a terrific night, with well suited music that was great to dance to.

Another show at Miss Peaches as part of the Roadshow events they’ve got lined up. I did miss last weeks, but this weeks, it was VERY packed. Either the dancing scene has picked up or everyone was there for the Cruisin’ Deuces. I’m sure it was a bit of both. Hopefully Miss Peaches will make the dancing area a bit bigger in future =) or at least rearrange furniture when it is that packed. One can dream!

Pia Andersen is all things vintage and is an all round performer. She’s pretty fantastic to watch and dance to. Another week of great music for the night where it was danced away. It was a pretty good turn out to Miss Peaches.

I finished up my Swing class with Sharon and Nathan at Miss Peaches and hung around (as always). They’ve actually started with Rockabilly nights instead of the Swing bands they’ve had for the last month or so. This week was Pat Capocci, next week is Pia Andersen. The information is on the Miss Peaches facebook page.

I’ve had the chance to have a whole weekend of dance over the Valentine’s Day weekend. Peter Flahiff was touring from the US and he had a weekend of Tap, Lindy, Shag and Balboa. I attended the Tap, Shag and Balboa classes. It was all pretty intense, especially the Bal (since there was about 4 hours of it, after 2 hours of Shag..). Bal was my goal for the year so it was a great start - definitely enjoying it, but will just need to find myself doing more of it at socials if I get the chance. A few pictures below (borrowed from the internet from the weekend).

Lindy in the Park is run every Sunday in Golden Gate Park from 11 am until 2 pm. It has been somewhat a highlight of the trip in terms of dancing. First thing of course is that dancing during the day, outside, is amazingly fun (most probably because we don’t always do it). The event is on every Sunday and the turn out apparently is very similar, if not bigger than the photos I’ve got. Lots of lovely people from all over the place. It also has a free beginners lesson with it. They also have a “Jazz move of the week” session. It was one of the most enjoyable events so its highly recommended! I think this is definitely a must for anyone around on a Sunday in San Francisco and want to dance!

Saturday’s event is Lindy On Sproul in Berkeley. It wasn’t hard to find and it was nice to head out of town for part of the day. I wasn’t able to make it up the hill, but I was told to head up to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where there is a lovely view all the way back to San Francisco, but also a whale you can sit on. It was about an hours walk up there, so I think its a must do next time I’m in town and, if possibly, have a car.

I was expecting the Zombie Prom to be a place full of dancers ready to dance all night! but that wasn’t the case. There were maybe 10 or so dancers in total, of which 0 were rockabilly dancers considering The Rumble Strippers were somewhat rockabilly. Slim Jenkins were also playing. Both bands were fantastic and I do hope that they eventually come to Australia to play as they’d definitely have a better crowd that’ll dance all night for them!

Thursday night was spent at the the 9:20 Special in the Russian Centre at 2460 Sutter Street. I turned up at 7:20 (they seem to operate at this 20 past thing), and had to have another “audition” to participate in class as they were at the end of their month long series of classes. After class was some what of a large social with a live band - Emily Asher’s Garden Party.

I found myself at Cat’s Corner, which is actually at Balancoire Restaurant, Bar & Night Club on 2565 Mission Street this evening for some swing dancing. They normally run classes on Wednesdays. The venue is actually pretty good and there is also a live band after class (starting at 9:30 until midnight - this was when I had left, so they might play later). I had asked to join the beginners and intermediates to have a feel for what and how the classes are taught, but they were 4 weeks into a 5 week rotation and I ended up “auditioning” so to say to be let into the class. Beginners was fine with just basics, and then intermediates they were doing the Shim Sham, after which I was cut from the class as there were too many leads. The beginners and intermediates were lindy hop, and there is a subsequent drop in beginners class right before the band plays which, this week was Balboa. Oh, the band was amazing - Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers.

28, humid, and full of Japanese people is how I’d describe Honolulu airport right now. It definitely makes me miss summer and it’ll be amazing to get back to Sydney just in time for it. I think it’s pretty amazing to catch a night flight out of Sydney, go to sleep and wake up in another country. Sure it feels a bit yuck as soon as you leave the plane in pants and a hoodie, but thats really just my fault. So this time around, and its been a very long time since I went overseas, I’m heading to San Francisco as a first stop for a week.