The Legend of Minnie’s Moochers

As I’ve noted in my Artistry in Rhythm series, we’re getting to a point where things that happened in the early part of the revival are starting to feel a little bit like ancient history.  Minnie’s Moochers is a big part of that as I outlined in part three of that series.

Skye Humphries told a little bit about their background in one of his posts here on this blog.

We went to a school called ACS (the Alternative Community School) [where] we were encouraged to pursue our own interests and develop our own ways of learning.  We started teaching a class at our school almost immediately and brought our friends into the dance.  Our school gave us space and time to practice, and allowed us to shape our curriculum to reflect our interest in the dance.

History, sociology, politics, media- our teachers were very encouraging and allowed us to find the connection between dancing and the rest of our studies.

There was an amazing community of dancers in Ithaca who created a great atmosphere and ran great dances.  We started going out and dancing socially all the time.  ISDN (Ithaca Swing Dance Network) also put on great workshops with the top international dancers and teachers, and they were always supportive of us kids.

My friends and I went out together dancing, and then Bill started a little performance group and we started doing gigs around town.

Soon we started running and directing our own group, and started performing, competing, and eventually teaching on our own.

Andy Reid described his experiences with the team in a post on the Jam Cellar blog.

When I was 22, I was asked to join a dance group full of teenagers.  They were the best dancers in town and I enjoyed their company.  They inspired me and shaped my dancing and we all grew together.  What was happening in this group was really something special and unique and I jumped in head first.  We spend several days of every week in the gym in a creative frenzy and it was one of the greatest times of my life. Minnie’s Moochers was, and is, Kate Engle, Lucy Engle, Caitlin George Wellman, Susan Wolff, Sylvie Ynetma, Jenna Hallas, Simnia Singer Sayada, Ramona Staffeld, Sarah Spence, Mark Eckstein, Robin Coleman, Skye Humphries, Finian Makepeace, Ben Furnas, and I.

The definitive history of this group is yet to be written, but I did the next best thing and assembled all the available online footage of the team here so you can get a taste of what they were about.

American Lindy Hop Championships 1998

ILHC 2010 Registration is open and other notes

For those of you who haven’t been checking the website every day, registration is now open for the International Lindy Hop Championships happening on August 19-22, 2010.  It’ll be August there’s so no chance of being snowed out at least.

Register now to get the cheapest registration price possible.  It’s just going to get more expensive as the days past, so you might as well get it out of the way now.

Also, get the latest updates through our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter at ILHCtweets.

A few other blog related notes:

Sorry about the lack of updates lately, but the impending Snowstorm of the Century II will hopefully help me out in giving me more time to finish off a few posts for your consumption.

Hopefully that will include the last few parts of “Artistry in Rhythm.”  Posting everything before was easier because all of it was written over two years ago and I just updated and edited as I went along.  I’m basically starting from scratch with the next few posts, and its reminding me why the paper was so much work the first time around.

In the meantime, be sure to check out “The Lindy Loggers” post as I’ll be updating it with new Lindy related blogs as I find them.  I’ve even added it as a link to the right just for you.

I’m also finishing up an interview that I’m doing for the DC Lindy Exchange website.  Keep an eye on the DCLX website for it.  I’ve had a long association with the event going back to it’s beginning, and I’ll be dj’ing there once again this April.  I hope to see everyone there.

Lone Star Championships 2010-Jack & Jill videos & official results and scores

Official results and complete scores for all divisions are now available online for the 3rd annual Lone Star Championships which occurred January 15th-17th, 2010 in Austin, TX.

Plus more videos below from this year’s Jack & Jill competitions.

Lone Star Championships 2010 Strictly Lindy Hop Divisions

Videos from this year’s Strictly Lindy Hop competitions at the 3rd annual Lone Star Championships which occurred January 15th-17th, 2010 in Austin, TX.

Thanks to floridave and LindyLibrary for putting these up.  You can also download high quality videos directly from www.Lindy Library.com.

Open Strictly Lindy Finals

The Barbell Perspective

I noticed something very cool at the end of the video for the All Star Invitational Jack and Jill at this year’s Lone Star Championships.  Peter Strom and Karen Turman shared a memory in the form of one of the first aerials they learned together when they started over 10 years ago.

Lone Star Championships 2010-Performaces & Jams

Videos of performances and jams from this year’s 3rd annual Lone Star Championships which occurred January 15th-17th, 2010 in Austin, TX.

Thanks to floridave, LindyLibrary, and walkinspiral for putting these up.  You can also download high quality videos directly from www.Lindy Library.com.

Performances

Karen Turman & Andrew Thigpen

Lone Star Championships 2010-All Star Invitational Jack & Jill

Videos from this year’s All star Invitational Jack & Jill at the 3^rd annual Lone Star Championships which occurred January 15^th-17^th, 2010 in Austin, TX.

Thanks to www.Lindy Library.com for putting these up.  Glad the site is back in business.  You can download high quality videos directly from their website.

Or you can just stay here and watch them all on one page.

Naomi Uyama & Todd Yannacone

Lone Star Championships 2010

Looks like all the news was coming out of Austin this weekend with the third Annual Lone Star Championships.   Run by Tena Morales and Scott Angelius, this event is meant to be a more relaxed competition weekend with an emphasis on social dance contests such as Jack & Jill’s and Strictly comps.

I didn’t go, but that won’t stop me from saying a few words and gratuitously mention that <plug> I work for Tena on the International Lindy Hop Championships happening this year August 19^th-22^nd, 2010.  Registration opening soon!</end plug>

Smaller scale competition events like Lone Star Championships are useful places for newer competitors to get a taste of what it’s like to be in the spotlight.  There’s also the added benefit of doing it with the support of all your friends cheering you on.

Responsibility

That’s one aspect of being a leader in our scene that gets the least amount of attention when people talk about becoming more active in our community whether it’s by performing, dj’ing, promoting events, or teaching.

This thought doesn’t come out of nowhere.  There’s an unfortunate story being revealed right now that I don’t necessarily want to talk about directly here, but it’s so big that it can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.

I’m currently reading a book called “Glamour Addiction:  Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry” by Juliet McMains a professor in dance and a DanceSport competitor.  She has an interesting observation concerning why ballroom dance isn’t more popular.  She contends that much of the appeal of the dance comes from direct one on one interactions, particularly those fostered between teachers and students.

When you put yourself out there as someone like a teacher, especially when you’re charging money for it, you’re implicitly asking people to place some level of trust in you; that you know what you’re doing and that you won’t mess with them.

When you do something to betray that trust you do irreparable damage not just to yourself, but to those friends and other people who looked up to you.  The community struggles to find solid ground as they question who and what they can trust again, and to what level.

I think one of the reasons why “In God We Trust” became the motto of the US is because people are painfully weary of each other’s fallibility .

Frankie Manning was often seen as a passive yet benevolent force in our scene.  He rarely spoke ill of anyone publicly.  People may be surprised to discover that he had very strong opinions about a lot of things, but he kept those opinions largely to himself because he was acutely aware of the amount of influence he wielded.  It’s one of the reasons why he avoided judging competitions

The thing that struck many dancers in our scene in the aftermath of Frankie’s death was how much they all share in the responsibility of maintaining and growing the Lindy Hop community which now spans the entire world.  I was told that even a long time veteran like Norma Miller was hit by the enormity of what Frankie did in his own quiet way.  There’s a general feeling amongst the leaders of our scene (not just male dancers but everyone who plays a key role) that what we do isn’t always just about dancing and that we should be mindful of that in everything we do.

By now I’m sure that you’re thoroughly confused by this seemingly random string of thoughts.  Since I have no desire to dwell on tawdry details or practice idle speculation here (that’s what Yehoodi is for), I can only encourage you to get as much information as possible before making up your mind.  There’s a lot of hurt out there right now, but hopefully we all can learn from this and build a better community.

I’d like to leave you with something that I read on another blog which relates to what I’m talking about, but is more in honor of the holiday.

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied together into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality . . . Before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured, this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize the basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.1967 Christmas Sermon on Peace

Weekly Video Highlights: Lindy Hop Argentina International Festival 2010

Sorry about the lack of updates this week.  I’m remarkably unproductive when I’m sick, as I was last week, and I’ve been playing catch up at work after being away for almost two weeks between Lindy Focus and my cold.

But I won’t leave you hanging this week thanks to the fine Lindy Hoppers in Argentina of all places.  Not just the land of tango anymore apparently, they held their forth Lindy Hop Argentina International Festival last weekend.

Speaking of international Lindy Hop events, registration for the next International Lindy Hop Championships is going to be opening very soon. <end very subtle subliminal advertising>

Anyway, I think its always interesting to see how the dance is spreading and growing in all parts of the world.  Here’s a small sample.

Luciana Salinas & Maxi Prado