A Word on Swing #3: On The Porch With Nina Gilkenson Part 1

July 24, 2012 at 12:41 am (Uncategorized)

Here is the long awaited interview with the lovely and lascivious Nina Gilkenson. Or at least the first part. Theoretically, if you follow this blog, you may already know who she is, but if you don’t, this is a good way to get to know this self described “forth grade drop out.”

I do feel the need to apologize profusely for the background noise. We really wanted to chat Nina in her native environment of Baltimore, but it can get intense. Please bear with us, it will only last through the first two parts, and will mostly go away after that. Or you can be like me and listen to it a few hundred times and just get used to it. If you can deal with it, you’ll be rewarded with an interesting perspective into the modern Lindy scene.

Don’t forget to subscribe to A Word on Swing’s YouTube channel to get future updates. I’m still not finished editing the other parts, but now that I have most of the background materials assembled from the first part, it should make the other ones easier to get done.

Also a shout out to everyone who allowed us to use their photos in this interview including:

All the uncredited photos were taken by me.

All the filming and editing has been  and continues to be an interesting challenge for me to learn on the fly, and I hope to get better and better with each episode. I hope that none of of those flaws distract you from one of the most interesting women in our dance scene.

1 Comment

On Lindy YouTube Statistics

July 18, 2012 at 12:37 am (balboa, Blues, Dance, Video Highlights)

(Updated Note: I forgot to mention that all these numbers were taken from the YouTube videos the week of July 9-13, 2012.)

First bit of business: check out my new blog, New Old School Swing which will feature old videos of familiar dancers. Now on to the show!

In my last post, I compiled this list of most viewed Lindy related videos. It was a relatively straight forward process of figuring out what videos uploaded since the start of the year had garnered the most views. Tena Morales then asked me in the comment section if my 2011 list accounted for events that happened earlier in the year, and if they had an advantage of getting on the list since they’ve been online longer.

It makes sense. In fact, if you look at the most viewed modern videos of Lindy Hop, Blues Dance and Balboa, you’ll notice that they’re all from 3-6 years ago.

4,991,700views Fast Swing Dancing – ULHS 2006, Oct 3, 2006
2,146,200 views Lindy Hop Showdown, Nov 9, 2006
1,612,700 views Koop – Come to me (OFFICIAL VIDEO) HQ, Jan 28, 2009
1,597,100 views Denver Airport Holiday Flash Mob, Nov 22, 2011
1,017,900 views Lindy Hop Dance, Nov 14, 2007
64,600 views Balboa Rendezvous 2006 Bernard and AnneHelene, Mar 13, 2007
38,900 views ABW 2008 – 1st Place ACBC – Mickey & Kelly, Jun 17, 2008
34,500 views ACBC 2007, Jun 18, 2007
34,200 views ILHC 2008 :: 1st Place Balboa, Oct 12, 2008
32,200 views Marcus & Barbl – Swing balboa, Sep 1, 2007
137,500 views Blues dancing demo at Cellspace, Aug 2, 2007
84,100 views Damon & Heidi Blues Dance, Mar 25, 2007
80,100 views Blues Dance Lesson: Ways to Connect, Aug 18, 2008
75,100 views Portland Blues Dance Competition 2009 v1, Aug 25, 2009
63,500 views Karen R. Smith & Mihai blues dance, Jan 10, 2007

Note: All numbers were rounded off.

However, I noticed something interesting when I tallied up the numbers for the Champions Strictly Lindy Hop division for the International Lindy Hop Championships. Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments

Most Popular Lindy Videos of 2012: Halftime Report

July 10, 2012 at 12:43 am (balboa, Blues, Lindy Hop, Video Highlights)

Major edit: Thanks to Jim Thorp who caught a major error and noted that I missed The Black Swamp Village video. In the process of verifying that, I noticed that I also missed the Carsie Blanton as well as the I Charleston Tel Aviv and Montpellier Swingjammerz videos. Much apologies from me for my lazy journalistic standards. At least, this still supports my conclusion that you need to make friends with an indy musician or better yet, be one.

While procrastinating on so many other things, I wondered what were the most popular Lindy Hop related videos so far in 2012 since we’re just past the half way point of the year. I thought you may be curious too, so I thought I’d share. That’s the kind of guy I am.

The most viewed Lindy Hop video so far this year with 64,500 views is . . .

Carsie Blanton’s Baby Can Dance – OFFICIAL VIDEO

And the rest as of Monday, July 9, 2012: Read the rest of this entry »

20 Comments