Wandering & Pondering

This is part of a paper I wrote entitled. Subsequent and future posts can be found by searching my blog for the category “Artistry In Rhythm”

“The most important thing you can do is to empower another person to be themselves-even if what they’re going to do is going to be the opposite of what you do . . . you don’t want to teach them a dogma . . . you’re a part of their story.  A lot of times you look at them as if they’re a part of your story. You try to empower them with tools to do what they want to do.” Wynton Marsalis[1]

“I don’t want to feel obliged to play something with the same styling that we became identified with at some specific period . . . I don’t want anyone to challenge my right to sound completely mad, to screech like a wild man, to create the mauve melody of a simpering idiot, or to write a song that praises God.  I only want what any other American artist wants-and that is freedom of expression and of communication with our audience.”- Duke Ellington[2]

Introduction

While we venerate our history through Frankie Manning, Dean Collins, and The Savoy Ballroom, I think our community finds it a little too easy to discount everything that has happened in the recent past.  A prominent Lindy Hop instructor once remarked to me that all the vintage clips he studied were history and dismissed everything else (meaning modern competitions and performances) as just pop.

We celebrated the birthday of the dance’s premiere ambassadors, Frankie Manning, at the Frankie Manning 95^th Birthday Festival in 2009.  Unfortunately he passed away a month before the event.  However, he wanted us to celebrate his passing rather than mourn it, so the event went on and included an impressive array of performances that reflected the breath and diversity of a community of dancers that stretches across the entire world. Read the rest of this entry »