Throughout February and March, Kevin and I created two separate routines for students at Wednesday Night Hop and the 920 Special. The goal of the classes was to perform the routine at 920′s annual Open House, battle for Lindy Hop World Domination, to the cheers and adoration of hundreds of friends, family, visitors, and to inspire our dancing community. For most of the students, this was there first-ever performance. Not only that, but many of them have been dancing less than three years!!
What a fabulous job everyone did on Thursday night! To all the students: Thank you for hanging in there. Thank you for believing in yourself and sticking with you. Thank you for rehearsing and coming prepared. Thank you for your dedication, kind words, for serving as an inspiration to Kevin and me, and for adding to the lindy hop legacy.
Can you believe that these performers are ALL STUDENTS! About half of them have been Lindy Hopping for less than one year, and for most of them this is their FIRST-EVER PERFORMANCE!
Some favorite moments from this truly inspiring weekend.
Performances
Kevin and I kicked off our weekend with a little bit of “Shake that Thang!”
The Atomic Cherry Bombs were sexy as hell! I think it’s a great video of the performance, which means it must have been that much more incredible in person.
Hat Trick Initiation
James Bianco & Irina Amzashvilli were initiated into the Hat Trick Club this weekend. They are now members of the League of Extraordinary Hat-trickers.
This is one of the best versions of this routine I’ve seen them do. Sure, there were a few little flubs, but honestly, they freaking hit it. The crowd was awesome and Tips & Tops were men of legend. Well done men!!!
Saturday Competitions
1st Place – Augie Freeman & Irina Amzashvilli
2nd Place – Conrad Friesen & Sarah Stembridge
3rd Place – Andrew Jose & Alice Pye
Yeah!!! Lindy Hop has a future!! I was so impressed by how good everyone was in Orange County. Good heavens, those cats swing! The quality of their movement and swing outs assures me that lindy hop will continue to grow and thrive. Thank you to all the competitors; all of you won over my heart.
1st Place – Peter Kertzner & Irina Amzashvilli
2nd Place – Stephen Sayer & Chandrae Roettig
3rd Place – Jack Chen & Brittany Calavatti
I freaking LOVE the concept of 30-Second Showcase! And seriously, check out what people came up with. Love it.
Sunday Pro-Am
1st Place – Conrad Friesen
2nd Place – Matt Richey
3rd Place – Sam Chan
Hahah, this one looks a little bit like a Jo Hoffberg show reel, but really, I just got lucky that the top three leads in the competition picked me as their follower. Fabulous job everyone!!
Unfortunately, I was in rehearsal during this amazing feat of Hat Tricking, but it was sooooooooo freaking awesome I had to post it. About a year ago, Tips and Tops had a dream were planning on performing the Hat Trick Shim Sham while at Lindy Focus this year, but when they realized that all their buddies were there, they knew it was time to take the performance to the next level. Here the eight of them are in all their hat tricking glory!!
From left to right the performers: Tin Tin, Taps, Tips, Toodles, Tops, Toes, Targoff, and Tubs.
How awesome was that?!!! This tip-top team tricked their way into the hearts of many this past weekend. What I enjoyed most about this performance was seeing the individuality of each performer and how well they all worked together. On top of that, I really liked how the choreography was modified to best use the number of performers. Neato Gang!!
In case you want to learn how to hat trick shim sham, you are in luck!! Here are the first two (of twelve) videos to get you started:
Word on the street is if you want to be initiated into the group and get your own terrific nickname, you need to learn the routine and perform it at an event (make sure to have video to prove it). I can’t confirm this, but that’s what a little birdy told me!!
I needed to put a performance together for when I was in Greece a few weeks ago and I was thinking about doing my old fan dance from Lindy Focus VIII. After some thought, I figured I should push myself to come up with something new, something better. Somehow I decided that a drunken striptease would be the way to go, and who better to help me out than Kevin!
After performing the number in Greece, I figured I was brave enough to perform it at Lindy Focus X. Here is me being as silly as I can be during opening night!
The great thing about “acting drunk” is that it covers up a lot of the flaws in the dancing :D
I LOVE performing this number. It’s unlike everything else I do and have done. Getting to strip down to my skivvies has always been a dr……..what am I saying?!! It was nerve-wracking as all hell, but it was a blast. I figured of all crowds, this would be one that could appreciate my silly sense of humor. I think what I like most about it is that I get to be incredibly silly! The dancing is by no means spectacular in this, but the “acting” was really fun to do.
Some photos from the show:
Thank you Jesse Keener for taking some awesome shots of me!! xx
Now it’s time to talk Costume!!
The black thing with the fringe on it….I found that at Red Light in Seattle and it fit perfectly. It was just a black shell, so all the accoutrements that you see were added after the fact (huge thanks go out to the sensational Miss Indigo Blue). I played with the idea of having ugly underwear on at the end (so not only do I come home drunk, and slightly useless, but I have Laundry Day undies on ….hahahha), but Kevin vetoed that idea.
The nude slip thingy was also acquired at Red Light. I found some diamond stickers that I put onto the front so there was some sparkle to the costume.
I bought the skirt from Betsey Johnson two years ago and it was worth every penny!!
I borrowed the scarf from my mother.
The gloves came from Amazon and are cheap, satin gloves. I found some fun heart-shaped jewels and glued them on the side of the gloves and added a tassel to the end.
The jacket came from Macy’s this March on super sale. God, I love that coat!
The black hair flower is from H&M and I bought it less than a week ago.
And there you have it! Hope you enjoyed the ridiculousness of it all :D
I think this is my favorite version of this routine captured on film. Juan & Sharon nailed their solo and I really enjoyed what we all did in the background. Tommy & Alice were studs, as always, and skated their hearts out! I was SUPER happy with mine and Kevin’s solo and couldn’t have hoped for better energy from the crowd. Maaaaaan, the crowd was fantastic! I LOVE you Korea!!
And small note, tooting my own horn. Check out my jazz! I’m am really happy with my movement and how I complete my lines throughout the routine. Yeah, I miss some stuff, and go all fa-fa-fa-funky on the Tango, but otherwise, I have great lines. There, I said it. :D
6 Couple
Originally, this was going to be the finale of the show and only the Killer Dillers were going to perform it, but there was a last minute decision made to add on Tommy & Alice, William & Maeva, and Shesha & Nikki. I’m really glad we did it with everyone because I think i was a ton of fun, even though rehearsals were….slow going :) That being said, I love that all the girls are in some version of red, Kevin had the BEST floor slide anyone could have hoped for, and I was happy with how Kevin and I did our solo. We miss connection near the end of the routine (perhaps you can’t even see it) and so do William and Maeva, but it doesn’t really matter because we still ended the routine gloriously!
Two Couple
We spent a little bit of time deciding on whether we do two solos each or Juan & Sharon do two and Kevin & I do one and ended up having J&S do two. They really wanted to do their new aerial “The Dutch Cupcake” so they used the third solo to showcase it. Personally I’m not thrilled with how Kevin and my solo went, for various reasons, but otherwise I think the performance went fine.
What do you think? Which is your favorite version?
This was a ton of fun for me to do. It’s been 5 weeks since I’ve performed a jazz routine, and before that, man, I couldn’t tell you when the last time was I performed jazz.
Really, and truly, the last time we are performing “Communication.” We wanted to have a new routine by this date, but Kevin’s been injured the last 8 weeks and haven’t been able to train, so unfortunately, we didn’t have anything else together. That being said, it sounded like the Greeks were super happy to get to see it live. Thank you guys, SO much, for being so enthusiastic about the routine!
The floor was a little…iffy in some place. :D
Even though Kev missed some of the elbow catches in the beginning, he nails them at the end! Love when he catches the hat on his face and puts one arm/finger in the air telling the crowd that he nailed it!
Two couple version of Sharon’s awesome routine :D I’m going to do a post dedicated just to this routine shortly.
La Danse! Le Burlesque! L’Edition Francaise is playing at the The Triple Door this weekend, so in case you aren’t going to the dances at Camp Jitterbug, you should go support some great local burlesque!!
One of the hotest burlesque numbers, ever!!!
L’Edition Francaise features an all star cast: Miss Indigo Blue, Kitten LaRue, Lily Verlaine, Bunny Monroe, The Luminious Pariah, Paris Original, Changra La-La, Trojan Original, Stella Saintclair, Inga Ingenue, Sassy DeLure and Scott Bartell (both of whom are flying in just for these performances). The three nights of shows also feature the formidable talents of Kylie Lewallen and Ty Cheng of Spectrum Dance Theater.
Lily Verlaine, Olivier Wevers, and Kitten LaRue choreographed three individual performance suites tied together by French music and nostalgic pop culture- and of course, burlesque. It’s smoldering, playful and full of surprises.
This year at the Harlem 2011, they did their Solo Jazz Contest in “King of the Hill” fashion. Two contestants battle and at the end, the judge must choose a winner who continues to battle until the sweet end! This girl….she kills it.
Her name is Ksenia Parkhatskaya and she’s from St. Petersburg, Russia and she’s pretty freaking amazing. Check out those legs!! She didn’t win, but she threw down.
One more for good measures:
“A story about fragile soul made to be vulgarized and public….Once life have put mask on you only true Love can reveal genuine.” The music is OST La vie un Rosse/ La Mome – Lisieuz
Cabaret Night in Herrang week 5, 2010.
And check out her website! She’s got some great photos up like this one:
Gaaah!! The best thing about this for me is that I’ve seen this photo a number of times, but never knew who it was. Until now. Ksenia, congratulations on a job well done at Harlem and I love your photos. You’re gorgeous!!
I got to hang out with Chris Härm this weekend and we went back and forth with our favorite videos. Here are some of the videos that made me go woo!
These guys are SICK. Really, you just need to watch 20 seconds of this and if you aren’t hooked by then, then don’t worry, clearly this video wasn’t meant for you :D
Show “La Preuve Par 4″ à l’Hotel de Ville de Paris au Préselection du Juste Debout 2010
Chregrapher: Marvin Gofin (R.A.F Crew)
Dancers: Marion Motin (Swaggers, Quality Street), Julie Moreau (Swaggers), Nicolas Medea (R.A.F Crew) et Marvin Gofin (R.A.F Crew)
Music by Raphaël Judrin aKa SoFly
I love what the girls are wearing and the beat. And that marcelled hair!!
Notice that clips from ‘Spirit Moves’ made it into this!
I was SOOO hoping to run into her while I was in Norway, but she’s not from Oslo, she’s from Trondheim. Maybe another lindy hopper can get a picture with her!
