Stomp Blog

Hey guys, just got done closing registration for this year — what a wild ride this whole thing has been. I can say that some really top notch dancers are coming, and frankly I think the social dancing this year is going to blow last year’s out of the water.

The DJ schedule is set, and I just got off the phone with Joel & Alison to finalize their travel plans. This thing is about to hit us in the face, and I can’t wait!

See you all in a few days…

As some of you may have heard, the website www.idance.net is under new ownership and is planning a grand re-opening this summer. Along the many new features and new instructors added to the site will be new lessons by Sugar Foot’s very own Joel & Alison! These lessons will be filmed right before the event, and we’re open to community input regarding what exactly Joel & Alison will be covering.

Filming time will be very limited, and of course there’s already a nice list of what lessons we’d love for them to do - but there’s also room here for community input. So if you guys have something you’re just dying to learn, or have an idea about what Joel & Alison could film that would be of benefit to the dance world, respond to this blog with your comments!

Just wanted to briefly share with you guys our experience last night overseeing Early Bird registration. If you’ve ever stayed up past midnight to watch election coverage, or paced around in a circle waiting for some terribly important news, you can probably imagine the feeling that we have when we’re about to “turn on” Early Bird registration for an event.

And then the moment it’s enabled - Bang! It’s off to the races and we perch anxiously over the registration results like 4-year olds on Christmas morning looking to see who’s going to turn out. And with each new city, with each familiar name, a cheer goes up.

At a certain moment, inevitably, I realize that it’s going to sell out right away, and that I need to prepare the system to receive regular pre-registrations. (We’re not quite cool enough yet to have all of these processes be automated.) And then there’s a mad frenzy to make those preparations before our final person gets the Early Bird price. During all of this it feels as if the rest of the world has ceased to exist, and although I realize this is a kind of pathetic and dorky thing to admit, I get a distinct thrill that’s not really like anything else in my experience. Which is surprising, because I think of myself as having had, you know, some thrilling experiences. (hmmm.)

Anyway, when all’s said and done and it’s time for bed, what I’m left with is a sense of gratitude: first and foremost to all of the dancers that continue to support our events year after year, and also a broad, sweeping gratitude that this has become my job — getting people to dance! How lucky I am to be in this position. Next time you see me on the dance floor, you’ll know that the joy you see in my dancing is rooted in something that can’t be faked.

Thanks, everyone!

So, I just got to looking at those Chad & Midori videos from last year (see link below), and it made me want to relive the whole thing. Here’s my top 3 memories from our debut event last summer:

3. Chad & Midori’s all-Charleston demo. Even the well-schooled student of early jazz dance and charleston rarely stays in one format for a full song, and to see Chad & Midori weave through such a wide variety of charleston patterns, shapes, riffs and rhythms was stunning and seriously inspiring.

2. Sue’s late night set. Late saturday night when folks were feeling all beat-up, the music gradually mellowed into a sultry blend of early jazz drags and horn-fueled vintage blues that made for a colorful dance floor: the folks that wanted to stick with vintage dance styles did so, while those who felt inclined to sink into a more comfortable lindy hop mode did so comfortably. Also, somehow, there were some amazing jams sprinkled into the mix that ran the gamut from charleston jams to standard lindy hop jams to various mutated hybrid jams. It was great.

1. Victor, during his saturday night set yelling “Alright, everybody PEABODY!”, and then dropping a 320 bpm song. It was a moment that could so easily have been cheesy — except that the dance floor responded immediately and the room was transformed into a whirlwind of Peabody that looked like some absinthe speakeasy-induced hallucination of a Kentucky Derby gone mad with tuxedos and vintage dresses…yeah.

So… Anyone of you guys have some favorite moments that I neglected to mention? Peabody Race antics, for instance?

Last Year’s videos:

[click for peabody]

[click for charleston]

Last year, I think we were all a little blown away by Peabody. Traveling dances don’t get much love in the Lindy Hop world, and I think the novelty of it alone was enough to get everyone’s socks rolling up and down.

Since last year’s Sugar Foot Stomp, Peabody classes and requests for Peabody classes in the Southeast have become common, which suggests to me that there is real genuine interest on making this once again a living social dance.

My Theory? The relatively simple footwork basis combined with the excitement of dancing (albeit half-time) to the pulse-quickening upper tempos of early jazz make this dance irresistible. So there you have it — my current favorite vintage dance: Peabody.

What’s yours? Respond by commenting to this blog entry. Make sure and tell us what aspect of your favorite vintage dance gives you the happy.

Hello, dear friends, and welcome to Stomp Blog: the official blog for Sugar Foot Stomp! I invite you to participate in this conversation regardless of whether you can attend the event or not — our goals here are to share information about what we do, but also to learn from dancers what they really value in an event, so we can then use your feedback to make events like Sugar Foot Stomp as awesome as possible!