I had so many favorites this year that I had to spread them out over several posts, (music, news, blogs, video notes, videos, videos and one more) but this last one is reserved my personal favorites and some random musings.
2012 Lindy Hop Video MVP's
In reviewing dance highlights for the year, I noticed that two dancers kept popping up repeatedly. Rather than have them clog up the other lists, I thought I’d break them out into a separate post.
Can’t Stop The Signal: Notes on Swing Dance Video Developments in 2012
In reviewing dance highlights for the year, I noticed that two dancers kept popping up repeatedly. Rather than have them clog up the other lists, I thought I’d break them out into a separate post.
Lindy Hop News and Noteworthy 2012 Edition
I’ve had dreams of a full scale swing news site, but now more than ever, I’m certain such a thing would require full time involvement of at least one person, maybe more. Even an army of volunteers would require someone to keep on top of them all. Anyone interested in stepping up?
So with all that in mind, here are a few selected highlights from this past year.
2012 Blog highlights and the List O’Blogs
Note: This post compliments my previous compilations of dance blogs done in 2009 and 2011. I know a lot of people who don’t like blogs on principle. I have quite a few friends who don’t like dance blogs in particular. I usually just nod and smile because I don’t need to ask them why. After all, I see most of them on a daily basis. Notice I don’t say “read.” There are a ton of them not counting my non-dancing related reading, and there just isn’t enough time in the day to keep up with them all.
Occupying Lindy Hop: The Gap Ad to Twenty-four Robbers and Forward
I didn’t love Frida & Skye’s “24 Robbers” routine when I first saw it. I liked it well enough, but to be honest I was a bit shocked to find out that it won at The Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown in 2007. Although no one was more surprised than Skye & Frida. We were not the only ones. There were some loud dissenting opinions in the aftermath of that event. People were saying that it looked too easy, it was too slow, there were no new kewl moves. How could this be first place at an event billed with the name “Ultimate?” The same event that spawned the legendary 2006 Liberation final just a year before. A look at the other couples in that division shows lots of speed and lots of air. In 2007, there was even a special performance recreating The Congaroos clip which is much faster than Hellzapoppin.
With a little perspective, it seems that the appeal of 24 Robbers is because it was none of those things, and that all the criticisms laid against it are what makes it such a strong performance.
ILHC 2012 Scores Are Up
Full placements and scores are now up on the ILHC website. Every year, people have questions about how it works, so I thought I’d do a little preemptive strike with a quick and dirty explanation.
On Lindy YouTube Statistics
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.
Most Popular Lindy Videos of 2012: Halftime Report
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.
Five Holy $#&%! Moments That Changed Modern Lindy Hop
A comment on Facebook got me thinking of moments in Lindy Hop. Not just good dances or dancers, but singular moments that make you reconsider every assumption you had about the dance. Twenty-four Robbers by Skye and Frida or anything by Stefan Durham and Bethany Powell are great performances as a whole, but I’m talking about a short sequence, a single move, or even a footwork variation that turned the entire scene on its head.