700 dancers hitting the Flying Home break as played by the Jonathan Stout Orchestra at DCLX 2016
What were the best Lindy Hop videos of 2016? I am not entirely sure. That didn't stop me from putting together a list of 100+videos that I think represent Vernacular Jazz Dance this year.
What happened in vernacular jazz dance in 2013? This is a brief summary of things that happened in and to vernacular jazz dance this year.
The most viewed Lindy Hop, Balboa, Blues Dance, and Charleston videos of 2013. Why? Because it’s December. More of an explanation and analysis below the list.
Ramona Staffeld & Todd Yannacone's 1st Place Pro Classic performance at The International Lindy Hop Championships was the most shared video off of the Wandering & Pondering FB page. It also happens to be one of my favorites of this year. Not long after that, Ramona contacted me to continue with her series here on this blog, but rather than go back, I convinced her to write about her most recent performance. She enthusiastically agreed, but I failed at life by losing track of the post she sent to me. I remembered it while prepping this year's round up and rather than blathering on about it myself, I present to you Ramona Staffeld in her own words.
This post is a combination of popular videos on YouTube, videos that generated a lot of chatter or “likes” on Facebook, or some other performances I enjoyed and thought were overlooked. As much as I’d like to say something about all of them, there is a lot of them. Besides, I think most of them can speak for themselves.
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.
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.
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.
BMJB Mobtown 061
Since the dance videos will take awhile, I’ll start off by giving you a little mix tape for 2012. In picking out these performances I realized that I am heavily biased towards those I experienced in person. Video isn’t a completely fair representation of a performance, especially since live audio recording has yet to catch up with the leaps and bounds that video recording has made in the last few years. However, it’s still good enough to relive moments, or at least get a taste for those that you missed.