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.
My 2011 Video Highlights
I feel like I’m a broken record in saying how many great videos and performances there were this year. It’s part of the reason why I broke up the video selections like I did. I would have had no problem sharing all the other videos, but that would have been a long frickin’ post. (Not that I usually have a problem with that) I really enjoyed all the videos that have been posted so far, but I reserved this post to highlight stuff that somehow fell through the cracks for whatever reason. A lot of them are from earlier this year, and just didn’t meet the metric standards of the earlier posts based on this blog's Facebook Page simply because of sheer numbers. However, it’s still all quality stuff.
Favorite Videos 2010: Solo Jazz
A bit of a misnomer since most of these are done in groups, but I trust that you get the idea. You can tell I’ve been doing these all at once because my descriptions are getting shorter, but at least a lot of these performances speak for themselves.
Weekly Video Review: Crazy Rhythm Challenge 2010
Those crazy French put on the Crazy Rhythm Challenge in Toulouse France a couple of weekends ago. Lot’s of good stuff posted by Teedee Hop. You can find more videos over on their YouTube page here.
Retro Video Review: Hop The Millennium
In a previous post I said that I’d put up a few clips from a tape of Hop the Millennium but then decided that the whole thing was too good and uploaded the whole thing. The event took place over New Year’s 1999/2000 in Mexico City Ensenada, Mexico of all places. There’s a lot of dancing goodness featuring the Rhythm Hot Shots which is the team that begat The Harlem Hot Shots. Southern California represents with a piece by Rusty Frank & Peter Flahiff and another by Peter Loggins & Lisa Ferguson. Keep an eye out for a pimpin performance by the father and son team of “Moke & Poke” a.k.a. Chazz Young and Frankie Manning.
Jazz Era Voices Goes Live and Needs Your Input
A couple of months ago I posted about Kelly Porter's oral history archive called Jazz Era Voices, and today I got word via Facebook that it is now live. As far as the Lindy Hop community is concerned, I think this is one of the most important projects out there along with The Lindy Hoppers Fund.
Weekly Video Highlights: Goodnight Sweetheart Festival 2010
Last week we had videos from Korea, and now we're across he pond the other way from Hertford, England. This week’s videos brought to you by the 2010 Goodnight Sweetheart Festival. I already talked about one performance from that weekend, so I thought I'd highlight a few others from that event.
Favorite Performances of 2009: Other Dances in the American Vernacular Jazz Dance Tradition
In my opinion Adam is a way underrated dancer in our scene with a very unique sense of movement. There’s a great flow to this performance and I like the fact that he doesn't feel compelled to fill every moment with an American Vernacular Jazz DanceTM pattern. Sometimes all you need is good dancing.
Favorite performances of 2009-Lindy Teams
This is part of a whole series of clips posted by YouTube user susannedr. I have no idea what the context is other than that it seems to be part of some program where they dance against a hip hop crew, but there aren’t any videos of the other team. Still, these are some inspired performances by the worlds best Lindy Hop team. This clip in particular combines everything that the new generation of Hot Shots can do individually and as a team.
The Lindy Loggers
We’re at a pretty quiet time in the Lindy Hop world as there are no major or minor events happening until Lindy Focus and Snowball right after Christmas. This is probably a good time to get caught up on your online Lindy reading. The Lindy blogosphere is surprisingly larger than you think. When I started this post I thought I was just going to describe a handful of sites, but once I was done compiling URL’s I came up with over 50.