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.
Video Dance Highs of 2012
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.
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 Swing Music Mix Tape
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.
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.
Size Matters and other Annual Ruminations
I started this blog three years ago because there wasn't much Lindy related to read online. I thought I might as well start my own site. Much has changed since then, and now everyone has something to say. I think that's great. Some people don’t think so. I’m discovering how little faith my friends have in free speech for the masses. I’ve been accused of being a bit of a populist though. One thing I’m realizing is that what I’m looking for in online discussions is probably not going to materialize because it comes down to the fact that our scene isn’t that big.
Wandering & Pondering visits the GMU Swing Club
I did a thing for the George Mason University Swing Club a couple of weeks ago where they asked me to do a video presentation.
Dance Competitions: Judging and Getting Noticed
This particular post is in response to a question from a friend about competition judging and how to stand out in a contest, which is why it goes back and forth between the two subjects.