Saturday, November 17, 2012

One Year Anniversary

It’s just over a year now since I started learning the Lindy hop, the leader’s part mind you, since we were lacking boys and some of us girls had to volunteer to dance the boy’s part. I haven’t regretted volunteering one bit!! I really enjoy the leader’s part – it’s much more challenging, interesting and jazzy than the girl’s part, so I am still taking classes and seminars as a leader. However, I sometimes feel a bit of an alien because I am not dancing as a follow at all, plus I also get the feeling that sometimes it’s looked down upon for a girl to dance the leader’s part. That’s why last week I took my first class as a follow and hopefully a year from now I won’t be as lousy a follow as I am now….Still, I think I will always be a much better leader.

One year ago I also started this blog as a sort of notebook for myself and others to learn more about the swing era, the music, the fashion, the society. As a one year anniversary present of sorts I bought myself these two books representing two eras (the '20s and the '30s), two different dances (the Charleston and the Lindy Hop), but also two sides of me: the leader part that is often looking to Frankie Manning for styling, and the girl part that is always looking to the Flappers for styling. The '20s and the Flappers I have loved for almost two decades now, who knows why. My obsession with Woody Allen movies and his obsession with the '20s might have something to do with it. In college, I even took an entire seminar on the 1920’s and the 'lost generation' of writers and even wrote a paper on the Flapper herself. As for the '30s and Frankie Manning, I got to learn a lot about them this last year, and hopefully you have learned some things along with me through this blog.

Last night I started reading Frankie Manning - Ambassador of Lindy Hop and I thought that maybe some future posts on this blog might be about various subjects mentioned in the book, with the hope that they will inspire you to go on Amazon and buy the book yourselves. It’s a wonderful edition, beautifully narrated by Manning himself, and I think every Lindy hopper ought to own a copy.

I hope you stay tuned for future posts and if you enjoy the ambiance of this blog, you can also come join My Swing Archives on Facebook for a trip back in the '20s, '30s & '40s.

Swing Heil!!


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