As an aging but not Over-the-Hill-Yet Lindy Hop dancer, I've watched plenty of dance competitions. In most of them the average age of the competitors was somewhere around 25-35 which is not surprising since Lindy Hop is a very athletic dance and proving your skills and prowess at top speeds is a given. Even though in my fantasies I longed to get out there and dance to "Jumpin' at the Woodside" I knew that I would pay a heavy price, in body if not in ego. Secretly, I wanted some organizer to realize that there are plenty of dancers like me who are still vital and engaged in their dancing and want to celebrate Lindy diversity by showcasing them in a contest and most definitely NOT an intergenerational contest. I've been in several of those and it felt like being an oddity in a zoo (Oh, look at the old people dancing! How cute!) or in a popularity contest when the winner was chosen by applause. I wanted a real contest limited to an older age group with real judges and maybe even prizes because, why not, everyone else gets them. I eventually ran the idea by a few organizers and the response I got was, "We already have an Intergenrational contest" or "I don't think anyone would be interested". Hhhmmmm.
The idea was then put away in some back corner in the attic of my brain.
David Blood runs the Lindy Hop classes at City College here in San Francisco and I have the privilege of teaching with him. The college has been under the gun financially and any extras have been stripped away and that included funding for production classes, help with costuming, etc., for the swing classes. If we wanted to keep those important components alive we were going to have to raise the money ourselves. Since both of our birthdays fall in the month of January we decided to hold a benefit dance and joint birthday party. As I went about putting the event together, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to hold a Masters Jack and Jill myself-but would anyone actually enter it? I asked a few friends and got a positive response so I went about finding judges and asking the different organizers if they would donate prizes. I was thinking if I got five couples I would be very happy and call it a success.
I began to realize that the contest wasn't just a fun idea for Bay Area dancers over 50, but a way to showcase the more "seasoned" dancers, dancers fun to dance with but sometimes overlooked by the younger population. Some of the contestants were also dancers who were instrumental in the return of Lindy Hop to the Bay Area during the resurgence of the dance. There are a whole host of new dancers who don't know who those people are and the role they played in reestablishing the dance they love here. History is important, people. This was a way for those dancers to be seen and celebrated. The night before the event I printed out sheets for the judges and made numbers for the contestants. I had no idea how many dancers would participate but I settled randomly on the number 16 and made sets of 16 numbers for the followers and 16 for the leaders and made a sign up sheet with 16 spots for each.
To my great surprise, exactly 16 leaders and 16 followers signed up! Here they are, filling the dance floor!
Dancers had come from all over the Bay Area to participate-from San Francisco and the East Bay and from as far away as Sacramento and San Jose-and many of them, for all of their years of dancing, had NEVER entered a contest before.
Here is the first song:
You could feel the energy and support from the audience right through to the end of the fourth song. I don't believe in my wildest dreams I thought it would be that magical. Here are the names of the winners:
First Place Ken Watanabe and Cheryl McBride
Second Place Matt Horrigan and Linda Lau
Third Place Jeremy Sutton and Irene Kalwa Nute
Lindy Spirit Award Chuck Dee and Sharon Crocker
It was a very special night for me. I was surrounded by a loving and supportive Lindy Community who not only came to celebrate with David and me but who came to help the swing program at City College and to cheer on those awesome dancers!
I have to give special thanks to Nathan Dias who volunteered his time to DJ the contest, to the judges, Iris Dolowitz Tarou, Kylie Woodard, Kirk Tarou and Gilles Bouvier for also volunteering their talents and to the organizers of Epic Swing, Swingin' at the Savoy, the 9:20 Special and SF Swing Jam for donating the prizes.
The moral of the story? If you want something done, sometimes you have to do it yourself. But more importantly, if you want a thriving dance community it's important to honor not only the young, up and coming dancers on the scene, but to recognize the dancers with a few more miles on the speedometer in a real and meaningful way.
Oh, and this awesomeness happened too. This performance by Mike Daniele (72) and Corie Van Theil (75) had the audience on their feet!
The photograph at the top of the blog is of Frankie Manning and Cynthia Millman
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