Dance Blog

Video Recording

February 10, 2026

I’ve liked Chuck Klosterman’s writing for a long while. He just published a new book titled, “Football.” In Chapter 3, he writes about the impact of television on memory. He writes, “The visual imprinting of television is more powerful than the visual imprinting of life.” He describes the scenario of a party, where one sets up cameras to video-document what happens. If one watches those videos afterwards, the images in the video will displace one’s memories of the realtime event.

Footfall

January 19, 2026

A Chicago swing dancer organized a weekly solo jazz practice, which has brought the focus back to my feet. The rhythm of the upper body originates in the feet. I concentrated on feeling my weight melt into the floor. Two points of instruction, which I mentioned in posts from a little while ago, resonate with this. Kerry Kapaku described the dancer’s foot fall like the expanding foot of an elephant. Gabby Cooke described the foundational movement of dance as the complete transfer from one foot to the other, with the descending ball of the foot receiving the full weight of the body before the sole descends. With both of these concepts, there is a more subtle interaction with the musical beat. If one uses a stompier footfall, the percussive impact of the foot can match almost exactly to the beat. But with a squishier step, the rhythmic matching becomes a little vaguer, in a good way. The rhythmic matches less with the percussive step, and more with the vertical momentum traveling through the body to the floor. It appears groovier and more grounded. The rhythm also visually disperses through the body, and may cover the whole note.

St. Louis Get Down 2025

November 08, 2025

Weekend dance events can cause information overload. Classes and social dances present a deluge of new ideas. Coming into the event, I generally have a set of ideas I have been marinating on. Heading into St. Louis, I was thinking about a similar set of concepts as I was going into Uptown. I was concentrating on musical measures, and hoping that in doing so I would dance more musically. By the end of the event, a series of experiences left me with something different unexpected. It changed my relationship with pulse.

Slow Bal at Great Lakes Balboa Escape 2025

October 02, 2025

Last weekend was my 2nd Great Lakes Balboa Escape. In 2024, I attended and took the social dancer track. This year, I decided to do slow balboa. It turned out to be a weekend of extremes, where I alternately enjoyed the highs and lows of the BPM spectrum.

Endpoints

September 16, 2025

A friend listed her essential components of Lindyhop: athletic posture, pulse, and stretch. Unsaid, but assumed: the music swings.

I’ve been learning a variety of dance styles. I’ve spent the most hours practicing Lindy. I’ve gone through some balboa phases, and am excited for the upcoming Great Lakes Balboa Escape. I’m a regular two-stepper at the Empty Bottle. I’ve recently dipped my toe into hip hop and waacking at Rhythmhood. Salsa was the first style I practiced at length. I waltz casually.

Switching

September 07, 2025

Fridays at The Empty Bottle are special. A regular contingent of two-steppers circumnavigate counterclockwise to the Hoyle Brothers’ honky tonk rhythms. Recently, I have been switching my two step-role more often. Doing so has taught me more about phrasing.

Uptown Swingout and Musicality

August 31, 2025

Last weekend, a large contingent of Chicago dancers ventured up north to Minneapolis to attend the 2025 Uptown Swingout. I arrived a bit early to visit a Peace Corps friend who was in Kazakhstan with me a decade or so ago. We went to the mammoth state fair, where we saw the giant blocks of butter before they were carved into the farmers’ daughters. I ate what I thought was the first corn dog of my life, but which turned out to be a pancake batter variation called a Pronto Pop. My friend delighted in loudly booing the Waltz Lies booths. We saw majestic horses. We walked along streets dotted with mashed cookies which fell off the overflow of Sweet Martha’s buckets.

Tandem Charleston Variations

August 01, 2025

Cole Crutcher and Abbie Reeves led an advanced Charleston class at the new Traffic Jam! studio. The class focused on linking moves. Prior to the class, I felt limited in how freely I could improvise within Charleston. The class opened up a new set of possibilities. I’m also expecting to start using Charleston more frequently and have more fun doing it.

Introduction to Waacking

July 13, 2025

I took my first waacking class a few Tuesdays ago at Rhythmhood Studio. Waacking is a dance form created in Los Angeles in the 1970s by the LGTBQ+ community. “Punk” was once used as a derogatory term for gay men. The LGTBQ+ community repurposed the term, and used it to refer to a new style of dance. The distinctive style of waacking, with its sharp, expensive arm accentuations, developed from the punking style.

Hip Hop at Rhythmhood with B. Parish

June 28, 2025

I have been taking a hip hop class at Rhythmhood for the past month or so. Today was the last one I’ll attend for a little while, since I’ll have a Charleston Traffic Jam! class at that time slot. While Charleston is going, I’m going to try out Rhythmhood’s Whaacking class. Most of the Rhythmhood hip hop classes were taught by the fantastic dancer B. Parish. During the session last Wednesday, he reviewed the fundamental principals of hip hop dance that he outlined during the beginner circuit.

New Ghost Footwork Exhibition

June 12, 2025

Hairpin Arts Center in Logan Square hosted a footwork exhibition over the weekend called “New Ghost”. New Ghost is a specific footwork step invented by Lightbulb. The exhibition documented his footwork journey, with section divisions dedicated to important places in his life: his childhood kitchen, the “dungeon”, a basement space where he and his fellow footwork’s practiced; and a roller rink where dances took place. Within the rooms, Lightbulb performed some footwork and spoke to key people in the footwork community.

Back Room Speakeasy Sessions

May 28, 2025

After trying unsuccessfully to get into Super Taste in NYC’s Chinatown, we got cheap dumplings, then headed to the Lower East Side. Without the bouncer, The Back Room bar in NYC would be difficult to find. There is a small sign for the Lower East Side Toy Company on a gate that opens into a staircase which ends in a tunnel leading to the bar entrance. The inconspicuous entrance adds to the Roaring 20’s Prohibition Speakeasy theme, which attracts the Lindy Hop crowd.

Balboa Tossout Timing and Tonality

May 13, 2025

Molly McGown and Scott Herdegen taught a balboa class on tossouts. The tossout is a signature balboa step. It is sort of like the swingout of balboa. In Scott and Molly’s class, we focused on fine tuning different moments of the move.

Following in the Swingout Fastlane

May 07, 2025

For my first 2 years of swing dancing, I have led, almost exclusively. Over the past several months, I have begun committing myself to learning to follow. I have long suspected learning the opposite role would be one of the best ways to grow as a dancer. So far, this has proven true. But besides growth, following has been very fun. At these beginning stages, following feels like a wildly different engagement with swing. A new door opening. I’ve heard friends talk about a follow’s mindset. Sometimes, they speak about trying to empty their mind. I’m careful not to emphasize this emptiness, though, because I know, having danced with a wide variety of follows, that following is a fully artistically expressive role. Part of that artistry involves finding the right balance of receptivity of the ideas of the lead and expression within the spaces that the lead provides. A follow has to be listening carefully to the lead, the music, and their own emotional response. This is also true for the lead, but in the early stages of learning the lead role, there is more emphasis on directing rather than listening. I would guess that the longer one dances, the difference between the roles lessons.

Solo Jazz with Kerry Kapaku

April 13, 2025

Kerry Kapaku led a solo jazz workshop today. After watching videos of myself dancing the Trickeration routine (Cole Crutcher taught a class on it a week ago), I was interested in improving my comfort with solo jazz. I’m getting better with reproducing the footwork, but the rest of my body has some catching up to do. My upper body tends to get stiff and a look a bit awkward performing solo jazz. During class, Kerry spoke about how getting things to feel and look natural is learned. That sounds contradictory at first, since natural implies something innate. But it is good to recognize that people who exude an aura of “natural dancer” have put a lot of hours practicing making the steps look easy.

Chicago Lindy Lab

March 30, 2025

Last weekend, I participated in a 2 day dance workshop hosted by Nicolle Wood. It included 5 hour and a half long classes co-led by Nicolle and Kelly Palmiter. Here are my takeaways from the classes.

Solo Jazz with Elze Visnevskyte

March 09, 2025

Yesterday, Elze Visnevskyte led a solo jazz workshop at the Traffic Jam! studies. Much of the jazz dance instruction I have received has been partner dancing. I’ve taken a few solo jazz classes, and worked independently on it. While it seems separate at first, solo jazz improves one’s partner dancing. It trains the shape of the body. It builds up one’s vocabulary of steps and rhythms. When you watch an experienced Lindy Hoppers, it is clear that they are well versed in the solo jazz repertoire.

The Western Elstons at Simon's

March 06, 2025

The Western Elstons played Simon’s Tavern last night. They are a phenomenal band. It features Joel Patterson on lead guitar, Scott Ligon on guitar and vocals, Casey McDonough on bass and vocals, and Alex Hall on drums. John Perrin jumped in on drums last night. Just to reiterate, this band is really good, and it’s wild to live in a city where this quality of musician puts on a free show in a tiny, albeit famous, dive.

Dayton Smackdown Competition

March 04, 2025

The main event at Dayton is the team competition, held on Saturday evening. This year, 13 teams performed choreographed performances. My team, Traffic Jam Swing, went first. It felt like we were setting the tone for the night, which I think we did well, since the rest of the groups were tremendous. The audience was frenetic and super supportive. It felt to me a bit like it did when I played high school soccer, but with the excess competitiveness of sports refocused into creativity and community building.

Letting Go of Six Counts

March 02, 2025

At the Hungry Brain last night, the Paul Asaro Quartet played a set featuring Natalie Scharf. Joel Paterson was on guitar and Jeff Parker on bass. I love this quartet.

Leading with the Body

March 01, 2025

Last night, at the Empty Bottle, during one of the last songs, I led a sweetheart pattern while dancing with a follow for the first time. When I first started swing dancing two and a half years ago, one of my first instructors talked about leading with the body. At various times, I thought I knew what he meant by that. But while leading that sweetheart move, the idea made more sense.

Dayton Smackdown - Day 2 Classes

February 28, 2025

The day 2 classes at Dayton are all-level, so they are a bit more chill than day 1. The organizers moved the classes later in the day than they were last year. Many dancers stayed up the night before until 4 am to complete the Josh Forbes Power Hour. Last year, I got a Power Hour Pin. This year, I bailed at about 2:30.

Pure Balboa

February 26, 2025

In balboa class yesterday, led by Orlando Cabalona and Desiree Roffers, we focused on the pure style. Pure balboa is performed in closed position, which involves very close physical proximity. Dancing so closely requires careful and subtle communication, where lead and follow have to pay close attention to the body weight shifts. I’m beginning to suspect that refining this type of communication will be what makes balboa stand out.

Franking Manning

February 21, 2025

This morning, I finished Frankie Manning: Ambassador of Lindy Hop, by Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman. There was so much good stuff in it. Reading about his life inspires me to learn more about the history of African American dance.

Honkey Tonk Happy Hour

February 14, 2025

Every Friday The Empty Bottle hosts the Honkey Tonk Happy Hour. The Hoyle brothers play two sets from 5:30 to 7:30. It is magnificent.

Solo Jazz with Jo

February 13, 2025

I am taking a solo jazz dance class by Jo Hoffberg on iLindy. She records herself dancing for about 10 minutes using variations on a series of jazz steps. I completed the Tacky Annie video today.

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