This year I was honored to again be invited to teach, judge, and compete in some of the contest of the weekend. Here are some of the videos from the weekend, enjoy!

This is the Invitational Strictly Lindy Hop contest. I was fortunate to dance with the lovely and talented Gaby Cook. We are second in the line up…

Next is the Invitational Jack & Jill Lindy Hop contest. Here the leads draw the name of a follow and are judged on how well they are able to dance together. I drew the amazing Kelly Arsenault.

But oh no, the fun doesn’t end there, then we had to choose a song at random from the eras of the 70s, 80s, and 90s… We choose the 90s, here was the resulting dance!

This year Mikey Pedroza and Nikki Marvin performed a brand new routine entitled Moonglow. This is our brand of slow dancing and it involves a lot fun and trust! Lindy Hop? Blues? Or just something we made up? Either way , enjoy!

Secret Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MGGT5Z2VcI&feature=related

The Great Southwest Lindyfest, or just Lindyfest as its known today, is a workshop and social dance weekend created to inspire and help others grow with in their own dancing of the Lindy Hop. Workshop classes run all day with some of the best Lindy Hop and Jazz dance instructors of the past and present. But the event is centered around one person in particular, the ambassador of Lindy Hop, Frankie Manning. Unfortunately we lost our legend and mentor in 2009, but in even though Frankie has passed on, his spirit is very much alive and strong in each an every person that walks out onto the dance floor and calls them selves a Lindy Hopper.

This tradition has played on from the first year of Lindyfest all the way to today with each instructor at this years event honoring Frankie by dedicating a class to the lessons they learned from the legend, mentor, and lover of life, Frankie Manning.

This year Nikki and I were invited to Lindyfest as featured performers during the Friday night and Saturday night shows. The first number was Nikki and I’s newest piece entitled, Georgia Swing Shift. This was one of the best and hardest pieces we have brought up to the people. And this time it was three times more exciting because we were performing in front of the living legends of Jazz dance performers of Chazz Young, Dawn Hampton and Steven Mitchell. With our nerves on fire and hearts pounding out of our chests we show the past generations what have to contribute to the legacy of lindy hop!

The next was a collaborative effort by the members of our swing and jazz dance group, Hot Club Stomp. Since not all the members of the group could make it to Houston we decided to change the routine up a bit and make it fit for 2 couples. And add in one Jo Hoffberg, of the fabulous Killer Dillers, as our special guest. One part smooth Los Angeles style swing inspired by the dancers of the 1930s and 1940s. And another part just all out free for all swing, jazz, lindy hop, or what ever it takes to get it done, dancing. This piece really flies high!

Thank you so much to each and everyone of the dancers that attended this years Houston Lindyfest it was truly a memorable and magical moment for us. And a very special thank you to Larry and Mariah and the rest of the Houston Swing Dance Society peoples for the invitation to perform for everyone at Lindyfest this year! We wont soon forget it and hope to see you again next year in Houston again.

For those of you that attended the workshops, here is the run through for the classes. If you didn’t attend you don’t have to look away but you can watch and maybe learn some new things! Here is the over views of 5 out of the 8 classes of the weekend.

For those of you that noticed the Soul dancing class review, I assure you that there was much more to that class then just a few moves. We run that class like a 2 hour party, its seriously one of the funnest classes we get to teach. I will talk more about that in another post. But in short we found a great way to actually and constructively teach others to dance to Soul music.

And lastly Nikki and I debuted a new demo routine of solo dancing. Using a part of the jazz routine the Trankey Doo, some comedy, add a little pose at the end and you got all of the elements you need for a pretty hot routine. Enjoy!

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One of the most famous clips in Lindy Hop done at the peak of its popularity and to some of the fastest music around. Hellzapoppin’ was amazing and high flying, but Killer Diller takes it to a whole other level.

So here is the clip from the 1948 movie, “Killer Diller” featuring those sensational, Congaroos!

The first time I saw this dance clip I was about 14 years old and I was absolutely floored! The way these dancers flew across the stage was like watching super heroes use their super powers to save the day! Every time i watch this clip I think, “YES I CAN!”

Then I heard that some of my favorite dancers of today were looking to pay homage to the famous clip by recreating this grad and famous routine at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown! I was lucky enough to be in attendance to watch Mike Faltesek, Casey Schneider, Stefan Durham and Bethany Powell bring a most excellent piece back to the for front of our Lindy Hop culture…

As I wrote in the last blog entry about my recent contest entries. I have been working towards this weekend for quite sometime. And even though I didn’t end up placing in anything, I was still incredibly proud and filled with joy for what we put out for the world to see. I love my life as a dancer and to be given a chance to dress up and dance in front of others is one of the best feelings ever!

So below is Nikki Marvin and I doing our latest classic Lindy Hop routine entitled “Mr. Rhythm Man”.

Next is the Champions Strictly Lindy Hop finals. The only took eight couples to the finals and five of the couples had alread won a spot to be in the finals by winning other contests through out the year. So during the prelims, it was 10 more couples fighting for three spots in the finals. And to our joy, Nikki and I made it! So here is the finals to the Champions Strictly Lindy Hop contest. (Watch for some awesome modern jumper and more puffy sleeve action!)

I’d like to thank everyone involved in the planning and organization of this years ILHC. All of our hard work shows and is expressed in every dance by every person on that dance floor! See you next year…

The importance of a mental connection between partners is as crucial as technical aspect of connection. To know that your in sync with your partner is something quite amazing, hence the feeling of nirvana. You feel as thought you can do no wrong and so your mind is free to move smoothly from one thought to the next. This I feel is as close to a yin and yan feeling that I can get, the thought that my emotions and the logical side of myself, can combine and move seamlessly into each other. That one is supported by the other, that is a connected partnership to me. Most of the time it I feel as though I search for this feeling on a social dance floor but that is hit and miss. But for this post I had contest dancing in mind, since for the past couple of months its been one contest after another.

First with Camp Hollywood Lindy Hop contest, usually this event and contest, for me, comes with this mental block and I never do the best I know I can do. But this year I had that connection and mental/physical preparation for the event and Nikki and I did the best we could have done. We came prepared and ready with our “A” game and some puffy sleeves…

Then we move into Lindy On The Rocks in Denver, Colorado. Now it may have been that they changed the contest on us last minute, or that we thought the song was going to be faster, or maybe that we were a mile above sea level, I don’t know. But the night of the contest was very disconnected that night.

“Trust me you wouldn’t want to see it…”

Now moving into the greatest competition event of the year, the International Lindy Hop Championships! ILHC is only in its 3rd year but it already has become the greatest place to throw down your dancing since the creation of the ULHS. Nikki and I have perpaired as much as we can and we’ll find out how it goes this weekend!

“Video to come soon…”

This years show was held at the beautiful Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle, WA. The hall is home to the Seattle Orchestra and has had famous act such as, my personal favorite, Dave Matthews. The venue is a professional business with actual employees that now how to put on a show. So you can imagine the great pleasure it was to have people that work that venue be there on hand and help us to have great sound and lighting this year. Still no curtains, but that’s my own personal preference. HA! Anyways, the venue was a great improvement on years before with all of the professionalism involved from the back end to all of the talent on stage. Everyone brought their “A” game this year with all of the preparation and high level of thought put into every number. This years Jump Session Show really made for quite the spectacular, spectacle for all of those who attended this year.

Speaking as a performer and just as a right out lover of dance, I can say that the Jump Session Show / Camp Jitterbug is right up there as one of THE premier dance events to attend in the nation! The JS Show starts off the Camp Jitterbug weekend with a thunderous bang! That doesn’t stop until the minute you leave Seattle. I look forward to the time I get to perform for that audience, there really is no other way to explain it other then it is a magical experience. If I can bring a small amount of joy to some one watching one of my performances then I am happy. To walk out on to that stage and see all of those people staring at you can be intimidating. But if you think of it all those people came out to be entertained, by you! They are there to root for you and want you to do the best you can! If you think of it that way and have pride in what you do then there can be no stopping you! It was my pleasure to attend Camp Jitterbug 2010 and be apart of the fabulous Jump Session Show. To share that stage with all the talent that danced their heart and soul is one the greatest honors I could ever imagine.

Those 2 cent were brought to you by Mikey Pedroza.

And below you can see most all of the pieces from the show this year, enjoy!