By HopMichael on Monday, March 13, 2000 - 11:47 pm: EditOK, I didn't go to the classes, but I did attend the evening events on Friday and Saturday. So I'll let the official Festival attenders describe the day events. Here's the view from the dance floor:
Friday night, March 10
I land at SFO around 7:00 pm. Just in time to get picked up by my friend Ben and wolf down a sandwich before heading to the International Center.
Located near the corner of Market and Van Ness, The International Center is headquarters for Paul and Sharon's "9:20 Special" dance (think San Diego's Firehouse equivalent) on Thursdays as well as their classes during the week.
It's an old building with a flight of stone steps that take off from the sidewalk into a vestibule. As you enter the main dance hall, a bar lies to your left while on the right a lounge sits for tired Hoppers to socialize and thirsty dancers to drink from jugs of water. The hall itself gains its feeling of airiness from its two-story height. Faux Corinthian columns around the large room accentuate the verticalness. Lampholders that almost look like arms projecting from the walls illuminate the room. The ceiling is a classic grid of squares and golden rectangles lined by ornate trim [I know this b/c I was staring up at the ceiling during some of the more boring sections of the pre-dance talks]. An elevated stage projected from the front of the room. Dark wooden double folding chairs lined the sides of the room. A balcony overlooked the floor's proceedings and shone spotlights on the singers/performers. The wooden floor's size was about the size of the Rocket.
On Friday evening, Dawn Hampton gave a talk about dancing the music. Ms. Hampton's family has been entertaining for the past 50 years. She has an extensive music background including performing with Bette Midler and Barry Manilow at the Continental Baths of gay NYC. She gave an interesting, albeit rambling, talk about her own musical background. She certainly placed a lot of emphasis on feeling the music and letting it become an expression of one's heart when one danced. Perhaps the highlights of her talk came when she punctuated her points with dance examples with various instructors to "Splanky," "Blues for Stephanie," and her own singing performance from the 70's (name of song escapes me). Though not dancing to what most would call Lindy, she showed that a 72 year-old could still swing and strut and flirt with footwork, hipwork and handiwork.
Live dancing proceeded that evening to the music of (ack! someone help me with the name of the band!) [this space left intentionally blank] featuring the drumming of George Reed. Mr Reed is a great drummer. Let me repeat that. He is a great drummer! He can pick out rhythms and syncopations to match the song on the fly. The trumpeter sounded especially sweet on muted horn stylings. The keyboardist doubled as a saxophonist.
The band played an interesting mix of classic swing selections with some Dixieland jazz thrown in for good measure. Someone must have had a word with the band, b/c they hardly played any truly fast numbers. I guess SF loves that modern Savoy sweet spot of moderate tempos. The crowd was quite pleased and showed their pleasure with frequent applause. In addition to his dancing talents, Steven Mitchell showed off his vocal talents with rousing versions of the standards like "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy."
Spotted in attendance: Susan Bird, Laurel,
Steven Wang, Laura Dabby (hope your knee is feeling better), Melissa, Valerie Yau, Meeshi, Jeff Eldridge, Margaret Adams, Michelle Cancel, Michelle Mullin, Greg, Mark, and Little David from OC. It is notable in passing that Susan may have a good reason now to return to SF, but not necessarily for dancing. (sorry, Susan, couldn't resist!)
The evening ended with pleadings from the crowd not to stop the music. Jesse, the DJ recently from Minnesota, obliged and put on a DJ challenge including "Play that Funky Music" in which the mostly female black leotard-clad mass tore him off the stage and paraded him mosh-pit-body-surfing style around the room like some primeval hunting trophy from Lord of the Flies. I talked with Jesse later on Sunday and asked him about that experience: "Well, it was kind of like a dream I used to have, but I was awake..." Sure, Jesse, we all have that kind of dream. [Note to all San Diego DJ's: see what real DJ appreciation is all about?]
Saturday evening, March 11:
Grover Sales of Berkeley's Conservatory of Music gave a talk on the emergence of Big Band Swing. He traced the roots with musical examples and ably demonstrated the origins from black music of the blues and white music of large band structures. This writer was fascinated by the fact that a black woman by the name of Mary Williams was the primary arranger for bands such as Benny Goodman and by the fact that Tommy Dorsey's familiar Boogie Woogie was straight off a piano piece by Pinetop (Pinetop's Boogie Woogie). Duke Ellington's amazing musical influence was acknowledged especially with Billy Strayhorn's co-writing/arranging and Jimmy Blanton's revolutionary stand-up bass playing (as a lyrical instrument in addition to rhythmic instrument) and to Ben Webster's startling saxophonic sound. Moten's band that became Count Basie's band was lauded as well. Still, the most entertaining aspect of the talk, was Mr. Sales's pantomining to the recordings he played! He honestly acknowledged that he did not dance swing, but did claim to have stood mere feet away from the bands he talked about.
Live music proceeded again with the same band and occasional Steven Mitchell vocals. Highlights
-Micaya's hip-hop class put on a show. Way to go Melissa and Valerie! The whole place was cheering.
-Steven Mitchell led the room in a spontaneous line dance that jammed off of George Reed's drumming. Call and response between dancers and drummer: ow! what an experience!
-Dawn Hampton whistling an entire tune. yes, whistling. The whole place was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. George Reed was amazing in picking up on the rhythmic shadings and changes to accentuate her performance. Some remarked about Dawn's changing keys a few times, confusing the band somewhat, but a startling performance nonetheless.
After hours dancing on Sat night/Sun AM.
Moving off at 2:00 AM to a steamy dance studio in the South of Market area, the hyped-up dancers converged on the Metronome (DeHaro and 17th). There then followed much blues dancing, flirting, and bacchnalian behavior. One interesting mix was a spliced up version of "Segue in C," "C Jam Blues," and "At Duke's Place." With each splice, dancers exchanged partners throughout this key of C jam. The last song at 5:00 AM was Michael Jackson's "Thriller." And this was a show stopper. Peter Schumerth (sp?) from OC did the whole choreography and floored the dazed dancers.
Sunday AM, March 12
This writer blearily made it to Lindy in the Park. Ken Watanabe was already up spinning the tunes starting at 11:00 AM, despite having left that late night Lindy with the rest of the dancers only mere hours ago. Lots of out-of-towners who did not go to class showed up. We danced on the bandstand in Golden Gate park for our own and the tourists' amusement. Highlights:
- Ken toyed with the dancers by deliberately holding the pause in Steve Lucky's "Doing the Pup"
- Bill Borgida (from Ithaca) led a spontaneous Charleston line to one uptempo tune.
Hey, it was a great weekend, for this writer! A San Francisco weekend of dance should be part of every Lindy Hopper's education!
HopMichael
PS Please add on to any other observations of classes or things I missed on reporting.