By Chris on Monday, May 01, 2000 - 09:28 am: EditThis past Sunday Michael, Brit, Shana and myself took a road trip up to Santa Monica 3rd St Promenade for some dancing and adventure. The day began at 1pm when Brit came over to our house, from there we set out to find Michael's home. We get lost trying to find Michael's place, luckily Brit had her phone w/ her and he directed us to his place. We grabbed some water and hit the road! Our first stop was Long Beach to some vintage stores. Meow was the first store, the decor was done very nicely. On a wall over an opening was a 1950's neon sign the read "Fashions" in a 50's style font. The ceiling was black w/ reflective particals, and the lights were your basic fluorescent lighting with undulating curved wood cover. The stock of clothes was great, except nothing fit any of us! The girls clothing drowned Shana and Brit found a few jumpers that swallowed her up. The shoes for the women were many, a lot of dead stock items. Yet, again - no sizes. We moved on to the other stores that occupied the same block and were all neighbors. It was really neat to have about 6 vintage stores right next to each other. The furniture stores had nothing in my interest except two 1940's bent pipe chrome chairs with black leather, reminiscent of the Marcel Brauer Wassily Kandinsky chair. The previous owner had attached non matching chrome tubes to both of them that ruined the chairs. The other stores were all very interesting, but no buys. So, onward to Santa Monica!!
We finally arrive at our destination about 5pm and parked in the parking structure. We walked in to the mall b/c we were starving. Michael got oriental, Brit and Shana got chicken, and I got a hamburger not bad. After we inhaled our food and me finishing up everyone's left overs, we headed out to find the dancing.
What a crowd!! When we got there a swing jam was occuring with Marcus and Baerbl, Minn and Corinna, and Tip and Holly. There were about 50 people there in total. I had a great dance with a girl from Detroit of all places. Her name was Tawni (spell ?), and she was traveling around the country. I also got to dance with Corinna again, Baerbl again, and even got to dance with Holly for the first time. Holly was so nice, extremely friendly. We talked for awhile and she expressed interest in Break Away, so we're going to try to get Tip and Holly down for a night!! It so neat dancing there, every 50 ft or so there are street performers doing everything. From making balloon animals to a wonder kid playing an incrredible trumpet to a old women in red lingerie (yuk!!). We all were putting on a show for the by standers, and boy were they amazed!! As I looked around I noticed a large populatin of elderly people smiling and watching all the dancing. I think it was taking them back, it so neat to have a connection with people from another generation.
After the Shim-Sham, Brit and Shana came back from wondering and drooling over all the clothing stores to tell Michael and me about to young tap dancers down the street. Being skeptical we followed. OH MY GAUD!!! These kids were amazing!!!! Two 16 year old male African-American twins, that were tapping to R&B and Rap. Wow!!! I've seen some tap, but not like this. Absolutley amazing! They staring dancing at 6 yrs and have been with it ever since. John and Shawn were there names, and they schooled at a performaning arts school in LA that the name starts with a "C". (the name eludes me) One of their teachers was Gregory Hines and they have even tapped with Fayard Nicholas from the Nicholas Bros. We were so impressed that we ran back to our dancing area and grabbed Marcus and Baerbl, they joined us. Marcus was skeptical as Michael and I were at first. When we got back to the tap dancers they were taking a break, preparing for their next show. Some rude lady was there demanding that they start and later critiquing them, spoiled rich fat old lady with too many face lifts. (sorry, she was annoying) The dancers began and Minn and Corinna joined the audience half way through. Again, the performance was amaziong and Marcus was nearly speachless, at least it seemed that way. He was impressed, and afterwards we chatted with the boys.
They began tapping because they were hyper kids and their mom wanted that energy to go into something positive. Marcus invited down to the swing dance next Sunday to join in the jams, that will be interesting.
Before we headed to the car we stopped for ice cream and java, and spoke aout the days past events. Once finished we headed to the car and drove back to SD. After dropping off Michael, we got back at about 11:30pm exhausted and not wanting to go to work the next day.
We had a blast up there and Shana and I are going back next Sunday if anyone wants to join us. We are going to leave earlier so we can make it a whole day event. So much to see and do up there.