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Balboa Archives
UPDATE: New Discoveries on the Waist-Down Dancing ClipOctober 16, 2011Before we begin, a brief reminder on where we stood last week: (1) I stumbled upon some SoCal 1930s and 1940s swing dancing footage I and five or six of the hard core clip geeks I talked to had never seen before. (2) Among the clips was a mysterious couple of minutes waist-down footage that looked like it was leftover from a film shoot. No specific movie stuck out to us, but we began searching for what it was from. (3) In the clips, most interestingly, was a dancer that reminded myself and several of the world’s leading Willie Desatoff studiers of Willie Desatoff’s styling so much that we agreed it *could* be the man himself. (4) This is incredibly tantalizing, as Willie himself claimed he wasn’t in films. If it is Willie, did he forget? Was he mistaken? Or did something make him omit telling anyone about this? If it isn’t Willie, who the hell is it? And now a few of, but not all, the answers… |
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Random Lindy Hop and Balboa Geek Discovery: Bal, Swing and Lindy from the Waist Down (And Something Possibly Amazing)October 06, 2011I recently was looking around stock footage websites when I came across something peculiar: a series of clips of jitterbuggers, several minutes of it, mostly from the waist down. I appears to all be leftover swing-era film footage. At first I thought were simply of random mediocre dance extras, as often happens in stock film footage. But then I realized that these Lindy dancers are actually good. And, there’s Balboa and LA Swing (Early form of Bal-Swing) in there them hills. In fact, several of the dancers look oddly familiar. One in particular blew my mind, as you’ll see ahead. |
Out and In-terestSeptember 21, 2011Actually, it was a decade ago. The growing Balboa scene was full of young, hopeful and enthusiastic…(well let’s face it)…dance geeks. Through a combination of home movie footage from Bobby McGee’s, old movies such as “Start Cheering” and the Venice Beach Clip, combined with the DaVinci Code advice from the old timers, we were piecing together the dances (Balboa and Bal-Swing). Needless to say, our early versions from the late 1990′s and early 2000′s were way off. I blame the public school system. |
More Lindy Focus Highlights & Bonus FootageJanuary 26, 2011It occurred to me that I said that I was going to post my other Lindy Focus video highlights and I never did. Well the long wait is over. And because this slipped my mind I included some super special sauce footage at the end of this post. |
Heather Ballew & David Rehm dancing Balboa at the Provence…January 16, 2011It’s a pity that there are so few videos of David Rehm dancing, as he’s one of the masters of Balboa; the word that comes to mind is ninja-like. |
Anything Goes Tuesday – Bobby White & Kate Hedin and Nick…December 14, 2010I figured I’d open Tuesday up to pretty much all the swing stylings I could, rather than restrict it to just blues (…also, it was becoming harder to find blues videos, shush). So here’s some more Bobby White, Kate Hedin, Nick Williams, and I believe this is the first time I’m posting a video including Denise Phelan. |
Balboa: 3 Ways to Avoid a Tense BackDecember 13, 2010Here are three tips that I hope will help your Balboa and your back from being tense while following! 1. The “Up” Hold Misnomer: Many follows have heard of the “up” hold basic and start holding “up” by lifting their hip. |
Jeremy Otth & Laura Keat vs. Adam Speen & Nelle Cherry,…December 07, 2010Ignoring the arguably offensively orientalist intro to this video, here’s a pretty hot video of pretty fine balboa. |
Jeremy Otth & Laura Keat Frim Fram Performance (2010) Many…November 19, 2010Many thanks to Will for getting this video up on YouTube. This is one of the best performances I’ve ever seen at Fram. I’ve been taking lessons from Jeremy & Laura this whole month. Sunday is the last workshop I have with them, which is about 3 or 4 hours of Lindy hop goodness. |
On Judging (Introduction): A Few QuestionsSeptember 28, 2010The first time you’re given a clipboard and asked to judge a swing dance contest, here are some of the questions that might go through your mind, perhaps even during the first heat, when you’re supposed to be watching competitors: |
Random Notes from the Balboa ExperimentSeptember 15, 2010The idea is this: get a group of advanced students in the same house for a week, give them a dance floor and a little guidance, but otherwise let them run wild. The trick is just to keep them from breaking things. In this instance, the staff is sometimes teachers, but more often coaches or advisers. |
Swing Analogies–Balboa is like a poem…(cough)September 07, 2010Balboa is like a Poem. Would you like to come up to my room and look at my etchings? |
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