Hello readers, and welcome back to my life! This past weekend was slightly crazy, even by my standards–and next weekend is going to be even more nuts. Stay tuned. Since I don’t want to pick just one event to discuss, let’s do ALL of them.

On Friday, the SU Ballroom club held a social dance. I am the resident coach and “owner of sound equipment”, and let’s face it, I just like most of them ballroom kids. So, I packed up the car and fought Dome traffic to deliver the audio amplification. The dance was a “Decades Dance” which basically meant we played music in rough chronological order from the 1920s to today. It was great fun, I had a blast–but honestly the most interesting part was finding and selecting music. A lot of selections I had pegged as belonging to a particular decade turned out not to be–like “Nights in White Satin”, the hit single by the Moody Blues. I thought for sure it was an early-70s song, on account of the fact that most of my mom’s music was 70s-80s. Nope, turns out it was 1967. Oops.

In any case, hearing the progression of popular songs over the past 100 years is fascinating. I wonder when, in my lifetime, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry and Justin Bieber and all those other popular artists on the radio now will start to sound dated.

On Saturday, there was West Coast Swing practice, and then a road trip to Rochester to meet with the Brick City Boppers–the Lindy Hop club at RIT. They taught a lesson in Lindy, we taught a lesson in WCS, and then had a short social. It was fun, though frankly I still don’t really ‘get’ Lindy. I find the parallels to West Coast Swing very interesting (they are sort of dance ‘cousins’), but it’s a bit too frenetic and grip-y for my tastes. Even people are apparently good at Lindy slip and slide and nearly fall, and that just doesn’t seem that fun. I do, however, have a better understanding of how the footwork goes for several of the basic moves. Perhaps if I dance Lindy a bit more I will come to appreciate it.

On Sunday there was more WCS practice, and then SU Ballroom team practice, taught by yours truly. It was Cleaning Day–the practice in which we have completed the choreography and start making it actually look good. Truthfully cleaning is quite fun–if I’m being pretentious, I might say it’s like carving a sculpture or throwing a ceramic vase. The art emerges from the rough, formless raw materials. As a result, it was the first practice of the semester where I got a sense of what the piece is actually going to look like. It’s a little magical, and it’s one of those moments that makes the frustration leading up worth it. I’m so grateful to have an outlet for my choreographic creativity, and I’m lucky the SU peeps continue to put up with me.

Coming Soon in the dance life of Holly: Swingin’ New England, Why We Dance take II, an Everson Museum fundraiser, and more.

Happy Tuesday!

P.S. Photos from Bethany.