When do I get to hear stories, watch videos, etc...?

All of the above to come... there may even be a story about me having a complete change of heart about a certain...

popthestack:

All of the above to come... there may even be a story about me having a complete change of heart about a certain...

Woman? Are you going to get married?

You should. Everybody's doin' it.

pop is going to get married???

Scary.

but i thought popthestack was incapable of love [Emoticon not found]

move? you've had a change of heart about the windmill, haven't you!

This is a good description of the event. I've added emphasis to parts.

Quote found here

Allen Hall:

ULTIMATE LINDY HOP SHOWDOWN ‘06

“Showdown” is primarily a competitive and social dance event. It has grown to be both well-respected and well-attended, and now, with added international appeal. This year, dancers came from the U.S., Canada, England, France, Sweden, Japan, Korea, and Australia. “Showdown” may now be the Mecca of Old Skoolness—I heard damn few recorded vocals played—have I said something bad? Nope, I generally liked the DJs’ selections and spread of tempos. The competitive standard continues to rise every year. Let me put it this way, if you have some moxie, and you are willing to suffer gladly a few dents being kicked into your competitive ass, come to “Showdown” and sign up. The average ability of the assemblage of competitors was the highest I have ever witnessed, and I said the same thing about “Showdown” last year. Lemmie tell you, this year’s guys were B a d, and the girls were E v i I.

Rudy and I could only attend the Saturday and Sunday night dances, and what fun they were. For the second year, “Showdown” was in the Varsity Theater in Dinkytown—yes, dear alien hearts, we have a small, (even “dinky”, you might say), section of town which is hard by the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. But, don’t be rude and ask; really, I have no idea where the stupid name came from. The Varsity Theater is a beautiful Art Deco venue. Bless’d with a high ceiling, crisp and penetrating acoustics, adequate seating, and 4,000 sq. ft. of what appeared to be brand-new (brought in and assembled) hotel modular parquet floor with a very nice surface which stayed that way all of Saturday and Sunday nights except late Saturday when the BTUs and relative humidity went exponential and stickyfied the floor. The room is long and narrow with the bandstand at one end, an elevated bar at the other and overstuffed furniture to one side of and in front of the bandstand as well as in the foyer. This creates a warm loungey ambiance. The foyer was far enough away from the music so conversation was easy. Again the lights were too dim for social dance—a pet peeve of mine—but I was pleased to see the trashy, mirrored disco ball was turned off. The marquee outside read,

ULTIMATE LINDY HOP SHOWDOWN

HOME OF HAPPY FEET

Classy? I think so, even though I’m sure it puzzled the drunk Dinkytown denizens. The event sold out at 300 dancers, added to by some evening dance walk-ins. And, Amy astutely sized of the crowd to fit the venue. I know Amy may now be tempted to move to a larger venue, but I, for one, hope she doesn’t, as the old skool ambiance at the Varsity will be almost impossible to reproduce anywhere else in the Twin Cities. Amy, are you listening? We are so lucky to have “Showdown” in Minnesota, and so, Amy, if you even think about moving “Showdown” out of Minnesota, I personally will place a fatwa price on your head.

The average ability of all the LHers attending “Showdown” is the best of any event I have ever attended, and I said the same thing last year, and with equal conviction. The floor was a little crowded after each flight of competition was danced, when, of course, everyone, except the most recent competitors gasping for oxygen, were anxious to get up and dance, but otherwise, there was plenty of room to dance. In summary, no major complaints about social dance space. And since, we were there for the whole evening (but not late night), I was happy to dance the moderate tempos and a few of the quick tempos, and let the rest of the quicks go undanced. I must have scored my share of dancing on Saturday, as I’ve never been wetter, EVER, soaking a sports undershirt, a dress shirt and absolutely drenching a sport coat. The next morning my fingers looked like prunes (no comments please) and it took all of the next day to re-hydrate and start to pee again.

Since Rudy and I have been hanging exclusively with Lindy Hoppers all over the country for the last 8 years, we know many of the out-of-town dancers, and I would like to dance with them all. However, experience has taught me some points of etiquette. The top “Showdown” competitors usually assemble in an impromptu Cats Corner, and I don’t go there, as I know they only get to come together several times a year, and, once assembled, they like to sharpen their skills and moves on one another, and swap new moves. They didn’t come to “Showdown” to social dance with the likes of me. If I run into a top follower away from Cats Corner, and I read her face as “okay”, I might ask for a dance. I am guessing the “Showdown” male-female ratio was 4 to 6, and I did notice that many followers, mostly locals, didn’t get to dance very often. I want everyone to have a good time, and so it bothers me to see this, but my position is as follows. They can dance with me anytime; they need to ask the out-of-town leaders to dance. If they just sit and wait in this high energy event, they are unlikely to get asked. Personally, I only turn down an ask, if the tempo is too fast for me. Otherwise, I dance when asked, and further, I try to dance once with as many familiar non-competitor out-of-town followers as I can find, but knowing it will be impossible to get to all them. I don’t do this as any favor to them, but rather, as a favor to myself, and for an opportunity to ask them about their home scenes—Allen is my name; info is my game; I live to know what is going on....everywhere. BTW, I didn’t have ONE difficult dance either night.

The live music was excellent. There was a welcome and known quality on Friday night, an encore performance by “Robert Bell’s Hot Swing Combo”. There was a newbie band on Saturday night, “The Bela Big Band”. And, on Sunday night another known quality, “The Southside Aces”.

The Bela Band is new to me, but I hope I can dance to them again. It is 15 piece band with a 5/3/3 horn ensemble configuration, and a 4 piece rhythm section. The horn section work was tight, the soloists well above average, except, that is, for the solo tenor chair guy, who had most of the solos, and who was absolute incendiary. The rhythm section was balanced, penetrating, and “there for us” all night. They had a few problems keeping the music going for competitions, and a few coda train-wrecks, but I ain’t complainin’, as this band had some unique charts, rhythmic drive and musical energy,

After the last set, I had a brief conversation with the solo tenor guy (see below, for a pretty close to verbatim account).

Me: “Thank you so much for the music, and for the burnin’ solos. They were wonderful.”

Tenor guy: “Thank you. You know, this has been the most fun I have had playing for a long time. These people” as he pointed to the floor with a look of incredulity, “are listening. After playing for dancers who stumble around, it is so great to play for people who actually listen to the music.”

Me: “All these dancers have big ears, and they use ‘em.”

Tenor guy: He then pointed to the dancers on the floor, and, said to me, as if I couldn’t quite comprehend the enormity of it, “Look at them. They are all listening to the music.”

Me: Hey! These are some of the best Lindy Hoppers in the world. They understand music, they anticipate breaks, they know when the chorus rolls over, they can anticipate a tag and dance it, and they know to make a move sequence fill an 8 bar segment, and they can change the style of dance to match the music.

Tenor guy: Shaking his head in disbelief, “Amazing.”

I heard some minor grumping at the bar about the Bela Big Band music which I took as displeasure that some of the arrangements were in the modern idiom (thereby, I suppose, collectively dising the post 1950s recordings of Basie, Ellington and Herman) and perhaps some displeasure because the tenor guy was blowing barn-burning bebop-phrased solos (thererby, I suppose, dising Bird and Diz). I bit my tongue, and walked away. Nothing good can come from arguing with the doctrinaire narrow-minded…..about anything. I keep coming back to what Duke Ellington said. “There are only two kinds of music, good music and bad music.” One doesn’t have to adore all kinds of music, but one, I believe, should try hard to appreciate good music, even if it is not one’s favorite type of music.

Rudy and I recently danced twice to the Southside Aces, (a Hot Jazz/Dixieland band), and we really enjoyed them, even though, there was acoustic imbalance in the rhythm section. At “Showdown” they were miced up perfectly with balance between the Sousaphone, the rhythm guitar and the bass drum. As a result, the music came at us as a unified rhythmic piece; it was delightful. I don’t know who to thank for the Saturday and Sunday sound checks, but I would prostrate myself before them to kiss their feet. There was proper balance, and appropriate, but not overpowering emphasis on the rhythm sections. To dance to a band with a faint rhythm section is like trying to drive a Mercedes without an engine.

All the competitions I saw were astounding, dare I add “universe-class” (go to www.minnesotalindy.com, for results).The Liberation (Fast Lindy) finals just about defied belief; they were danced to 288 BPM* and all pairs danced super-clean, while remaining rhythmically centered, with inventive styling, compact athleticism, engaging floor personality, and with superb aerials and unique flash moves. While Lindy Hop at that tempo with a top class of Lindy Hoppers tends to be a peacock dance, I was even more impressed with the athleticism of the girls. Ain’t never seen nuthin’ like it ever in all my put together. While I know there a certain element which exerts pressure to push the tempos up high enough so that dancers with the most fast-twitch muscle fibers will win because they dance clean while the rest dance fast, but raggedy-assed. I disagree strongly with that. It is exciting to see Lindy Hop danced fast and well, but it is boring to watch it danced fast and poorly. The major source of exhilaration comes not from blistering tempos, but from seeing all of the dancers able to employ all their artistic and athletic abilities and still stay clean while performing at the edge of doable tempos. (Am I repeating myself? If so, good, because I believe the continued popularity of Lindy Hop is, in no small part, dependant on intelligent control on excesses in competitive tempos) Please, will you tell me, what other form of competitive pairs dancing demands tempos which limit the artistic abilities of contestants? There, I am off my soap box.

* But wait...one more thought. They passed out freebie CDs of the live music at the ’05 “Showdown”, and I counted the tempo for what I think was the music played for “Liberation” in ’05, and it too was about 288 BPM. Hmmmm!

The solo Charleston Battle a.k.a. “The Badass Throwdown at Showdown” was equally unbelievable. Pressed by a field of amazing athletic men, Aussie, Sharon Davis, cleaned their collective clocks—trust me, it was no contest. She is an extraordinary dancer; strong, quick, fast, agile, supple, with exquisite body control, body move isolation and engaging floor personality, but her most remarkable asset is prescient musical ears, and a wealth of style flavas to match the music. I have never seen any Lindy Hopper, man or woman, anywhere, anytime, any place, any better at musical interpretation. To watch her dance is to both hear the music, and emotionally feel the music. Speaking of people you dasn’t take your eyes off, it is L’il Freda. You never know when she is going to bust yet another brand-new monster move. And, I do so want to dance just like Todd. Hell, I do so want so to look just like Todd, but, alas, neither was ever to be. At fire-engine tempos, Todd always looks like a man who strolling downtown on Sunday morning to buy a newspaper—how in the hell do he do dat?

They held a solo Blues competition which was just okay. To me it resembled the class warm-up before a modern jazz dance workshop. I appreciate good adagio dance, but I am no big fan of any kind of it. However, if “Showdown” needs such a competition, I vote for a Blues pairs contest, or, better yet, scrub the Blues altogether, and give us peons some more open dance time.

The prices for walk-in tickets for evening dances were a little less expensive this year, and since the event was sold out, Amy was gracious to assure Rudy and me that we could get in after the 60 mile drive to get there. I was happy to hear the DJ, Reuben Brown, didn’t abuse his open microphone. Sean Morris did a fine minimalist job of MCing. There was no puerile palaver you hear so often from the guy with the microphone in his hand, and a Saturday Night Live tape running in his head. It was good to see our two wandering homies, who are now ex-patriot LH citizens of the world, Mikey and Peter. Come back often; we don’t care how you dress; we love you.

Allen Hall

Sharon Davis, the aussie, was really fun to dance with!

Don't know about pops.. but I danced with her several times all weekend long.. she was awesome

I wish I could have gone... [Emoticon not found]

yeah.. and next year I will try and do all the comps

SHOWDOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIBERATION FINALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it was sweet

OH BOY! It only gets betta'!

Tons of clips are up!

Whew!! glad they are out there... now everyone can have their own copy