Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
I just realized I am already into the middle of week three of my work sabbatical! This is really the first day I have had completely schedule-free since I finished work at the Cal Academy. So far it has been completely wonderful to have this time to take a break and take stock of things….
I’ve lost a lot of dance competitions. But my all time favorite loss was on a warm summer’s evening in New York. A few years ago, my friend and I entered a lindy hop dance contest at a popular music festival, along with several other dancers in our scene. It was held in a large…
Holy smokes, funk legend Chaka Khan has a new track out, and it’s amazing. Could “Like Sugar” be funkier? Not possible. I look forward to the many dance videos featuring this track. Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You” was a big part of my adolescent sound track. Still gets me moving, decades later.
Here’s another reason why #blacklindyhopmatters. All this week I’ve been participating in the Get Free Hip-Hop Dance Festival, a week of urban dance classes, talks and competitions in San Francisco. Today, a panel of female artists were talking about feminism and hip-hop. One Black dancer explained how she was in the process of discovering the…
Photo Credit: Andrew Lin Yikai About a month ago I had a blast participating in a Jack&Jill dance contest in Singapore at their World Lindy Hop Day celebration. I finally got the video of the comp from local dancer Lionel Tan, who graciously allowed me to share it here. Such a fun time competing with the…
I just can’t get over how amazing this performance by the Fabulous Sisters of Japan was on the TV show “World of Dance.” This is what blows me away about waacking when done at the highest level: the drama, the power, the expressiveness. And that group choreo is just so damn tight and flawless….
Another fantastic weekend of fine music and dancing I was talking with Gilles on Saturday about what makes a superlative dining experience. It’s more than just the food. It’s the setting, the servers, the energy of the people eating there, even the kind of lighting. Gilles put it more simply, “I like eating…
Here are some of my favorite things that I encountered in Shanghai, in no particular order. Jianxifang A very touristy but still charming old neighborhood, centered around a tiny warren of narrow alleyways chock-a-block with shops and cafes. Some of it is just tourist nonsense, but there are lots of gems in there. My new…
This Saturday night, my friend Sing Lim and I were scheduled to give a presentation at the World Lindy Hop Day event in Singapore on “Frankie Manning and the Black Roots of Lindy Hop”. There were about 75 dancers and musicians there from all across Asia. A few minutes before we were to speak, Sing and…
I love this version of the song so much. Those drum breaks are awesome. I had fun improv-ing to this song this morning in Golden Gate Park.