I finished my second day at the Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Festival at 4am, exhausted but inspired by a full day of awesome dancing and loving tributes to Frankie. I recorded some video snippets of the day, for those who want a flavor of what's going on: Swinging Reverends at the Frankie Manning Memorial Dawn…
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Pic of me in the New York Times leading Second Line processional for Frankie Manning
There’s a lovely article in the City section of the New York Times today about the memorial service and festival to honor legendary swing dancer Frankie Manning entitled “Honoring the Man Who Helped Make Lindy Hop.” It’s got lots of great quotes from friends and fans of Frankie from the memorial, and a couple of…
Sirius XM Satellite Radio to Broadcast Saturday Night Gala from Frankie 95 Festival!
Big news from the Frankie 95 Birthday festival! I am excited to announce that SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio will broadcast the Saturday black tie gala live from the Hammerstein Ballroom on it's 40s decade music channel (channel 4 on SIRIUS and XM radios) also known as the 'Savoy Express'. All three Saturday orchestra sets will…
Frankie 95 Festival Day 1: Jazz Vipers, Hellzapoppin, Junior Jitterbugs! (video)
Here's a jam circle at the first dance party of the Frankie 95 Birthday Festival. With all of our guests not even here yet, it's already a blow-out, crazy-fun event. Day 1 highlights: a very moving documentary film about Frankie called "Frankie Manning: Never Stop Swinging." Norma Miller in an intimate Q&A about her life…
Post of the Day: “Dance community really excited to spend five days in New York trying not to cry”
Gotta love this post on the Jam Cellar blog in DC about the Frankie 95 Festival start tomorrow: Dance community really excited to spend five days in New York trying not to cry. This weekend marks the event where dancers from around the world will come together in New York to celebrate the life of…
Machinima tour of MacArthur Island led by Mac President Fanton! (video)
For those of you not in Second Life, here is a lovely video tour of the new MacArthur Island sim led by the avatar of MacArthur Foundation president Jonathan Fanton. I love the production values of this machinima, and how it encapsulates in seven minutes the broad range of projects being supported by the MacArthur…
Reflections on Frankie Manning: my teacher, friend and inspiration
Me dancing the Shim Sham with Frankie Manning at Yehoodi's 10th Anniversary Party in 2008. Photo by OpeningMinds. In just a couple of days, lindy hoppers from all over will be descending on New York City for the swinging-est birthday party ever. The Frankie Manning 95th Birthday Festival will be notable not only for…
Video archive of Cory Ondrejka & Jonathan Fanton discussion now online
For those that were not able to catch the virtual conversation with Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka and MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton yesterday, the video archive is now up. Our friends at Treet.tv (formerly known as SLCN.tv) have released in record time the machinima video of the launch of MacArthur Island that happened yesterday in…
MacArthur Island launch a success!
Today was a good day. I was the event producer for the successful public launch of MacArthur Island in Second Life, featuring a conversation between the avatars of Jonathan Fanton, President of the MacArthur Foundation, and Cory Ondrejka, co-founder of Second Life now at EMI. Over 150 avatars, plus another 20-some viewers of the live…
The promise, tool and bargain of Yehoodi as a community website
I just finished today Clay Shirky's awesome book Here Comes Everybody, a cogent description of the sea-change in social organization that we are witnessing due to the advent of online social networking tools. Shirky's book has me thinking about what lessons I can take away from it for Yehoodi, the swing dance community site I…