Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
For a long time, I’ve been wanting to put together a nicely produced video of me dancing, showcasing all of the fun dance styles I’ve been playing with over the past couple of years, including solo jazz, charleston, house, and waacking. Last Saturday, I finally got it together to do it, with the help of…
I am a terrible follower. And I love it. A couple of weekends ago, I got to work on learning the other side of lindy hop, the follower role, at The Switch Workshop in San Francisco. The Switch is one of the first full weekend dance workshops dedicated to focus on learning the non-traditional role…
Check out this sweet video short about b-girl Ayumi of Japan. She holds it down both as a professional hip-hop dancer and as an elementary schoolteacher in Japan. And she's an older dancer in her 30s! She's kind of my new dance hero. Here's another dope video of her at a competition from a couple…
Yesterday evening I happily kicked in a couple hundred bucks for the crowdfunding campaign "Big Band Revival: Jimmie Lunceford Transcription." Cause what else is money for except to bring beautiful things into the world, like awesome swing music? This is the second time that Michael Gamble and his crew have rallied jazz nerds and swing dance…
Today I was in the San Francisco Botanical Gardens for their wonderful "Flower Piano" festival. Pianos are placed strategically all around the beautiful gardens, and anyone can turn up and play whatever they know. I saw lots of young kids playing who reminded me of that brief time in my life when I was a pianist….
I dig this video featuring Quest Crew dancing to a live performance by electro-swing band Caravan Palace. Quest always has a great mix of styles, from b-boying to house to locking. There's even some charleston in there. Here's another older one from 2012 on SYTYCD.
You thought the "Step Up" dance series was over? Nope. It's back… in Chinese! I had assumed from the lackluster box office revenues and poor reviews of "Step Up: All In" (2014) that we had seen the last of the "Step Up" film series. As friends will know, I'm a long time fan of the…
Across the board, from rock climbing to boxing to dance, getting better at something involves some pretty universal practices: Practice a lot Focus on the edge of your ability Do an action slow, then build up speed as you get more proficient Visualize yourself doing it I'm not particularly great at practicing. But I'm trying. …
On Wednesday, I finally got to see Hamilton the musical at the Orpheum Playhouse, with my dear friend Hanah and her sister Arielle. It's one of the most powerful theatrical experiences I've ever had in my life. Like thousands of others, I binged on the music for months prior to going to the show, to prepare…
Here's a fun, impromptu dance video put together by my friend Auey, as part of a photo shoot I participated in. The locale could not be more picturesque: an old abandoned train station in West Oakland. And always have a blast dancing with my friend Hanah. More photos from this shoot coming soon! I'm so…