Haagen-dazs, purveyor some fine fine ice cream, are sponsoring "Help the Honeybees" a campaign to raise awareness and funds for research into the problem of honey bee populations dying out around the world. According to the site "over the last three years more than one in three honey bee colonies has died nationwide, posing…
Category: Dancing / Music
Improv Everywhere Glees Up a Geek-meet : Gotta Share! (video)
I'm a huge fan of Improv Everywhere and I work in social media, so when the two meet up, it's like rainbows and nutella. Here's what happens when those merry pranksters invade the GEL social media conference in NYC. Gotta share! More on the Improv Everywhere site.
Lindy Bombing the Mission: Swing Dancing at Sunday Streets in SF
Yesterday I had a great time lindy hopping with 20-some other folks as part of the "Sunday Streets" festival in the Mission District of San Francisco. "Sunday Streets" is a city-sponsored series of events that creates car-free areas on the weekend for people to stroll, shop, eat, listen to music and just hang out….
Shim Sham for Frankie Manning on May 26!
Larry Peacock recently issued a call to swing communities around the world to do the Shim Sham line dance on May 26, 2011. That's the birthday of legendary lindy hopper Frankie Manning, who passed away in 2009 but whose legacy lives on in us. Here's his message: A call for all swing dance communities…
The “Wrist Roles” Project: Toward a More Open, Inclusive Social Dance System
For the past couple of years, I have been thinking about how gender roles interact with dance roles in lindy hop (and other social dances.) As someone who cares about this dance and wants it to be an artform that is welcoming and available to everyone, regardless of gender, orientation, identity or preference, the strict…
Using Augmented Reality to Find Swing Dancing in San Francisco
I have been playing around with some augmented reality apps recently, including the Layar AR system, one of the most popular ones out there today. Layar provides a common platform for developers to share their augmented reality data using common standards, and then share them with a global community of users. There are currently more…
Rik and Nina: Poster Children of Midsummer Night Swing 2011
I'm happy to share the news that the lovely and talented dancer Nina Galicheva and I are gracing the front of the promotional posters for the 2011 season of Midsummer Night Swing at Lincoln Center. The photo is from when Nina and I competed in last year's "Ambassador's Prize" dance contest at Lincoln Center. As…
NY Post on Bone Flexin, Hip-hop and Lindy Hop Dance (video)
Interesting, if convoluted, video story from the New York Post about a "bone flexing" battle in New York. The reporter connects this newest street / vernacular dance form with older hip-hop styles like breaking and tutting, and even with lindy hop. I know it's an old story from 2009, but I liked the connections…
Gauchos bring Gypsy Jazz to the Mission
On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of catching the Gauchos jazz sextet perform at the delightfully divey Amnesia Bar in the Mission District. The Gauchos play mostly gypsy jazz, ala Django Rheinhart, throwing in some other tango and New Orleans street jazz for good measure. They got some serious chops, tight grooves, and…
America’s Best Dance Crew: S6 Ep3 “The Black Eyed Peas Challenge”
America's Best Dance Crew (Season 6) – MTV Shows I caught America's Best Dance Crew season six, episode three tonight. Each crew was tasked with dancing to a Black Eyed Peas song and with one trick move or illusion — not that tough since it's early in the season. Here's my notes from the episode:…