Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
For my Christmas present this year, my dad — quite an accomplished amateur photographer — gave me a free photoshoot! I asked him if he would shoot me doing some breaking moves outdoors, which he happily obliged. We had lovely shooting conditions on Tuesday morning. We found this nearly empty skate park in the…
For Christmas, my sister got our mom this "Cardio Dance" DVD featuring "Dancing with the Stars" professional dancers Ashly Costa, Kym Johnson, and Maksim Chmerkovsy. My mom is a huge "Dancing with the Stars" fan, so we knew this would be a hit with her. The Jive routine in particular is cheesy swing goodness from…
After lots of planning, coding, head-scratching and bickering, I am extremely excited to announce that the new Yehoodi 3.0 site is about to launch! For the past 11 years, Yehoodi.com has been the virtual hangout for thousands of swing dance and swing jazz enthusiasts from around the world. While our web platform has served us…
Picture of “SwingingOUT” Group in Toronto, Canada. I’ve heard that there are a couple of lindy hoppers who are working on creating a LGBTQ-friendly swing and blues dance in New York City, which I say is long past due. Other places like San Francisco and Toronto have had long-standing queer-friendly swing dances for years and…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of teaching a hip-hop workshop to a group of Global Kids teens in the Bronx, which was a unique challenge for me for a number of reasons. Here's how it went. Global Kids has been running programs at the middle school IS229 for the past couple of years, exposing these…
This Thursday, December 17, I'm excited to announce a very special holiday Frim Fram Jam, Yehoodi's regular Thursday night swing dance. First up, badass lindy hopper Todd Yannacone will be teaching an advanced dance lesson from 8-9pm and then DJing with Ryan Swift until 1am! As always, the lesson is from 8-9 pm, and still…
"Swingyoucats" has more fun footage from the Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks concert on Saturday in midtown Manhattan, including this vid of dancers enjoying the Nighthawks performance of "Ain't Misbehavin'". Such a fun song, and so deftly performed. Here's another one of WestieGrrl and I charlestoning to "When the Folks Up High Do that Mean…
Here's some awesome footage of vintage swing big band Vince Giordano and his Nighthawks performing "Royal Garden Blues" at the "Holiday Tea at Three" in Manhattan yesterday. Taken by twentythreeskidoo, a wonderful young lindy hopper and swing jazz fanatic. I love how she captures all of the musicians doing their solos as well as the…
LXD "Moments" Trailer from Jon M. Chu on Vimeo. I really have no idea what the "Legion of Extraordinary Dancers" (LXD) is, but the dancing and cinematography are ridiculous. Anything that has guys in sharp suits doing handhops is okay in my book. Here's their performance on "So You Think You Can Dance" last night….
I got the updated info on the line-up for the Salon New Year's Eve Eve party happening on December 30th. They have an amazing assortment of entertainment on tap at the very swank Player's Club in downtown Manhattan: Headliner: George Gee and the Jump, Jive and Wailers Big Band in the ballroom Queen Esther and…