Swing Dancing

My DSB anniversary! Halloween night, how perfect!

As I was watching the time tick by to DSB, I was trying to think of a costume. My main costume had yet to arrive. I finally decided I would just bring PJs. So, I slowly prepared to leave, when I had an idea to be a vampire. The only problem is I sweat a good deal, so I wasn’t sure how well makeup would stay on me.

I called a friend of mine who has done a good deal, and she told me she had a powder and fake blood that would help it stay on longer. I quickly ran out of my house to get to a nearby Party City before it closed.

I arrived 7 minutes before it closed, bought some fake teeth and some white makeup.

I then went directly to DSB, and my friend met me and put on makeup. She was also a vampire, and we happened to have nearly identical cloaks, it was amazing. So, we walked in as “brother and sister” vampires, and she had done my makeup so well that my dance partner actually couldn’t look at me in the dim light of the dance floor. It was kind of unfortunate, but kind of cool. I didn’t plan on wearing the makeup the whole night.

I danced with a good many of people and I could feel my makeup start to smear with my sweat. Nothing could touch my face without leaving a white mark. I had two dances that made the whole makeup worth it.

A friend of mine, who had talked with my dance partner, disagreed, “I don’t think he’s [me] that scary looking”, danced with me. While dancing she said, “wow, you do look scary!” So, I dipped her and in a demonic voice said “LOOK INTO MY EYES!” She semi screamed and freaked out, which was really funny.

Another time I asked someone I hadn’t yet met to dance. Midst the dance she commented, “you know, it was really freaky when you asked me to dance.” So, It was definitely worth it.

I rubbed the makeup off my face, which meant I got to dance with my partner again. Yay!

One of my favorite Blues Dancers, who won last year’s Lindy Groove costume contest, came as Iron Man. Not in the full costume, but just with the glowing center in his chest, and it was really on/in his chest, and showed through his shirt. It was absolutely amazing.

My partner was a Succubus, and did an incredible job.

Other than that, the blues went well, nothing spectacular.

Oh, one more point to note. The birthday jam was TERRIBLE. No one cut in for the first 2 minutes or so (to MOST of the dancers), they just watched. When they did cut in, they stayed there, and no one else did. People are supposed to switch like every 15-30 seconds!

That was it!

The count down had come to a close. The night had arrived. My favorite night of the month was now beginning.

Blues dancing is a completely different atmosphere and different feeling than Swing Dancing. Yet, they greatly complement each other. To explain blues dancing is one of the hardest things I have tried to do. Everyone has a different way of explaining it… partially because it is a completely improvisational dance. You listen to the music and every action is based on the music. There isn’t a count to the steps. You could watch 5 different people “blues dance” to the same song, even if some of them used the same partner, and yet they would be completely different.

You can see my discovery and explanation of it on the history page. For now, all I will say it’s a very sensual dance. The lights are dimmed with a very low ambience type of lighting with traditional blues vibrating throughout you.

So, I arrived at little after 10 (the dancing is from 10-2:30PM). The only sad thing about the night was that my partner, Emily, wasn’t going to be there. She had a wedding to attend, and this was also her favorite night. I decided to make the best of it and dance with as many people as I could.

There were three dancers there that I knew I had to have at least one dance with.

Chandrea. She was the first person I ever blues danced with, nearly a year ago. She helped me get started and learn the basics, she was the only one I was comfortable dancing with. Little did I know, at the time, that she’s a professional dancer, choreographer, and so on. She had left a few months back, but had come back for two days.

Erin. She’s been my favorite blues dancer to watch since I started. Her movements are amazing, and I love dancing with her. We don’t dance often, but we almost always have a good one.

Chirstine. She is one of Erin’s good friends and is an absolutely incredible dancer. As once I said, she’ll make any lead look great. You could literally just hold her hand and you would look awesome. When you actually lead her… it just adds that much to it.

I consider them all some of the best dancers there, and I used to be very shy about asking any of them to dance. But through my dancing with Emily, my confidence had boosted and I was happy to ask them to dance.

So, I started dancing. I danced with friends and with people I didn’t know. I was just listening to the music and enjoying it. I wasn’t doing anything special, and I wanted to warm up a bit before I asked any of the three mentioned above to dance.

I finally was looking for Christine, and she asked me to dance. It was a good song, and such a good dance. She easily followed everything I did, moved completely to the music, and had a great time.

So, I moved on. Danced with a few others, it was around 11:30, and I wandered outside. I wanted to see if there was anyone I’d be interested in dancing with, and I found a friend who said:

“You know she’s here?”

“What?”

“Emily, she’s here.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yeah! She just walked in!”

I immediately disappeared around the corner and moved back inside. I scanned the first room, not there. I went into the dancing room, nope, not there either. I started moving towards the last room and she walked out. How could this night get any better?

I immediately asked her to dance. We know each other’s dancing very well,  which enables us to be very creative. This was our dance, and this was our night. Needless to say, we had many great dances. I think my favorite dance for the night was with Emily, when I just decided to forget about the “normal” dancing and just to act goofy, do whatever we wanted. So much fun.

I did have my dances with Erin and Chandrea, and both were great. It’s great to see your follow smile when you’re a lead. If they’re not smiling the whole dance, and only at specific moments, that usually means that whatever you just did was something new, unexpected, and they liked it. When you can reproduce this effect many times throughout a dance, it’s a good feeling.

All and all, it was a great night. My partner had surprised near everyone and showed up. I got to dance with three other really good dancers. What more could I ask for?