Amanda’s shoeBox

Sorry I haven’t been writing in here for a while! I’ve been busy with my dance life and school life (late assignments tend to stack up, hehe).

Since a few weeks now, my Swing dance club at school (MSDC: Marianopolis Swing Dance Club) and I have been intensively practicing for our upcoming show. Anyone who’s interested is welcomed to come see probably Montreal’s youngest Swing dance troupe perform!

Swing Fiesta!
Friday, April 11, 2008 at 6:30 PM.
Marianopolis College (room F-105)
4873 Westmount Avenue
Westmount, Quebec
Metros: Vendôme, Villa Maria
Buses: 66, 124, 138

Tickets: $8.00 in advance ($10.00 at the door)
Money goes to help our teacher Alain Wong for his 7-week bike ride from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico “promoting micro-credit as a tool to fight poverty”. Current amount raised: $750.00; the objective: $3000.00!

There are going to be 3 Swing dance choreographies and 2 Latin dance choreographies. My friend Ashley and I are also going to sing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”, originally sung by Marilyn Monroe. We’re gonna serve desserts and drinks, and give a mini social dance lesson afterwards. Please come in great numbers to show your support! :)

The MSDC crew 2008! Front row: me, Wisit, Andy and Ilonka. Back row: Nicky, Ting Tin, Jonathan. Missing: David, Martin, Ashley.

Boston Tea Party!
This passed weekend (March 28-30), I went to Boston Tea Party, a major Swing dance event where Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing mix. There were performances, competitions, workshops with pros and lots of social dancing! My favorite part of the event was watching all the pros compete! I have watched a lot of DVDs, but watching the Invitation Strictly Lindy and WCS competition live brought the excitement to a whole other level! Max and Annie did a completely crazy aerial during their Strictly Lindy segment that drove the crowd nuts! The other absolutely amazing (and hilarious) competition was the Jack & Jill Crossovers in which pros of WCS must dance with a randomly chosen Lindy Hop pro! After a whole weekend exposed to WCS, now I really want to learn it! Social dancing to hip hop and R&B is fuuuun!

Here’s fun footage from youtube

It was my first “serious” competition at the Boston Tea Party. I participated in the Lindy Hop Intermediate Jack & Jill, danced with 3 random partners and made it to the finals! I didn’t win anything, but dancing at the finals with the 4th random partner was just one of the best experiences ever! All this motivates me to keep working on my dancing to become better! hehe!

Family for the weekend! <3 Back row: me and Anne. Front row: Aleix, Marie and Alain.

MSDC Practice today!

During the free period at school today, Alain taught us some cool Swing dance tricks! Flying in the air can be super scary, but doing these crazy tricks are probably the only times I’m not so afraid to have my feet off the ground! One note though: Swing dancing is not about these crazy aerials and flips! They are just very fun to learn and flashy during performances!

Martin is pushing me up in the air as I flip across. Wisit is in the back, spotting me in case I crash!

Here’s a clip of me doing the exact flip a few months ago with Alain.

On Friday, January 25, I left for Quebec City in the middle of the road for Quebec’s biggest Swing dance event: QSRV (short for Québec Swing Rendez-Vous)! It was my first big Swing dance event, and my first time in Quebec city during winter! I didn’t know it was so warmer here in Montreal! I also made great friends! Isabelle Lopez generously housed 4 other people and I. Thanks for your warm welcome and great care!

After having a Quebec city’s famous Ashton poutine, my friends and I went to the majestic vintage theatre L’Impérial where the first QSRV evening dance took place. I had never seen so many people dance in a same place before! As I observed people dancing, I discovered another Swing dance style completely foreign to me: the Collegiate Shag. Collegiate Shag was apparently born amongst rebellious college students of the 1930s who disliked Waltz and wanted to dance to more upbeat music like mid-tempo swinging jazz. The frame and handhold reminds me indeed of ballroom, and the footwork makes me think of Balboa. It was inspiring to watch world famous swing dancers triple step and swivel across the dance floor as jazz bands played!

 
QSRV dance evening at the theatre L’Impérial de Québec. (Saturday, January 26, 2008)

One of my favorite parts of the social dance evenings was watching the Bataille des Plaines d’Abraham (Battle of the Plains of Abraham), Swing style. It was a show in honor of Quebec city’s 400th anniversary (originally founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain). The war in the olden days was between France’s and England’s colonies; at QSRV, it was the battle of the Swing dancers from Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa. I had the luck to right in the middle front of the “battlefield” and saw all the action! My favorite scene of the Swing war was when Quebec’s Port-o-Swing dancers imitated a jazz band. Leads held their follows like a trombone, a guitar, drums, piano, etc. Really original! They deserved their win!

There were competitions at the event, and I participated in the Jack and Jill. It was quite a special experience, and I was much less nervous than I expected myself to be! It was truly like social dancing during a normal dance night! I felt the same joy and enthusiasm dancing with a skilled lead, and the same stress and discomfort with an incompatible lead. Congrats to Alain Wong and Ann Mony for winning in Jack and Jill and in Fast Strictly, to Alain Fragman and Sylwia Bielec for winning in Strictly Slow! I love you, my Cat’s Corner teachers! :)

During daytime on Saturday and Sunday, we had the privilege to do dance workshops with internationally known Swing instructors. My favorite workshops were the 20s Shag with Kelly Palmiter and Laura Berger, solo Blues with Kelly Porter and solo Charleston with Andy Reid. It’s a shame that all the Lindy workshops were always so filled, so I didn’t bother participating in them. I will have other opportunities to work on my Lindy skills eventually.

Hello world! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I wish health, happiness and success to everyone! I apologize for not having posted anything in my shoeBox for a while, but surprisingly, the Holidays season can keep one as busy as normal times if not even busier!

I left on the morning of December 30, 2007 for New York city and just got back last night near midnight. It was the first time I went to the States during winter. It was sure warmer and snowless compared to the Quebec climate. On the first evening, I got to discover the New York subway system. Since then, I will never complain about our Montrealer subways ever again! Ours don’t creak, go much faster, have larger platforms and are organized in a simple way. Theirs have crazy lines that superpose onto each other and shake so much while it’s moving!

On the second day, we took a tour of the city in the bus and went to the Metropolitain Museum of Arts. I may not appear to be so, but I absolutely love museums. Seeing exhibitions of ancient Egyptian art, ancient Greek and Roman art, fashion throughout history, ancient weapons and much more was a thrill!

A side note about Ground Zero: construction has begun not long ago and this time, Americans are aiming to build a tower as tall as the Empire State Building with two smaller towers each side of the main tower. The tour guide said that because of these contructions, families that have lost loved ones during the 911 event have been forbid to hold ceremonies at the site. Are we forgetting that tragic event already?

Me with Ground Zero constructions in the background.

New year’s eve was obviously spent at Time Square. Andy, Jeannie, Saeho and I starting waiting outside at 6:00 PM for the famous Time Square Ball Drop. I have never seen SO MANY people gathered together in my 18 years of life. Agoraphobes should definitely stay home! People were squeezed like sardines in cans. It literally brought people close together. I took this opportunity to talk with strangers from different parts of the world. It was a wonderful experience, although perhaps only worth living once in a lifetime. :P I also once again lived the frustration of being tiny. If you waited 6 hours out in the cold amongst a huge crowd and ended up not seeing the oh-so-famous Ball Drop because of your tiny height, you would be frustrated too…

Me at Time Square with newly-met Julie (Chicago) and Steve (England).

The rest of the trip included visits in Central Park, at the National Museum of Natural History (no, it is not like in the movie Night in the Museum) and Time Square.

Me at the National Museum of Natural History with the fossilized skeleton of an ancient bear.