Shuffle Projects

Swinging Projects for Lindy Hop & Balboa Dancers

Nick Williams

30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge: Your Swing Crushes / Favorite Pros

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Every Friday for thirty weeks, I will write about a topic from the list of the
“30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge“.

This week, we're talking about..

Week #12: Favorite Pros

My first thought about Swing crushes was: “Come on, I'm not twenty anymore.”

I know, I know, having crushes is not about age. Anyways, I wouldn't write about it.

So, let's talk about favorite pros.

Here is my list:

Nick Williams

I guess, Nick influences my dancing more than any other person. With his style and his unique musicality he's always been a big inspiration.

Laura Keat & Jeremy Otth

Both are very likable and awesome dancers. They are not afraid of taking a masterpiece of dancing and recreate it. Spectacular!

Kelly Arsenault & Mickey Fortanasce

The two of them preserve the heritage of the old-time Balboa dancers and add their own style to it. Always able to push the boundaries again and again.

Maeva Truntzer & William Mauvais

Maeva & William are presenting a new generation of swing dancers. Original and hilarious. With this routine they captured my heart immediately.


<< Last Friday: #11 Favorite song(s) to dance to

>> Next Friday: #13 Favorite dancing memory

30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge: Your Favorite Instructor

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30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge on Shuffle Projects

Every Friday for thirty weeks, I will write about a topic from the list of the
“30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge“.

Here is my topic of this week

Week #8: Instructors, who have inspired me a lot

There is no such thing as a favorite instructor.

They all are different. Some of them I adore, some of them I don't like that much. That's normal, isn't it?

So, how should I choose THE one. Impossible, at least to me.

Therefore, I'm going to tell you, who of the instructors inspire/d me most and why.

Johnny Lloyd

Johnny was my first Lindy Hop teacher. When I started with Lindy Hop in 1999, he was one of the most influential people in the swing scene in Switzerland. I liked his smooth and elegant style. He taught a lot about lead & follow and didn't focus on crazy moves.

Frankie Manning

Of course, I have to mention Frankie. He was not only a huge inspiration as a instructor, but also as a human being. And his hearty laughter is legendary.

Peter Loggins

Peter's shuffle style inspired me a lot. I spent hours to learn and practice the shuffle steps to finally create my own style.

Marie Nahnfeldt & Hasse Mattsson

Their warm and friendly style of teaching stands alone. I don't know any dancer who doesn't like taking classes with these guys.

I once had a private lesson with Hasse and we were working on the swing-out. Hasse just said to me how to start the swing-out: “invite her”. I tell you, these two words changed the way I do the swing-out forever!

Nick Williams

Two things I really like about Nick: His ability to break down moves, no matter how difficult they are, and his marvelous musicality. No idea, how I can nearly get there 😉

Carla LaRue Heiney

Carla's professionalism as an instructor impressed me a lot.

It was in Eauze at SHSC, when I asked her after a class about the move we just learned. It was a quite difficult body movement the lead had to do. Carla danced with me, backled the move and I understood it within two minutes, what I couldn't figure out during the whole class.

Sylvia Sykes

Sylvia has this dry sense of humor. I learned a lot from her and I use many of her explanations in my own classes. And, I just like her!

Laura Keat

Laura is very empathetic and she can give you feedback that is really helpful and pushes you forward. I try to be as helpful as a teacher as she is.


<< Last Friday: #7 Something You Really Want To Learn

>> Next Friday: #9 Favorite class taken

30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge: Your Favorite Group Dance

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Every Friday for thirty weeks, I will write about a topic from the list of the
“30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge“.

As promised, I'm back on track. It's Friday again and the topic is

Week #6: Your favorite group dance
(Shim Sham, Tranky Doo, Big Apple, etc)

I'm really a bad group dancer because I never really learned any of them properly, unless the Shim Sham and the Jitterbug Stroll at the beginning of my Lindy Hop career.

Dean Collins' Shim Sham

30 Week Lindy Hop Challenge: Favorite Group Dance: Dean Collins Shim Sham

There are various Shim Sham versions out there and many of the original dancers created their own.

Right now, the Dean Collins Shim Sham is my favorite one and I started to learn it. I like the different energy levels, sometimes it's very smooth, only to become more energetic in the next moment.

Especially the second part is packed with Dean Collins' typical jazz steps such as “Tabby The Cat” or the “Savoy Kicks“. These movements are fairly distinctive and I totally love them.

Clips

This clip is featuring Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra. In the first part they are performing “Hep And Happy” and you can see a few excerpts of the Shim Sham.

Another clip is from 1983. Dean Collins (on the right w/ white trousers) & Bart Bartolo are performing the Shim Shim to a rather slow song.

The last clip is from 2000 and shows Lisa Ferguson & Peter Loggins performing Dean Collins' Shim Sham at the London Lindy Hop festival.


<< Last Friday: #5 Your favorite Lindy Hop variation dance (Charleston, Balboa, Shag)

>> Next Friday: #7 Something you really want to learn

Bal-Swing Out-and-In: New Blog Post and Clip by Nick Williams

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Yesterday, Nick Williams published an interesting article about the Out and In in Bal-Swing and how he and his dance geek friends managed to find this missing motion to make their own Bal-Swing look like the oldtimers danced it.

Here is the link to the article called “Out and In-terest”

Private Lesson Footage with Maxie Dorf “Out and In”

Included in the article and also just released on YouTube is this clip

This is awesome footage and I'm really happy, Nick is releasing these clips. I especially like Maxie Dorf's style of sliding. I immediately want to work more on this technique!

What do you think about Nick's blog post and clip? Please leave a comment!

Related posts:

Index of Basic Classic Dance Clips – Compiled by Bobby White
Balboa History – Wie alles begann (in German)

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