Mike & Laura

Four letters: I-L-H-C. Spells awesome! The International Lindy Hop Championships was an amazing experience this year. Every year it just gets more and more amazing.

This year, Laura and I didn’t quite go as crazy with the amount of choreography we competed with, but we did put ourselves out there and did pretty well. Now commences the flurry of YouTubes!

We made finals of the Champions Strictly Lindy Hop division! Talk about exciting and intimidating. If I’m not mistaken, we’re the only non-fulltime dancers that made finals. We placed dead last in the finals, but hey, we still made it!

It’s amazing when months of work produce such a great result. We got 4the place in the Classic division this year. There are a few mistakes I’m not happy with, but I leave it as an exercise for the reader to find them. Next year we take 1st… maybe?

I’m not one to leave the coolest bits for last. Laura pulled Peter Strom in the Invitational Jack and Jill! They totally rocked it.

I placed 2nd in the Advanced Jack and Jill with Natasha Ouimet. All I can say is that she made it happen. Thanks Natasha! I’ll put up the video when it finally hits YouTube.

ProAm-tastic! Laura did 2 ProAms this year. One social danced with Chia-wen Lin (Spokey!), and one routine with Eric Lim (our awesome roommate). Can you spot the choreography above?? Chia-wen did so great that a lot of people suspected choreography, when in fact, he was the only one with the stones to go non-choreo. Eric and Laura took 3rd place with their routine, choreographed by Laura. Great job guys!

Lastly, we brought a student team from The Lindy Project. They performed a sweet 20s-ish routine in the Cabaret division. The song was Happy Feet, and it evokes this great chorus line feeling that Laura and I turned into a great little group routine.

If you missed ILHC this year, best get yourself on YouTube and drink up as much as you can. It was amazing. Better not miss it next year!

I haven’t posted any blogs in way too long. Laura and I have been crazy busy this year, but it’s the good kind of busy. Since I last posted, we’ve had a blast at Lone Star, headed down under for Swing Camp Oz, attended LindyFest for the 10th! time, won 1st place in the Strictly at Boston Tea Party, taught at the fabulous Midwest Lindyfest, performed in the Jump Session Show at Camp Jitterbug, led the Beginner track at Beantown, Laura taught with Peter Strom at Lindy on the Rocks, and finally competed the heck out of ILHC.

Like I said, crazy busy year. On top of it all, my boss (yes, I have a day job, and yes it’s techy) just had a baby! So work is crazy, dance is crazy and it’s just fabulous.

2009 was one heckova year for us! A big thanks to all our family in friends, without whom, our lives would could never be what they are!

We spent Christmas with Laura’s parents out in Mount Vernon, TX. Middle of nowhere, but beautiful. Here’s a good shot in front of the Christmas tree (taken with my fancy new iPhone 3GS!).

On Boxing day we started our Journey out to Asheville, NC for Lindy Focus. This year was ridiculous! They nearly doubled the number of attendees, ~500 people! Through it all, it still maintained its standard of excellence for organization, the best learning environment, and a ton of great bands and performances.

The Lindy Focus crew raised the bar for their New Year’s Eve show this year. Evita Arce did a great job organizing the varied acts into one cohesive show. I thought it worked really well. Check out YouTube for all the acts.

Here’s the Piece that Laura and I performed to Nina Simone’s “Since I Fell For You”:

There were only a few competitions this year, the choreography showcase having one of my favorite moments of the whole camp! Karen Turman and Andrew Thigpen, had to go and out do themselves again. Last year’s Ho-down was great, but this was awesome.

You might’ve noticed a certain resemblance to another routine that may have been done by, I dunno, Mike and Laura at last year’s Lindy Focus…

I’m super proud of Andrew and Karen. They’re creativity is astounding, and Laura and I were totally flattered to have them rip our choreography =D

Again, Happy New Year everyone! I think 2010 is gonna be even more kickass than last year!

~Mike

Laura and I just recently attended Lindy On the Rocks in Denver and ILHC in DC. Both events were filled with comps, though Laura and I didn’t actually compete together all that much.

At LotR (which always makes me thing Lord or the Rings rather than Lindy on the rocks!), Laura and I got to do the Invitational JnJ and Pro Strictly, though Laura did the Strictly with Jonathan Jow. I competed with Karen Turman. Laura and Wow-Jow (as he’s becoming known), totally killed it in the Strictly, nailing 1st place, sending them directly to the Champions Strictly finals at ILHC. I didn’t do so Hot, got all nervous, again… The JnJ was fun too, but we couldn’t hold a candle to the likes of Peter and Nina! (can’t find Jow & Laura video, but we’ll keep you posted)

ILHC was crazy cool adventure this year. Laura and I basically tried to do everything possible! We competed with our new Lindy Showcase piece and our Blues cabaret piece. We took 2nd place in Cabaret, somehow beating the Killer Dillers’ amazing Berry Brothers recreation. We’re hoping that the cabaret videos eventually make it on to Youtube, but sadly, not yet.

Laura also did a girls jazz piece with Karen Turman in Cabaret, and a ProAm routine with Ben Luhrman from SA. The jazz piece was awesome because it wasn’t just the usual charleston routine you see all the time. It got them 4th place. I’ll post the video if it shows up on youtube. Ben and Laura took 3rd in ProAm.

Laura graduated to the cool people’s divisions this year, doing the Champions Strictly we Jow and the Invitational JnJ with Kevin St. Laurent! I did the Advanced JnJ and took 3rd with Claudia from Montreal. So many French-Canadians this year! Constantly heard French in the elevators

I did the Open Strictly with Sarah Pritchett, one of our Bam Dynamite kids. It was a great experience for me. I got to teach Sarah a bunch of my moves, and in the process, really learn how to be in control while competing. In Comps, I’ve found that I tend to rely too heavily on my follow for inspiration because I freak out and forget everything. Forcing myself to bring out the cool moves at the right time, was tough but I think it totally helped me get that 3rd place in the Advanced JnJ. I feel totally ready to tackle the Showdown division at ULHS. Laura and I will be training our butts off over the next month!

Bam Dynamite 2.0 performed right before the ProAm Division, and as expected, everyone freaking loved them. Quite a few people told me how jealous they were of how young they started, and how quickly they’ve progressed. Scott, Laura and I are ridiculously proud of them.

I just wrote up a bit of a review of Swingtime in the Rockies over on the TLP blog. Go check it out. There are a couple cool pics courtesy Eric Bertrand, and my account of doing the Crossover JnJ!

We also finally debuted the ProAm Routines we’ve been working on. Laura’s been working with Alex Cavalli, and I’ve been working with Maya DiTraglia. The unveiling occured at TLP’s July 29th Open House at Tapestry. Enjoy!

Song: Something to Pat your Foot To – Johnny Hodges

Song: Ain’t Misbehavin’ – Louis Armstrong

Last Weekend, Laura and I had the immense pleasure of attending and teaching at Beantown Camp out near Boston. It’s a great camp on the beautiful campus of Endicott College in Beverly, MA. They grounds were gorgeous and the dorm rooms we stayed in were very nice, way Nicer than the rooms I had back in college. We were in a Pod of 6 rooms with a nice common area and kitchenette. Communal living plus privacy equals awesome.

Laura and I got to teach two main track classes (track 5 and track 1) and two optional all-level classes (a Blues and a Lindy). The two main track classes were on Friday, so we literally flew all morning and made it to camp just in time to teach. They were super fun though, especially the track 1 group. I love beginners.

We decided to go ahead and do the Jack and Jill and Strictly comps, which was a good idea because did quite well. We placed 2nd in the Strictly and then Laura and Andrew Thigpen got 1st in the JnJ and Jaya Gamble and I got 2nd!

One of my favorite parts was getting to do the Instructor demo on Sunday Night. 8 of the teaching couples pulled together to perform to Duke Ellington’s Hot Feet. Peter Strom organized the group, teaching us some of the choreo they did during the Cotton Club scene the Shadows did during the Frankie95 Show. That’s right, we got to perform Silver Shadows choreography! There’s a cool intro then solos then an even sweeter ending. With 8 couples we just did 4 duets rather than solos. Laura and I got to do ours with Michael and Jaya Gamble. It took us like 8 iterations to get it to something we could actually do at ~250 bpm, but I like how it turned out. Hopefully a Video will end up on YouTube. If I find one I’ll post it here.

The social dancing was also quite nice. A bunch of my favorite folks were there. I’ll forgo listing names for fear of forgetting someone. Suffice it to say, it was pretty killer and everyone should go next year!

The Austin Swing Syndicate just celebrated its 10th Anniversary!  Ten years of Lindy Hop in Austin.  Its kind of hard to believe it.

Laura and I performed our new Lindy Routine and got a few folks together to do the Tranky Doo.  Check it out:

http://vimeo.com/5237706

http://vimeo.com/5238135

Camp Jitterbug in Seattle was quite awesome. We were totally exhausted most of the time, but it was awesome. If you ever have time to kill in Seattle, do the Underground Tour. Its amazing and hilarious.

My favorite part of the weekend was performing in the Jump Session Show! We did our Blues Routine (the one everyone keeps saying is like Apache…) and a new Lindy Routine. The new one needs some work still, but we’re hoping it’ll be top notch by ILHC in August. Unfortunately, I doubt there’ll be youtube videos of either because they’re selling DVDs.

More comps at CJ. We entered the JnJ but did the Strictly with other partners. Laura danced with Jonathan Jow and I danced with Nelle Hately. We both made finals in the JnJ but only Laura and JJ made finals in the Strictly. Check out the videos below.

Frankie95 was an intense experience. Almost 2000 people, tons of performances, social dancing, not to mention competing in the Hellzapoppin’ Contest and the World’s Largest Jack and Jill!

Still not quite sure how we survived it all, but go check out a review I wrote on The Lindy Project’s blog.

Check us out in the finals: