There are a few songs I'm excited to put some choreography to, but for our first go around what I really want to work on is getting faster and faster. Fast Lindy is HARD. But how else do you learn but by actually doing it? So our first song is a perennial favorite of Lindy Hoppers: Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. I love this particular version by Janis Siegel. It starts out at a manageable pace for new dancers, then it sinks. It goes through a few measures at a syrupy, slow pace, and then it builds to crazy fast. It's a lot of fun and has a great big band sound. I had to search through a number of versions-- the Andrews Sisters seemed to be the most popular and, while I love their rendition, they didn't use the dynamics I'm looking for. It turns out I couldn't buy it from either iTunes or Amazon.com and, in the end, had to order the soundtrack to Swing Kids from somebody in Texas. So it'll be on CD, the old school way.
I was in no way prepared for just how old school it was. I popped it into an ancient CD player at rehearsal-- no problem. However, in hopes of putting it on my iPod, I discovered no other players will play this particular CD. My netbook doesn't even have a CD drive, so I dug out my old old old Gateway and fired it up. That CD player hasn't worked in a decade. I see iTunes now has the cloud going for it, so my hope is to transfer my music collection off my Gateway. However, I have to upgrade first, and try as I might, my computer just ignores my commands. Sigh. I'll have to come back to that when I have an answer.
Okay, so getting the song was a more complicated process than I expected. Then I moved on to actually choreography. Difficulty One: Dances look different in person than on paper. I gave my students four measures to pair up and move into place from opposite sides of the stage-- turns out that looks like mass confusion when you actually do it. So that changed. Then I thought of a dance hall where each couple gets a short feature, four measures in fact, and it builds into a bit of a competition. I still like that idea, but realized I'm giving beginner dancers advanced choreography. They can rise to the challenge, I have no doubt whatever they're entirely capable. But it's going to take time, lots of time, and a whole lot of repetition.
I had the team listen to the song they'd be performing to. The response was instantly positive: "I can hear the swing in it!" and "Oh, I like it!" Then the slow part hit: "That's really cool!" And it got faster: "Wow!" And faster. And faster. Silence. Their faces twisted in fear, their countenances fell entirely by the time it ended. One girl dared to ask, "Are we doing the whole song?" Mwa-ha-ha-ha...
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