Crossing over

[petitetonya]

I find this forum very interesting since there is such a wide assortment of different types of dancers here. I am definately a lindy hopper and I haven't had the nerve to "cross over" into another dance. Maybe it is because I am so addicted to lindy hop, or maybe it is the fact that it would suck to "not" be one of the good dancers when you go out. Anyway, I wanted to hear what some of you "cross over" dancers have to say about your experience. I had an awesome time a couple of months ago when my fiance Sean, Christian and I went to the Congaroom in West Hollywood. Our friend Christian (most know him as a Balboa dancer) is great at pretty much all of the dances including salsa so it was cool following him. Anyway, I had a blast but haven't been back since. Tell me your passions and why you like the dance YOU do.

[peachexploration]

Hi PetiteTonya. Welcome to the DF! I'm strictly Salsa right now. :D

[Spitfire]

I started out in country swing only, but as I progressed I also became interested in the other dances. The crossover was not difficult and I found that I really enjoyed the variety and still do.

Cha-Cha and ECS are my two equal favorites and I am now learning WCS and am really enjoying it. Those dances just "drive" me somehow.
Salsa, Rumba and NC2S I enjoy for their sensuality and I also enjoy a good Waltz.

Lindy I have not done much of; a little problem - with the Lindy scene here declining there's not much instruction available. I recall watching you and your partner doing a very dramatic lindy dance that night I was at the Century. 8) Was that Sean?

If you were to ask for my advice I'd say give crossover a shot; you just might be glad that you did. :D 8)

[Vin]

Hi Petitetonya, welcome.
Speaking as a lead that is crossing over the other way. Well actually I first started with ecs, now I dance primarily salsa, and I am learning to lindy. From my experience, you will quickly become one of the most favored follows for salsa. I adore dancing salsa with crossover dancers from lindy, swing, and even clogging. The reason being is that you are so great at following and reading subtle signals in the lead. My best improvisation on the dance floor is with a crossover dancer from lindy.
I am currently taking a beginner lindy class and it is great, I am definitely picking it up quicker than I would have if I didn't know salsa. Simply because I have already gone through learning certain dance fundamentals that others in the class are still working out for themselves.
Yes, I am not one of the "good" dancers in lindy yet, but with practice it will come. Oh and the best benefit of learning lindy is of course,
It will improve my salsa 8) .

[petitetonya]

That is very true...I have noticed that when I do follow a lead in a dance other than lindy, I can do it without looking TOO dorky.

A pretty funny story, Sean & I were in Cabo San Lucas and there was this show where there was this salsa lead that was getting follows out of the audience to dance with him in front of everyone and he was just making the ladies look stupid cause they hadn't danced before. I felt so sorry for them but of course all of the people we were with kept pointing to me and so of course, he chose me. I was mortified cause I don't salsa, but since he was leading the same routine over and over, I had it memorized. Anyway, I had no problem and we ripped it up...the crowd went crazy cause they didn't expect me to be a dancer. It was especially hilarious cause the guy was a bit too "macho" for me and he whispered in my ear right before we started and said "don't turn unless I turn you and just try to follow what I do". It was so funny and I felt like a queen for the night with people buying me drinks, etc. Of course it isn't hard to impress a club full of drunk non-dancers :wink:

Anyway, it did get me thinking about how I could pick up other dances if I wanted to. And I did have a lot of fun dancing at the Congaroom. The band was absolutely amazing. Of course I don't know when I would find the time since I go out swing dancing at least 3 nights a week.

[petitetonya]

"I recall watching you and your partner doing a very dramatic lindy dance that night I was at the Century. Was that Sean?"

I am not sure...Sean is my dance partner and fiance, but I dance with several different leads in Seattle. Especially leads on the team I ran when I lived there, Rain City Rugcutters. You can see a picture of Sean and I on my webpage and find out. www.jitterbugclub.com Go to About Jitterbug Club and then go to Photos.

[pygmalion]

Oh my goodness! I just checked your website, and all I can say is ,"scared of you, girl!" Your demo in Houston is incredible. Wow! :D

[petitetonya]

Hi PetiteTonya. Welcome to the DF! I'm strictly Salsa right now. :D

I noticed that you say you are from "Disney World". Do you live in Florida? If you live close to Miami, there is an AMAZING woman named Sugar Sullivan who lives there. She is a dancer from the Savoy Ballroom and I have had her out to Seattle to teach. She was one of my biggest inspirations in Lindy Hop recently. She is a featured dancer in this amazing documentary called The Spirit Moves and she was dance partners with Al Minns (one of the top 3 best lindy hoppers of all time in my opinion).

Of course, if you are strictly salsa... :wink:

[petitetonya]

Oh my goodness! I just checked your website, and all I can say is ,"scared of you, girl!" Your demo in Houston is incredible. Wow! :D

oh my gosh, that clip is so outdated, but thanks...you are very sweet. It was just a improvised social dance/demo a couple of years ago when we were teaching in Houston.

Check out that Traffic Jam clip...that is a routine we taught in Melbourne Australia. We are dancing in it as you can see, but check out how amazing the Aussies are...we were SO impressed with the level of dancers there. The one aerial in Scott & Fi's solo (you will know which one once you see it) is absolutely amazing.

[petitetonya]

I noticed that you live in Florida as well...do any of you know Hep Jen? She was teaching lindy and salsa there for a while when she lived there. She is a good friend of mine and she really liked the scene down there. I have only been to Pensacola but I am planning on travelling there at some point...I want to see Disney World!

[pygmalion]

I live twenty minutes from Disney World, so when you're in town, look me up. :D I don't know Hep Jen. She taught a beginning balboa class here last November, but I had to miss it because I was in a ballroom competition the same day. I'll keep my eyes open for her on the Orlando Swing website. They always have a bunch of stuff going on. :D

[petitetonya]

I just saw Jen last night (I am in Seattle for one of my events)...she is in Seattle now but I know she travels back and forth.

Sean & I are going to be teaching in Atlanta on March 6th...it would be cool to see some Floridians there. Is that far from Orlando? The person putting it on has a webpage http://www.nimaweb.com/swing/ I have never been to Atlanta, so it should be fun. I wish I had more time there so I could road trip down to Florida, but we are only there for the weekend. I was hoping to meet some Floridians while I was there since Nima said that they usually get some at their events.

[pygmalion]

The one aerial in Scott & Fi's solo (you will know which one once you see it) is absolutely amazing.

:shock: :D You're not kidding. Definitely worth looking at that clip folks! Amazing. :D

[Vince A]

:shock: WOW :shock: "Amazing" is an understatement!!!

[peachexploration]

Hi PetiteTonya. Welcome to the DF! I'm strictly Salsa right now. :D

I noticed that you say you are from "Disney World". Do you live in Florida? If you live close to Miami, there is an AMAZING woman named Sugar Sullivan who lives there. She is a dancer from the Savoy Ballroom and I have had her out to Seattle to teach. She was one of my biggest inspirations in Lindy Hop recently. She is a featured dancer in this amazing documentary called The Spirit Moves and she was dance partners with Al Minns (one of the top 3 best lindy hoppers of all time in my opinion).

Of course, if you are strictly salsa... :wink:

Yes, I'm in Florida as well. I saw your demo at your website. You guys are terrific! :banana: Yeah, I'm a Salsa Nut. I've never heard of Sugar Sullivan (love that name) but like to watch Lindy Hop. :D

[Spitfire]

You can see a picture of Sean and I on my webpage and find out. www.jitterbugclub.com Go to About Jitterbug Club and then go to Photos.

I don't know if that's him, but whoever it was I was chatting with him for awhile and when you two danced you looked quite amazing.

[dancin_feet]

For me the "crossover" thing you describe has never been a problem. If it involves moving to music, I want to try it!

Have done jazz, ballet, tap, ballroom, latin, south american (street latin), new vogue, square dancing, even played around a bit with hip hop.

Could not even think of restricting myself to just one! :shock: And if anything new comes up, I'll be there to give it a shot. :D

[salsachinita]

Check out that Traffic Jam clip...that is a routine we taught in Melbourne Australia. We are dancing in it as you can see, but check out how amazing the Aussies are...we were SO impressed with the level of dancers there.

Hi, PetiteTonya! Welcome to DF! (and sorry I didn't get a chance to welcome you personally when you were in MY town!)

I am into salsa only, so I don't know a lot about other scenes......but a lot of these cross over dancers a great fun to salsa with :D ! I get bored with the cookie-cutter styles....so IMO the more cross over dancers, the better!

Sorry I couldn't view your clips.......PC issues :( .

I had fun salsa dancing in Seattle......it's such a cooooool city 8) !

Also been to Congaroom.......great place but it wasn't a good night for me that night. Need to try it again.

When did you come to Melbourne...? Plz contact me when you do that again, won't you?

[Vita Rara]

Tonya,

Just go out and try something. I know what you mean about having to be a beginner again, but I doubt that will last long. Dance is dance. If you have a good sense of connection, and your demo makes it look like you do, than you'll do fine.

I'm in the process of crossing over to Argentine Tango. I tried it at a weekend dance event last year and then again this past weekend. I "got" it this past weekend. I'm not great, but still passable, and it's sure helped my blues out a lot. My background in Lindy and blues definitely helped with picking up the new dance.

So, I'd say, "give it a try, it can only help your Lindy Hop."

Mark

[Neil]

Hello everybody. This is my first post here. I agree that Traffic Jam clip is cool. A bunch of good dancers.

I have a cross over story too. My wife and I started out taking Lambada lessons back around 1990. It was in a ballroom studio, so they quickly pushed us into the Latin and Standard dances too. Everybody there did all ten dances, so it just seemed normal.

Then, we wanted to learn Salsa, so we went to a Salsa teacher. That was very different because the Salsa dancers only dance the one dance. We had to start as beginners, but that wasn't too bad because our background helped us learn pretty fast.

Finally, Lindy came around. That was great. We went to a local college hangout and just danced some Jive basics. We didn't do any tricks, only dancing, but they made us feel like stars. It was lots of fun. I bought some Lindy videos and took a couple workshops from Frankie Manning, but the big Lindy fad died down before I really learned anything. :(

The local Lindy scene has changed a lot. swingaffair.com We went out to one of their parties last year. There were of course much fewer dancers, but they were better dancers, so they weren't so impressed with the Jive. It was still a nice evening because they danced well enough that we could enjoy watching them and even dance with them, and they played music with enough variety that we could also dance some West Coast Swing, Fox Trot, and Cha-cha.

I guess that's three crossover stories, not one, but the point is they were all good (or great) experiences. They same could be said when I crossed over to West Coast Swing and Country. I love variety. I get tired of the same music all night long. I would go insane if it was the same night after night. That's why I stopped going to Charlie and Jackie's Swing/Shag event in Atlanta.

[Spitfire]

I have a cross over story too. My wife and I started out taking Lambada lessons back around 1990. even in Atlanta.

I did this as well, but never did actually dance a Lambada. I still have a book that I purchased at the time on Lambada. I probably should not have informed some people at work that I was taking these classes; the ladies were quite inquisitive about it with big grins! :o

And welcome to the forums Neil. :D

[Sagitta]

Welcome to df Neil!! :D

I actually started doing swing but latin seeped into my blood and I've been addicted ever since. Every time you get good at one dance and go into another it becomes easier.