Has a book ever been written about your local dance community?
- Thread starter opendoor
- Start date
Not a book, but a masters' thesis:
Hannah Standiford, "Right to Refusal": Practices of Consent in the Pittsburgh Swing Dance Community (2020)
https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/39711/31/Standiford Final ETD.pdf
Yes, I recognized people. Not featured, but provided a couple of photos.
Hannah Standiford, "Right to Refusal": Practices of Consent in the Pittsburgh Swing Dance Community (2020)
https://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/39711/31/Standiford Final ETD.pdf
Yes, I recognized people. Not featured, but provided a couple of photos.
Not a book. Or atleast not to my knowledge. But plenty of blogs over the years. Do they count. Sometimes you can recognize who it is being talked about though no names are mentioned. Other times the names are mentioned. Very often when the names are mentioned it is the good light.
Standiford's thesis was intersting enough that I stayed up a bit late to read and skim through it last night and finished with it this morning.
Did I miss it, or am I correct that in her review of the history of swing dance she doesn't mention the Hill District, or "Hill City" as named in Streans Jazz Dance ? Maybe because she and her advisors were in the music department?
I wish I had access to digital versions of Pittsburgh newspapers from back then (there and Seattle and Milwaukee).
ralf, you provided pictures? Do people there talk about what was going on in the Hill District back then?
Know of any documents dealing with the subject?
Did I miss it, or am I correct that in her review of the history of swing dance she doesn't mention the Hill District, or "Hill City" as named in Streans Jazz Dance ? Maybe because she and her advisors were in the music department?
I wish I had access to digital versions of Pittsburgh newspapers from back then (there and Seattle and Milwaukee).
ralf, you provided pictures? Do people there talk about what was going on in the Hill District back then?
Know of any documents dealing with the subject?
No, people in the local swing dance community don't really talk about the Hill District, even while the weekly lindy dance was at the Hill District Academy Theater space for a few months several years ago.... (The Ace Hotel went under during the pandemic shutdown.) I'm afraid I don't have any documents - the photos were of the dances at the time the thesis was being researched.
I would actually expect musicians to be more conversant with the Hill District's history, since it was a popular stop-over for bands traveling between NYC and Chicago. I've been by what's left of the Crawford Grill which hosted many of them.
I would actually expect musicians to be more conversant with the Hill District's history, since it was a popular stop-over for bands traveling between NYC and Chicago. I've been by what's left of the Crawford Grill which hosted many of them.
opendoor
Forum Master
In my tango community, a book was written, but it was only available as a download for an e-reader, and the author wrote under a pseudonym. The main focus was a plot, but everyone who read the book tried to decipher the characters mentioned. I wasn't in it, sigh, but I could identify over ten other dancers described. Six teacher couples also were portrayed, some more favorably than others. The lasting effect of the book was that one of the teachers was outed as gay. The teacher couple in question was furious, and the book poisoned the tango atmosphere in my city with its accusations. Many teachers were suspicious from that moment on and tried to unmask the author, which they eventually succeeded in doing. Fifteen years after this minor scandal, it's all forgotten. We laugh about it, and the author moves quite naturally around. And actually, it also liberated that outed tango teacher.
Since you mentioned the plot, was it written as a fiction.
I am surprised the author couldn’t hide his identity.
opendoor
Forum Master
I apologize for not knowing all the details. But I suspect some kind of revenge, and the author was exposed through detailed knowledge. I'll inquire how it all came out. Regardless, I already knew that two people out of the about 100 dancers I'm in closer contact with write books. That, of course, narrows down the field considerably, Bailango.