Dance weekend in Lithuania
I'm sitting on Arlanda, tired but satisfied waiting for my domestic flight... I have been in Lithuania since Friday when I flew out of Luleå 6 am and after changes arrived Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania at 11.30 am. After a short wait, a guy with a sign "Lindy hop Harlem" came and picked me up. I stayed at dance friends place, Margarita. I hadn't seen her in a while but we had to get to classes that began already Friday afternoon. Joanna and Skye held the first class and really got me into the swinging mood again and the intermediate-advanced lindy group was interesting. I knew a few of them since before, participating other camps together and dancing at Herräng and so on.
Dax and Alice tought the 2nd class and Dax is really good of explaining the philosophy of anything one wants to do. Running on overtime, we rushed home (10 min by bus), had a shower and got back to the 1st night's dancing place. It was an old school building and the echoes made the sound really bad. It was a bit crowdy and lots of people to dance with, especially girls :) but the style was definitely a little bit different. Later in the night, a show by local dancers was performed and also a live band played for some hours. This made the sound a lot better and after the live band stopped, also the DJ:d music quality was improved. Late, when the music stopped playing we got a ride (shared with Alice and Dax) back home. It was a great night! Not to say, a lot of fun to be asked for a dance by Alice e.g.
Saturday... about 4 hours of sleep and a tired feeling pushed me to wake up and a little sored we had classes all day. Outside it was sunny and +25C and also inside it was really warm. Really great to take classes again and between these, just hanging out with brand new friends. We also had an optional class... I took Dax solo movements class. It was great and got me a nice introduction and more ideas of how to practice my bounce and "swinging feel". Got back home, had a 15 min nap and then a shower to wake up. Margarita was one of the arranger of this camp so we had to get to the nightly dance early. After we got there, I fall a sleep on the sofa and one woke me up after an hour and some people had arrived and started dancing. It was a small dance floor but a very nice club feeling. The night was mixed up by social dancing, live band playing and locals performing some choreographies as well as a tap show.
Later in the night a lindy JJ competition also took place, "without any rules" was the theme. So a girl grabbed me and asked me to dance with her and so we did, having fun but it wasn't the best dance so no surprise we didn't make it to the final. It was almost only lithuanian teachers and advanced dancers but happy to see, a few of them also talented new couples taking classes together with me. Late, again, we got home at 4am and had another 4 hours of sleep and started over on Sunday.
Classes, one electable and now I picked the aerial class. I worked with a girl called Evelina. At 7pm, we all met at the cathedral in Vilnius to do "Lindy Maratonas". This is dancing to the musick we brought on a cart pulled by a bike. People stopped by to watch, and after a while, we moved on to some other streets and squares, sometimes doing the Shim sham and some other time one did a performance. Later in the night it was social dancing again but also a pause with a history lesson held by Vincent Gregorio. He talked about the history of jazz music and the lindy development. Impressing how he could speak without any papers for more then an hour, about lindy during the entire 20th century. Again, a late night when I went to bed half past three, and had to get up at 5 am to make it to the airport. Quite tired, I slept on the flight back to Stockholm as will for sure do so also on the domestic to Luleå. It was a good weekend!
Dax and Alice tought the 2nd class and Dax is really good of explaining the philosophy of anything one wants to do. Running on overtime, we rushed home (10 min by bus), had a shower and got back to the 1st night's dancing place. It was an old school building and the echoes made the sound really bad. It was a bit crowdy and lots of people to dance with, especially girls :) but the style was definitely a little bit different. Later in the night, a show by local dancers was performed and also a live band played for some hours. This made the sound a lot better and after the live band stopped, also the DJ:d music quality was improved. Late, when the music stopped playing we got a ride (shared with Alice and Dax) back home. It was a great night! Not to say, a lot of fun to be asked for a dance by Alice e.g.
Saturday... about 4 hours of sleep and a tired feeling pushed me to wake up and a little sored we had classes all day. Outside it was sunny and +25C and also inside it was really warm. Really great to take classes again and between these, just hanging out with brand new friends. We also had an optional class... I took Dax solo movements class. It was great and got me a nice introduction and more ideas of how to practice my bounce and "swinging feel". Got back home, had a 15 min nap and then a shower to wake up. Margarita was one of the arranger of this camp so we had to get to the nightly dance early. After we got there, I fall a sleep on the sofa and one woke me up after an hour and some people had arrived and started dancing. It was a small dance floor but a very nice club feeling. The night was mixed up by social dancing, live band playing and locals performing some choreographies as well as a tap show.
Later in the night a lindy JJ competition also took place, "without any rules" was the theme. So a girl grabbed me and asked me to dance with her and so we did, having fun but it wasn't the best dance so no surprise we didn't make it to the final. It was almost only lithuanian teachers and advanced dancers but happy to see, a few of them also talented new couples taking classes together with me. Late, again, we got home at 4am and had another 4 hours of sleep and started over on Sunday.
Classes, one electable and now I picked the aerial class. I worked with a girl called Evelina. At 7pm, we all met at the cathedral in Vilnius to do "Lindy Maratonas". This is dancing to the musick we brought on a cart pulled by a bike. People stopped by to watch, and after a while, we moved on to some other streets and squares, sometimes doing the Shim sham and some other time one did a performance. Later in the night it was social dancing again but also a pause with a history lesson held by Vincent Gregorio. He talked about the history of jazz music and the lindy development. Impressing how he could speak without any papers for more then an hour, about lindy during the entire 20th century. Again, a late night when I went to bed half past three, and had to get up at 5 am to make it to the airport. Quite tired, I slept on the flight back to Stockholm as will for sure do so also on the domestic to Luleå. It was a good weekend!
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