Holy smokes, funk legend Chaka Khan has a new track out, and it's amazing.
Could "Like Sugar" be funkier? Not possible. I look forward to the many dance videos featuring this track.
Chaka Khan's "I Feel for You" was a big part of my adolescent sound track. Still gets me moving, decades later.
Here's another reason why #blacklindyhopmatters.
All this week I've been participating in the Get Free Hip-Hop Dance Festival, a week of urban dance classes, talks and competitions in San Francisco. Today, a panel of female artists were talking about feminism and hip-hop. One Black dancer explained how she was in the process of discovering the roots of urban dance, going back to lindy hop and authentic jazz.
She described how she had the opportunity to go to the Frankie 100 Celebration in New York City in 2014. Here's the gist of what she experienced:
"When I walked into that ballroom, I felt a strange mixture of emotions. On the one hand, I felt like I was coming home, reconnecting to a tradition that my people created. On the other hand, I also felt very isolated as one of the handful of Black female dancers there in a five story ballroom full of people."
That duality of feeling both happiness at participating in something that you have a cultural connection to, and also alienated from it because you are a minority in the community, is something I've heard from several other Black dancers. It's not something I can easily relate to, as an Asian American. But I can imagine how confusing and troubling that might feel.
It reminded me of what African-American tradition bearer Latasha Barnes said at the recent panel at Lincoln Center on the history of lindy hop:
It's as if you had this beautiful house that you established with your community. And you needed someone else to watch the house because you had to move on to do another thing. If you find someone who loves the thing as much as you do, then you give them the keys. You tell them how to take care of the plants, take care of the yard, maintain the structure.
And then you go away and they do a really good job. And then you come back, and you realize its going really well. You're gonna be gone a lot longer than you thought, so you say, "go ahead and move in."
And then you come back 30 years later, and they look at you like, "Who are you?"
It's still your house. It still deserves to be respected as your house. You aren't kicking them out. But you are saying, "let's continue to maintain and share this together." That's what the community has been asking for.
But others felt that because they had been maintaining it for so long that it belonged to them. But that's not how that works. There's a difference between being an owner and being a steward.
There's an intergenerational gap between that knowledge transference that we are trying to overcome. But to do that the doors have to be open a little bit more for us... for us to be present and not feel alienated in our own culture."
I don't have any easy answers. A first step is just listening to people's experiences and feelings, particularly the negative feelings, and really try and empathize and understand them.
I think we can all do a better job at making sure that all people -- particularly those who are part of the culture that created lindy hop -- feel welcome and at home in our shared dance spaces.
Photo Credit: Andrew Lin Yikai
About a month ago I had a blast participating in a Jack&Jill dance contest in Singapore at their World Lindy Hop Day celebration. I finally got the video of the comp from local dancer Lionel Tan, who graciously allowed me to share it here.
Such a fun time competing with the wonderful Nicola Mah. And we won!
Li-Hsien Lim shot some fun pics of our dancing. So grateful she captured these sweet moments.
I just can't get over how amazing this performance by the Fabulous Sisters of Japan was on the TV show "World of Dance." This is what blows me away about waacking when done at the highest level: the drama, the power, the expressiveness. And that group choreo is just so damn tight and flawless.
This version with the larger company is even more impressive, given the numbers and length of the piece. Really it's a full production they are putting on up there.
This is in my top 10 waacking performances of all time. And best group waacking choreo I've ever seen.
Here are some of my favorite things that I encountered in Shanghai, in no particular order.
A very touristy but still charming old neighborhood, centered around a tiny warren of narrow alleyways chock-a-block with shops and cafes. Some of it is just tourist nonsense, but there are lots of gems in there.
My new friend Ana took me to the delightful home style Japanese Cafe Dan in the heard of Jianxifang. I had an amazing pour-over coffee and some delicious Japanese food in a very charming, homey setting.
A bit of old-world European calm nestled in the heart of Shanghai. I had a lovely time wandering around the French colonial style tree-lined streets.
The first stop on my tourist itineraries. Full of old world and new world grand edifices, and a stunning view of Pudong just across the river. It's quite picturesque, although it was overcast and muggy most of the time when I was there.
I enjoyed visiting the fantastic Fairmont Peace Hotel, even with the incredibly overpriced macchiato and cookie that I ate in a very snooty cafe there. The Art Deco architecture is just gorgeous, particularly the atrium. Don't miss the tiny museum there.
This very weird and still charming tram takes you slowly through an underwater tunnel between the neighborhoods of the Bund and Pudong. The cheesy lighting, music and voiceover I thought was super entertaining.
Another huge tourist destination, Yuyuan Garden is a perfectly preserved example of an old Chinese lord's artfully created garden. Worth the price of admission, particularly if you can early on a weekday when the tourist crowds are not as oppressive.
The surrounding shops and restaurants are mostly tacky and cheap. The famous soup dumplings can be sampled from a couple of reputable spots there.
I visited this charming, huge park a couple of times, once during the weekend and once during the week. Oddly, on the weekend it was fairly empty. But during the week it was bustling, with hundreds of older locals doing all manner of activities in the park -- ballroom dancing, group singing, karaoke, badminton, tai chi, and more. All within well maintained and beautifully designed gardens, plazas and fountains.
This Saturday night, my friend Sing Lim and I were scheduled to give a presentation at the World Lindy Hop Day event in Singapore on "Frankie Manning and the Black Roots of Lindy Hop". There were about 75 dancers and musicians there from all across Asia.
A few minutes before we were to speak, Sing and I checked in with each other.
"So, the Harlem Hot Shots actually covered a lot of the stuff we were going to talk about when they presented about Frankie and his history. Do you think we still need to do our talk?" Sing asked me.
Sing had a point. It would be easier to just not give our talk, which I was feeling anxious and uncertain about.
"I think it's good that the Hot Shots gave their perspective," I replied. "What we have to share is broader and still important for people to know about."
A couple of minutes later we were on!
It didn't go perfectly, honestly. There were lots of technical snafus. I forgot to talk about major chunks of content. Our flow could have been a lot tighter.
But I think we managed to communicate the critical topics we wanted to cover:
A few of the participants came up to us afterwards and thanked us for putting the dance in this perspective for them.
I honestly can not imagine the challenge of being a teacher or organizer in Vietnam, China, or Korea and trying to get across to my fellow dancers the complicated issues of race, class, and power in America that are enmeshed into the story of lindy hop. I'm so encouraged by the teachers and organizers I talked to in Singapore who are honestly trying to get the fuller picture, like Sing in Singapore and Zeng and Suzy in Beijing. I'm hoping we helped those who were interested to get some direction and encouragement to keep shining a light on these issues.
Talking about racism and oppression at a dance event is awkward and difficult. But the alternative of sweeping these issues under the rug and pretending they don't exist is so much worse. That's worth a few moments of anxiety and awkwardness.
UPDATE 6/5: I posted to Yehoodi a more detailed description of our talk. And notes from our presentation can be found here.
I love this version of the song so much. Those drum breaks are awesome.
I had fun improv-ing to this song this morning in Golden Gate Park.
In a little under two weeks, I will be heading off on my next adventure: to Shanghai and Singapore!
Singapore is one of my favorite cities in the world. It's like stepping into the future, full of pan-Asian awesomeness. I had a fantastic time when I was there in 2011. I'm looking forward to lots more dancing, eating and exploring that fantastic city.
Shanghai is more of an unknown to me. I understand its a rich mix of very old Chinese culture, old world European influences, and cutting edge modernity. It's my first real trip to mainland China, and I can't wait!
I'll be dancing at different swing festivals in both places, which I'm sure will be a blast. Dancing in other cities is always so delightful and a great way to really connect with people, beyond cultural and language barriers.
I'm starting my list of food items to make sure and taste while I'm there. Here's what I've got so far:
No diet rules on this trip!
I love this video of a few of the amazing waackers in the Bay Area, shot around Lake Merritt, Oakland. Lots of my dance heroes in this video, including Alice, G-Funk, Karlita, MadGlad, Mikachu, Sabine, Shinobi Jaxx, and Tsunami the Soul Shifter.
That's a dope track too -- "I Can’t Give You More" by Suzy Q!
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