It was an epic weekend. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately in terms of my personal life. This weekend at the Emerald City Blues Festival was exactly what I needed.  A fairly blasé weekend would have been almost stressful and distracting, I needed intensity, I needed busy-ness and distraction.  Unfortunately, I was hoping (but not expecting) that someone I was getting to know would be there. But, he wasn’t.  And that’s okay. I realize, thanks to some other things going on, that he’s not a long term potential.   But I still needed distraction from what I’m processing right now, here.
This particular trip the intensity and distraction came in the form of dancing. I quite literally danced myself to exhaustion. Friday we arrived at the dance, and had some fun dances, it was a great beginning to the weekend. We danced until maybe 3am, so that we’d get some decent sleep as we had auditions the next morning.

AUDITIONS

Most of my Vancouver friends are annoyed with the audition process.  I can understand why, in many ways. Two instructors taught a class and the rest were evaluating small groups of dancers. Rather than big groups, we were split into small groups based on our last name.  I was in a group with quite a number of fantastic leads. We were to take the class and the other instructors evaluated each of us. My group’s evaluators were Damon Stone and Heidi Fite.  In my level placement, I put ‘Level 2’ which was described as follows:

Level II –  This level focuses on dynamic range. You should already be familiar with different styles of blues dance, and be able to adapt them to different styles of music. You can expect to learn challenging vocabulary at a faster pace as well as variations and body shaping within that vocabulary. You can also expect to have your fundamental movement refined and clarified. If your body is your instrument then you will be learning to play with the tone and dynamics you choose across a variety of syncopations.

I find it hard to know where my level is at. I don’t know what to think of myself in terms of my dancing. I know leads enjoy dancing with me, but I have really don’t know where to place myself.  Anyhow, I was in a group of dancers with a couple of friends and mostly dancers I didn’t know.  I was really lucky in that I was with a number of dancers of a wide range abilities.  I threw myself into dancing and I decided that I was going to have fun, work on my dancing this weekend and not take it personally regardless of what level I was placed at.   I decided that if I was placed at Level I:

Level I – This level focuses on fundamentals, and is not appropriate for people with no prior social dance experience. Social dance experience is required. You can expect to learn a range of vocabulary for broad application to your social dancing. If your body is your instrument then you will be learning to use every key at a variety of tempos. See burnblue.org for group lessons in Seattle or for private instruction use theContact Us link for a list of local teachers. This level does not require auditions.

My friends and I talked about having fun regardless. I threw myself into dancing and tried to have as much fun as I could with every lead. Some were better than others, and we had leads of all abilities. I didn’t want to stress about being evaluated so I focused on relaxing and having fun.  Some leads were pulled out pretty early and placed in Level III. I realized that my group was lead heavy but I also thought ‘oh well’… But I did see Topher and Damon chat, gesture in my direction and then Damon came up to me and made a small correction. Deep down I was a little disappointed in myself thinking “if he needs to correct something so small what level would they put me in”. But I think it was a test to see how I respond to correction, and to see if I made the correction and maintained it. Which I did. I also accepted the correction happily and thanked him.
In the end… I was placed in Level III… the advanced level. This is the description:

Level III – This level is by audition or recommendation only. Your body is your instrument. As you choose, you can elicit a wide variety of responses from your audience. You can expect to learn complex vocabularies at an accelerated pace with a focus on subtleties of expression.

I realize there are a lot of fantastic follows from Vancouver, and one in particular who was there and would have been fine at Level III, and I realize that there are follows who definitely would have been Level III who didn’t take classes or go to the weekend. But it was pretty cool to be the only Vancouver Follow in the auditions to be in Level III. In fact, there were only 4 Vancouver dancers in our level, my friend A (a lead), and two instructors.  It was a great ego and confidence boost.

DANCE CLASSES

Wow. They were intense, I was pushed, worked hard and learned a lot. I didn’t have a single second for distractions…
Okay, it’s late, I’ll have to update the dance classes comments, the dancing comments, the comments about shoes, challenges from last night and thoughts of tonight later.
For now though I really must sleep.