DanceHop: Dance Events, Dance News, Dance Videos, Seattle Dance » dance http://blog.dancehop.com Dancehop blog: events, news, lifestyle, lessons, video, and more Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:50:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Dance community building with Clay Nelson http://blog.dancehop.com/business/dance-community-building-with-clay-nelson/ http://blog.dancehop.com/business/dance-community-building-with-clay-nelson/#comments Sat, 12 Sep 2009 23:17:31 +0000 Eric http://blog.dancehop.com/?p=415 Portland stands as an example of how to run a successful dance community. Tango in Portland is arguably the most vibrant, cooperative, and inviting dance community in the US. Even blues dancers that I’ve talked to in Seattle are impressed. So what’s the secret to their success? Clay Nelson, founder of the Portland tango community, has written the ultimate guide to community building.


Synopsis and comments:
Clay lists the major qualities of a dance scene as: quantity, dance level, and cooperative spirit.


For quantity, Clay mentions recruiting. Recruiting includes classes, which he feels are easiest held at community centers, city park districts, and universities. He emphasizes that everyone should be involved in teaching, and I feel it’s fun and educational to teach, no matter your level. As my friend Wesley says, “If you know 50% more about a subject than someone, you’re the expert”

Extending Clay’s views on ads, I feel that free ads, flyers, and google adwords are the way to go.


In order to keep things going, new dancers need evening dances, and solid dj’ing. What’s the point in getting good at social dancing if you can’t go out and enjoy being social?

Clay gets very specific about tango in his section on how to help foster quality dancers. To generalize, it makes sense to teach dancers what they need to connect, and navigate on the floor, before a series of steps. Having weekend workshops can be a major motivational factor, and out of town teacher visiting can inject more excitement into a community.

In my opinion, his final section on cooperation is the most important one, particularly for existing dance communities. To start, its important to allow people to have a sense of contribution for their community. If they want to DJ, decorate, host people, or even become professional teachers, it should be encouraged. In my personal experience, one surefire way to make a community implode is to have fear of new teachers and infighting. It’s important to realize the bigger a scene gets, the more everyone benefits. It’s a positive feedback loop. As a side bonus, the longer you’ve been teaching, the more your reputation will help despite what fresh blood might do.

Everyone should be encouraged to participate, even in small ways. Clay’s example of students copying cd’s that a teacher brings to a class is a prime example. When people join the dance community, they don’t know the rules, so why not help foster cooperation from the beginning? Clay also talks about the importance of accepting people doing their own thing. Dance is a personal thing, and so if there’s a clique doing something “exclusive” it’s ok to tolerate and even encourage this.

A final and important point from Clay is to not accept toxic behavior. After reflection in a small group, find consensus. If that includes action, gently confront an individual’s behavior. If need be, more persistent and forceful over time, and shun as a last resort.

Something Clay discusses that’s part recuiting, and part cooperation is e-mail lists. E-mail is still THE best way to keep in touch, as long as people opt-in to your list. Weekly or monthly mailings of what you’re up to helps keep active. I fully expect Dancehop will help in this task. Something interesting he mentions: Sharing your e-mail list. I would agree the occasional guest e-mail or message in your e-mails will help tighten up the community. Remember, pay it forward.

Quoting Clay: “Keep in mind that although tango communities are extremely devisive in general, when I started in portland, no one else danced argentine tango. Thus I was starting from scratch–which is quite different then most cities with developed or existing communities.” Still, I think the principles he’s laid out are valid, and there are some great ideas here that community members may not have thought of yet.

]]> http://blog.dancehop.com/business/dance-community-building-with-clay-nelson/feed/ 0 (Blues) Adventures in SPACE! http://blog.dancehop.com/dance/blues-adventures-in-space/ http://blog.dancehop.com/dance/blues-adventures-in-space/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 00:46:13 +0000 Eric http://blog.dancehop.com/?p=392 Acrobatics at SPACE

Acrobatics at SPACE

Here’s a pic of Orville swinging some lovely ladies in acrobatics at SPACE in Greenwood.


I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit at SPACE, I felt welcomed and enchanted by a combination of blues and the crew dressed in acrobatic costume awesomeness. It’s a great collaborative environment, with art on the walls, girders above the dance floor for acrobatic gear, and a major emphasis on dance fusion.


We ended up skinny dipping in Greenlake, and hitting one of the local diners around 3 AM, where 10 or so people converged.

]]> http://blog.dancehop.com/dance/blues-adventures-in-space/feed/ 0 Loving the recession, goals http://blog.dancehop.com/business/loving-the-recession/ http://blog.dancehop.com/business/loving-the-recession/#comments Sun, 22 Mar 2009 23:38:55 +0000 admin http://blog.dancehop.com/?p=251 I found a good article, Loving The Recession, on Biznik.com last week.
It’s surprising, Steven pretty much takes ideas that I’ve had, and distills them into a potent brew.  He talks about 4 questions which are important when moving forward in life:

What are your core values?

What your vision for yourself?

What steps are needed to meet that vision?

What support do you need to pursue that vision?

When I talk to anyone, I try to get to know them through their core values.  As an example, I find that really good tango dancing brings joy into my life.  When I tried to figure out why, I found that I enjoyed the connection, creativity, and personal growth associated with the dance.  Bear in mind this took a week for me to work this out.

Often we are hypercritical of ourselves. In a way, it’s a form of egoism. Why are we so special that we need to be better than everyone else? We’re stuck in this point of view, whereas if we were looking at anyone else with the exact same circumstances, we’d be much more constructive. If we’re able to be more objective, and work our goals incrementally, it’s possible to have a lot of progress.

Looking specifically at my personal productivity project, I’ve made some changes.  First off, tracking each individual task while I’m doing it is a pain.  I’ve been using Rescuetime instead to get a view of how much I actually work.  I’ve also added the habit of journaling 3 times a week to track how I’m doing in relationship to my goals. I hope that this change will help me be more effective in creating a really good product for dancers.

]]> http://blog.dancehop.com/business/loving-the-recession/feed/ 0 Top Nuevo Tango Video Ever? http://blog.dancehop.com/dance/top-nuevo-tango-video-ever/ http://blog.dancehop.com/dance/top-nuevo-tango-video-ever/#comments Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:12:47 +0000 admin http://blog.dancehop.com/?p=207 I feel that this video was key in the development of what some people call nuevo tango. It’s from 2004 and yet there’s still a LOT to learn. In it are Chico Frumboli, and Eugenia Parrilla. The technique is a bit rough, in particular Eugenia’s hips are a bit out of control, but it has a lot of interesting axis and rhythmic play.





Eugenia Parrilla and Chico Frumboli, CITA 2004

This motivated me to take a few private lessons with Eugenia, and boy were they worth it. Her technique is very deep and precise, and she knows the body well. She’s a gyrotonic teacher trainer, which is a sort of more internal circular version of pilates.


It’s funny, the path of mastery is very deep. I think that Eugenia now is a superior dancer to Eugenia of 2004, and yet she was even then at the pinnacle of teaching and dancing. That’s part of why I love dance, and tango in particular: you can never stop improving.

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