Part 2
“Do you want to teach at Gothenburg Queer Lindy festival?”
I groaned. lindy hop??? A swirl of emotions rising in me, old wounds that never healed ached once again. The newest ones still stung. I was considering quitting dance altogether, because I was burnt out. Tired of the fighting, the games, the feeling of being on a treadmill going no where, feeling so alone in my various struggles, and that was in the blues scene. Let alone Lindy. A community I’d been dipping intellectual toes in with BLM and yet felt deeply wary of the dance outside of my own bedroom. I was done with dance.
Wasn’t I?
“Y’all do know I’ve been out of the scene for years right?”
…
I’m sleeping under my coat in the smallest room in Joe Demers’s dance studio. I missed the train or was afraid I wouldn’t wake in time in the morning, and I didn’t want to mess this up. I was young, very young, and I’d done what felt like a crazy thing. A year ago, I had emailed Joe asking for his help. I was in over my head running our swing dance group. Our teacher had dropped out, I was still new to dance and panicking. I’m not ready to teach anyone!
Being a poor university student, I did the only thing I could think of, to scheme my way into an internship. If I made part of my time developing communication theory it could count for my degree, and the rest could be used learning the skills I needed to survive. I figured it was a long shot and nervously wrote an email to Joe, an international instructor I hardly knew, but connected with during my first few events.
To my shock, he wanted to talk about it and asked to set up a time. I’m was terrified and thrilled.
A year later I was exhausted. I’d worked 30 hours a week, went to school full time, ran our club and had recently had surgery for an illness they assured me was within hand. But, I saved money. After a few false starts, several hundred dollars lost to a bad living situation, a week or two prior I’d walked into the studio for the first time. My home away from home for the summer. It was hard not to be intimidated. And this wasn’t even the big weekly event in Denver. That, was overwhelming.
I had so much to learn.
I curled up with my laptop to watch videos of dancers through the night. The biggest events in Lindy and Blues, the performances, interviews and documentaries. My mind races as I watch 8 part interviews, old clips, saw the dancing I dreamed of one day being able to do. The airsteps which scared me, the routines, the names flashing before my eyes of the best in the world. As I thought about all I might learn (which actually was less steps/skills and more confidence) I couldn’t help but think it was all worth it.
That cold Colorado night was one of the best nights of my life.
…
I’m at the bar at Lindy focus! I’d finally made it there, working as a practice facilitator mostly for blues. I was still emotionally struggling to catch up to the recent advancement into All Stars and the increase of teaching opportunities. There was no way I’d be able to afford it otherwise and it was a stretch even then. But I was honored to be working with a friend who had moved away from CO, and to see this event I’d heard about for years. I’d been stepping away from Lindy, as much as I loved it, particularly lately as conversations about race in America got increasingly caustic. The Lindy scene more than more other places in my life turned a blind eye to importance of Colin Kaepernick kneeling, in its festishistic obsession with the past. When back home in Ohio, I expected people to not get it. To be hostile towards anything that suggested that maybe the American dream didn’t exist for everyone, and critiqued America.
This however was a scene filled with people loving Black art forms, and I – deep down – hoped maybe at an event as big as focus, I’d feel that love too. I needed this. I’d moved away from home to a whiter part of the country originally for lindy hop. I was sick and struggling to get my chronic condition under control. The emotional strain of difficult decisions around surgeries and experimental treatments had me questioning, life, legacy, and heritage. I can’t have biological children, and I live primarily outside of Black community. I felt adrift unthreaded from my heritage, and having something to pass on. I might just disappear into the void of white culture. Unseen and unsupported. Dismissed and discouraged. Dance, my connection to the culture, my grandfather, myself…was starting to strain. What was it to do Black dances in white spaces that felt as foreign as going to my first white school dance?
I didn’t know.
The blues scene had started to contend with these issues, but lindy… was… Not.
“So, what do you think of this kneeling business?”
I looked over and saw a white guy watching the news I was trying to ignore. I’ve never had much stomach for violence and the constant high profile cases of Black men, children, and women dying at the whims of the police, made my stomach churn as the images linger in my mind. The guy immediately struck me as a “good ol’ boy” and likely military based on how upright he sat. I knew my answer was going to need to be careful, if I didn’t want a fight. But I was being ignored by the bartender so… what the hell.
I got time.
We get into it. I used myself as an analog for the Black community he doesn’t see on the news. Including our everyday experiences like the one happening in real time as the bartender ignores me. He stands up for me with the bartender and eventually starts to hear me. Occasionally he even finds me during the event to chat more. Asking questions the scene wouldn’t ask for years. I have someone I can vent my frustrations to of the little injustices that are happening, becoming more aware of how many there are. As I explain to him and see his reaction, I question just how happy I really am in the scene.
After focus I wrote an article talking about my poor experiences and I was hurt to see the amount of people in the comments being so cruel. I figured, the blues scene wasn’t perfect but maybe it was time to leave Lindy hop alone. I simply didn’t have the heart to fight so hard for so little. The scene didn’t want me, my blackness and queerness, a disruption. Ironic because of the formation of this dance.
I wasn’t ready to demand my humanity acknowledged, so it was a fight I left for others. I turned to blues where at least the ball was rolling, heartbreak about lindy hop locked away in a closet. I once dreamed of being an international Lindy hop instructor and sharing my culture with the world, that a dream that finally, fully shattered.
Maybe one day I’d come back.
…
“Wanna to try some swing outs with me ?” He asked on a cool South Carolina evening.
I’d just failed at sleeping during the break between class and the evening dance. Worries too big for me to handle fell over themselves for my attention until the energy build to an unbearable pressure. I slid out of bed, and over sleeping bodies, to try to get some air on the small balcony of the host’s house. Thinking I was alone I wiped tears away and sighed. Only to be startled by one of the other guests quietly sipping a beer. “Want one”. I shook my head. I didn’t drink much. He shrugs.
“Hmm, Red bull?” Feeling too shy to refuse again, I accepted. He gestured for me to sit and we quietly sat and looked out.
He asked why I couldn’t sleep. I gave him the broad stokes of being worries and the overwhelming responsibility I had. He tells me it sounds hard, but that it will be ok. To not worry too much yet. I relaxed a bit.
Red bull tastes awful. Until it doesn’t… so much, it turns out. He asks how I knew the group, the group I was starting to realise had important people in it. I felt out of my depths and uneasy with all the physical touch. But I wanted it. I wanted these things that felt just out of reach. The easy way they all lived and traveled together, meeting up and sleeping in shared space, connected.
I tell him of my connection to Bryan through the university and that I was pretty new. We talk about how I came so far for a dance event, my nerves, the classes I had earlier and what I thought of Joe Demer’s. “He stares.” I mentioned.
He cackles. “He’s a weird guy for sure”
I like him. He was very nice to me, I just felt studied…
Hmmmm. What did you learn
We learned… the shim sham? in partnership
You didn’t swing out?
No…
Do you know how?
Not yet. I said embarrassed. It’s my first big event and I came here to learn how. I kept trying but as soon as I feel momentum I start screeching. I’m a bit scared. I mumbled.
Wanna to try some swing outs with me?
HERE?!
I glanced at the thin walk way and the height. My heart starts racing and my hands sweat. Dance was hard for me. At the best of times it was a struggle even as much as I enjoyed it. I’d been trying to rebuild trust in others after being forced through a backflip a few months prior. But relying that much on others to make sure I didn’t fly off into the sky like I feared I would when I was five in windy weather, was slow going. I feared the lack of control, the vulnerability. Lifts, dips, and swing outs… it all frightened me.
I babbled at him about it. And he listened.
You know, I teach as well. We can go slow.
I stare at him. is everyone in this house a big deal?! I look out and think for a moment, to then say “fuck it”.
Let’s do it.
In the cooling spring evening, he painstakingly walks me through a swing out. Then slowly in parts. Then a full one. Then playing a song from his phone, a messy stifled laughter filled time of a few swing outs on this balcony. Him pushing me to keep up. We end as my heart pounds and my grin is from ear to ear.
Want to split that beer?
Yeah! That was amazing!
Tsk goes the beer and we sip it leaning over the rail.
“Oh there you two are! Everyone is awake and getting dressed” our host says “What are you doing out here?”
“ I just did my first swing out!”
…
I did it. I did it. I was shaking as I awkwardly dragged my chair from the centre of the room. I wasn’t looking at anyone, I wasn’t ready. This was hard, really hard. It was a silly thing I’d done to prove, something to myself. That I wasn’t afraid? The applause was loud but were they just being polite? I was relieved it was over, and that I didn’t cry on stage as I had every practice and got through what was one of the most intimidating things I’d ever done.
Performing at blues shout.
I’d gotten it in my head that because I was afraid of choreography I ought to apply to do one at shout. I wouldn’t get it. But it would be good practice to try to make something. To be more strict with myself. To my shock followed by horror, I didn’t receive the quiet rejection I expected but had to do finish the performance and be ready. I couldn’t back down, even though I desperately wanted to.
Earlier in the weekend an old community member, drunk, remarked about how surprised he was that I was any good. Said I was REALLY bad at dancing when I started, and he couldn’t believe I was there at shout. He was loud and I felt embarrassed. Somehow it came up that I was performing and I just recall him staring. Until he and a different friend, also tipsy, got in a fight about who knew me better. I quietly excused myself. The conversation did not help my anxiety about performing. Maybe I was very in over my head here.
So when I got off the floor and ran into Damon and Kelsey I looked into their eyes for approval and got it. I sighed in relief. Soon I found myself in a mostly empty hallway, a few folks sitting on a bench crying and talking about loved ones. They passed a flask back and forth and told me what the performance brought up and meant to them. As people filtered in and through out the night I saw people in tears and holding each other. Talking about loved ones and being fully present with each other. There were tears and hugs, and laughter and life. Drinking and slow dancing and gentle conversation.
Congratulations and appreciation for what I’d created semi improvisionally. It was incredible for something I made to impact so many others. To share my love and grief. To finally be able to mourn a life which I was so deeply impacted by. To share what Blues (and in many way jazz) means to me. It was overwhelming and beautiful to receive reflections of how I impacted people.
I held so many people, and heard so many stories. Someone asked why I wasn’t crying, and I had to say it was because I did all my crying beforehand. I felt at peace and connected to life in a way I’d hadn’t since his death, and dance gave me that.
…
“A few weeks ago I’d finished a class on struttin blues. I’d been aware of a… entitled older couple at the back of the room. Besides them giving my bartender some issues I thought little of them, until the man came up to me and it began.
“Will the 8pm class be a dance class?”
“Uh, yes? It’s the beginners/fundamentals class on blues dancing”
“I mean,” he closes the gap and is now in my personal space. Although I was on a stage of sorts and above him, his tone dripped with disdain as he looked down on me. “ not that.” * he waves at the floor* “a real dance class”.
I looked out at my students in their first struttin’ blues class. They were struggling but had worked hard. He was coming after me and my babies.
“That WAS a dance class. It was on struttin’”
“ well we didn’t come here for THAT. We want a dance class, a real one.”
“ again, it was a dance class, on the one step dance called struttin’”
“ well, it’s not blues. Blues is like swing.” he gestures, with vauge movements “ that’s what we are here for.”
“Well,” I close the gap. “ blues is a similar to swing as say bachata is to salsa. Blues is it’s own family of dances, with various looks from different parts of the country. It has its own rich history.”
“I’ve done both. That wasn’t a dance class and isn’t what we are here for. And that isn’t blues“
“As an international (technically) instuctor, I can tell you that you are mistaken. The 8pm class will be a basics class taught by me. You are welcome to watch and see if it’s a good fit for you.”
By this point we are breathing into each others faces, neither backing down.
He eventually he stalked out. He and his wife took the class ignoring everything I said and then at the end told me they’d learned a lot in the dance class.
I held my tongue and desire to hit him. There was little I could do to stop this man from talking to me this way. There was nothing I could do to make him respect me. He even asked where the white female instructor was. This happens to me all the time. It’s not always so blatant. Yet, It’s never far away.”
…
“Do you want to be good? Or do you want to be great?”
I was sweating. I’d gotten lost in NYC trying to meet a man whose video I’d watched on repeat for months. I ran. I was 19 and left Ohio alone for the first time. The city was loud and I was drowning in new experiences, I had no way to be ready for outside of my small community. I thought Cincinnati was huge and here I was trying to find this building among a sea of buildings.
I stumbled into the private lesson with most of it gone and tried not to break down into tears. I was so excited and saved money for my first private and I was LATE. I had visions of him leaving or being angry with me for keeping him waiting. I gasped for air as he told me in an accent I struggled to understand that, he couldn’t stay late and so we had only as much time as was left. He asked what I wanted to work on and I weakly said my basics.
We had classes on lindy hop in Cincinnati but not blues. Even then those lindy hop classes were hard to make and I still panicked. I wanted tools, and help. He looked at me and asked me to dance. Overwhelmed I accepted, feeling scrutinised with each step, and every mistake. He makes a few corrections, asks about my home scene and glances at the clock.
“Hm. Do you want to be good? Or do you want to be great?”
I stared at him. What does THAT mean?!
“Quickly. It will decide what advice I give you. There is only 15 minutes left, and I have to leave for my next private soon.”
I looked at him. The first non American teacher I’d met. I may never see him again! I may never get this opportunity again! What did he mean by that? What was the difference between ‘good’ and ‘great’?! I could feel the time ticking by. What DID I want? Why was I here in this strange place with this strange man, doing things I’d never dreamed of? My mother had questioned me as I left and I struggled to tell her why this was so important. What my goals were. Why I was willing to sacrifice so much for something I had been doing for so little time. Why did I feel called to
do this?
Do you want to be good? Or do you want to be great.
“Great. I want to be great.” I uneasily said feeling the truth of it wash over me. An admission that flew in the face of what I was allowed to believe about myself. I wasn’t even fully sure what it meant. But I’d rather be great. I’d rather be great, than just good. Consequences be damned.
A glint in his eye, and a smirk curled his mouth as he looked at me a little different. My heart raced knowing I’d said something “right” in his eyes. Then he started in on me.
He spoke quickly, adjusting my body as he talked. Listing off improvements I needed, things I needed to set up, and like, Joe suggested I move to a bigger scene. When I complained about lack of partners he simply said, “learn to lead, and train someone”. He highlighted many of my weak spots and affirmed my fears that avoiding them would hold me back. If I wanted this, I would need to work hard, and overcome a lot that other dancers with other communities wouldn’t need to. To keep traveling, to teach, to create my own opproetunies, and learn to dance alone, were all touched on as he rapid fired suggestions, as he changed shoes and headed out of the door.
I was overwhelmed. He kept talking as he left the building me running to keep up with him down the stairs. I told him that I wasn’t sure I could do all that he suggested. He pauses on the street.
“You got this” He says in a hug, before leaving me blinking on a NYC sidewalk lightly jogging to make his next class.
I stood there a while in the entryway of this building.
Maybe… I could be great?
…
Some Professional artists and I had a group. I’d found community in the non dance space for the first time during the pandemic and lockdown. People who seemed to get parts of my life and worries that the average dancer did not and it seemed like many of the my peers were relating to less and less at an astonishing rate. Through them I survived the pandemic. Through them I began to really look at myself and what I had to offer. Through them… I was forced to admit things I had been avoiding looking at.
- I’m so uncomfortable with how others treat me
- I cry after most dances
- I really do hate writing
- I wish I could just speak my thoughts
- I don’t know why people listen to me
- I don’t know what I am doing with my life anymore
I felt seen and understood, listened to and validated, connected. Something I’d long stopped feeling as the distance between dance and me yawned bigger and bigger. My personal life collapsed, and I was spending all my time feeling like I was failing at the one thing I felt brought me success. Writing. It’s a pain, but it’s cheap and travels well. Without dance though, the prompts stopped coming, and the motivation disappeared. It became work, and despite my skill for storytelling my craft of writing was lacking. Particularly compared to published authors in our group and the passion they had for it.
I like to teach and the world wanted antiracism classes and writing, but I struggle to promote myself. They built up my confidence encouraging me to be online more. As professionals in various arts they saw something in me, I still struggle to see. That I have something and It’s on me to do something with it. To decide my path. The world had taught me I was nothing, and I had accepted that. Dance had started turning into a strange commodification of the self, or a digital product to sell. I’m a giving person, and don’t create for validation but I didn’t know how to value my work. How to value the things I bring to conversations, classes, and dancing.
When I mentioned I was thinking about moving away from dance and toward other creative pursuits, they were shocked I still considered myself a dancer at all. “The way you talk about it is so different from how you talk about video.” They said.
I was shocked. I hadn’t realised it was so clear for them. I mentioned the Swedish Lindy hop gig, and all my hesitations. My discomforts, worries and fears. They heard me out across a few meetings.
“Even with all that it sounds like you kinda want to”
“… I guess I do…”
The story continues tomorrow! Follow along for parts 3. If you like my writing and want to support it or actually know when it’s posted, I suggest joining my Patreon at Patreon.com/obsidantea. It is in a bit of a state of flux but I’m excited to be rebuilding it and there is a free member option. I am also available for booking!