Messages

@Dave - LOL, I think West Coast Swing ended up with the lowest attendance average out of all of the dances.  I should probably not come back next year :).

LOL, Alfred, did you forget?  Your Saturday evening class was not only quite late at night, it wasn't even advertised!  And you still got some turnout! Your Sunday day class was much much bigger.  I know, I saw it  ;D

[Dance floor:]

Whew!  It's David, your friendly fanime dance teacher.  I'm still getting my voice back, but what a rush this year's dance was!  My overwhelming opinion of the dance lessons and B/W ball this year: it surpassed all previous years by miles!

I'ma try to keep this short:

Dance floor: FAB!  Of course we all want bigger floors (we're never satisfied), but this year's floor was smooth, springy, had no heel-catching rails between sections, and STAYED TOGETHER!  Thx to Alfred & Alaina for suggesting it!  Don't know where we'd put a bigger one or how we'd afford it, but I felt the size this year was supremely adequate!  ;D

Room on the floor: Yes, the conga/macarena/limboers are disruptive; thankfully they happen more during Salsas/Hustles than Foxtrots/Waltzes due to the type of music. Perhaps we can play Thriller and designate half the floor for Cha Cha/Hustle and the other half for the Thriller dance.  Don't know if that'd be inviting trouble.  I'm really ok with not playing the macarena. Maybe one or two songs during the night could be reserved for non-ballroom dances to satisfy that section of the crowd.  I'm kinda torn; the Black & White Ball is supposed to be our one safe haven for partner dancing at the con (one year I tried to see if anyone would do a Hustle with me at the FanimeCon Dance--hah!) but I don't want to be a stuffy dance spoilsport either.  Although....if the people who don't want to partner-dance go elsewhere, it makes more room for those of us trying to partner-dance!  Must...stave off....dance snobbery!  ::)

But seriously, for most of the evening, it was FAR more possible to move around the dance floor during traveling dances than in past years.  Yes, there were people standing in the way chatting idly, or swaying, or doing interpretive dance, but by and large, I couldn't believe how much more people were traveling the dances this year.  Everyone who came to the lessons (or already apparently knew how to dance) deserves major kudos for attempting to travel.  Not everyone moved counterclockwise 100% of the time, but it's okay to move other directions briefly if you watch where you're going.  Maybe let's try to see if announcements can help that.

Announcements: This dang dance needs a manual!  There are too many things need announcing, lol. Even if people could hear the announcements, (That's a problem I don't know how to solve.  How do you instantly cut through the chatter of 900 people? ...besides mic feedback, that is?  Thankfully, none of that this year. Kudos to the sound-check guys.) I worry they'll tune us out after six announcements or so anyway.  I think people were better about dance etiquette thanks to all the lesson announcements. Other things worth emphasizing more?
-Line of Dance: (I tried to teach this at all my lessons where the dance traveled).  Maybe a quick ann. at the ball?  Anyone think it might help?  I think one thing we should mention is if you're going to dance a stationary dance like swing during a foxtrot, please dance it in the center of the floor when possible so foxtrotters can go around!
-Funky dances in the middle of the floor so everyone else can go around?  At least try to be aware of your surrounding dancers! Someone told me that a dancer got kicked in the head during a swing but that they were ok.  PLEASE be careful and responsible dancers, especially if attempting lifts, tricks, or dips.
-Dress Code: We announced this at every single lesson, and had the thread, and had posters with the dress code posted, plus, people could (and did) come ask us whether what they had would be appropriate.  I guess for next year let's try again to have a clear, pithy numbered list laying out the guidelines (including that black/white are not the only possible colors) and plaster it everywhere we can that's connected to the ball 'cause clearly, not everyone comes to the lessons.
-Music requests: We asked everyone who asked for a song at the ball to request ahead of time on the forums for next year; hopefully this will help raise awareness.  We don't have every song you might request--we may need to track it down and there's no time at the dance. Quick hint from a 5+ year ballroom dance party DJ: just 'cause it says "Waltz" "Salsa", etc. in the title doesn't mean it's always that dance.  If you think it's danceable, don't let that stop you from making requests, but don't get too attached to your requests either.  If we left it out, there was a reason or there just wasn't enough room.

Music: Overall I liked the music, but I'm biased; I helped with the playlist.  But from a danceability perspective alone, I can tell you the music was better.  There will always be matters of personal preference; there were a couple of songs I would have replaced.  But other people loved them.  I personally danced to every song on the playlist in my living room to be sure it was danceable.  I recommended we eliminate a number of songs because they did not have a danceable beat--and we did (Sorry, Tank!...  I'd be ok playing it, as long as we're upfront that you really CANNOT dance anything but freestyle to this, and I DARE anyone to show me otherwise).  I also helped speed up or slow down songs that initially were not ideal speed for dancing.

As far as partner dancing went, I had a hard time dancing to more than 50% of the songs last year.  This year, I noticed only two songs that I definitively would have relabeled on the slides.  The final Michael Buble song was clearly a Rumba rather than Foxtrot (it was correct on my playlist, but got onto the slides wrong (sorry I didn't catch that, Jim), and there was a Tango "Dance With Me" I really would have labeled Cha Cha (that one might be my bad too), but all the others looked correct to me.  A lot of it is personal preference.  There's a lot of crossover between Rumba and Cha Cha ("Mercy" by Duffy is a prime example).  I love it for Rumba, other people hear the cha-cha-cha in there and simply must dance Cha to it. I saw a number of people dancing Swing during a clear Foxtrot--which is totally fine! I can take another look at the slides to see if there were any other mislabelings I missed, but often times I could hear Cha Cha/Rumba/Hustle/WC Swing all in one dance, and there just wasn't room on the slide to put all that.  Advanced dancers used to listening to music are free to ignore the slides and dance what they hear/feel, of course!  (Just go in the middle if you wish to dance swing during a foxtrot).

Most of our focus this year was picking fun music that was danceable; next year we'll work more on audibility; I can look at volume and level adjustments to see if we can help.  It's just so hard to know how it'll sound in the actual space, with the murmur of nine hundred people.  One idea: perhaps if we have enough staff, I could try to play the songs over the giant speakers in the ballroom once they're set up, and we could try to have backups for any songs that sound dubious so we can switch them out on the playlist if needed? It's last-minute work, but I don't know what else to do.  Even that doesn't solve the will-it-be-audible-over-the-roar-of-the-crowd? question.  If anyone remembers which songs were impossible to hear this year, maybe it can help us.  I think it was during "Sakura Kiss" that I couldn't hear the swing beat.  Listening at home I can, but in the room the reverb and the crowd backfilled in all the space between the beats until it sounded kinda like a droning rumble.  I think I had a similar problem with "Heart Goes Boom!" but now I don't remember...I shoulda taken notes.  I couldn't hear "Tango in Harlem" at first but it got better as the song went on. I think the same for Super Mario RPG Bukkis (Tango).

Mixers: I was surprised at how well they went!  Staff buddies: let's try to come up with some more for next year, and try to rehearse how to organize them.  The self-perpetuating ones like the swing snowball mixer will be easiest to run because they're more or less self-organizing.  Maybe we can have little triangles of blue tape on the floor for where to stand to start off for the waltz mixer, that way people will be spaced perfectly and we'll automatically get the right number of leaders and followers matched up without so much herding.

Dances Taught: We can evaluate which dances were in demand this year and consider new dances for next year; I could potentially teach a samba or quickstep (yikes!) lesson, although I might demand real dance shoes as a prerequisite for those classes.  Clunky shoes + quickstep = no no.

Anyway, I teach in the area, so if anyone's looking for some lessons between now and next year, PM me and I can get back to ya!
Great job, all!  Especially my fellow teachers!  You guys made it happen!

I would totally be there.  I hung out at the West Coast class last year with my sis.

If it doesn't get together this year, I would volunteer to teach any of the following at some sort of theoretical Big Band Smash:

East Coast Swing
Salsa
Merengue
Waltz
Foxtrot
the Hustle
Night Club Two-Step (for ballady stuff)
Samba
Cha Cha
Rumba
Tango
Bolero
Lindy Hop (maybe a little, any way)

Last year I went to the rave and danced around like a dork in a big empty room, and tried to ask people to dance with me really nicely, and they looked at me like my hair was on fire.

I hope it wasn't on fire...

So, wow.  People are actually interested in ballroom, salsa, swing?

WELL....This may be the wrong time to offer (or the right time to offer for next year), but I hereby volunteer to teach ballroom dance.

It'd be even cooler if it got me on staff (though I might be onboard for tabletop gaming next year anyway).  Maybe I could get some staff service hours for working the game room, and some for teaching dance / playing danceable jpop/rock/etc music for a ballroom/swing/etc DANCE.

I can teach:

East Coast Swing
Salsa
Merengue
Waltz
Foxtrot
the Hustle
Night Club Two-Step (for ballady stuff)
Samba
Cha Cha
Rumba
Tango
Bolero
Lindy Hop (maybe a little, any way)