The Dance Blog-A-Thon began the 4th of May and I’ve slacked through this week on my blog being really busy in the rest of my life.  So, here is my Dance Blog-A-Thon post as part of the Ferdyonfilms.com dance blog-a-thon.

I begin with a clip from the 1943 movie Stormy Weather which Cab Calloway called it “the greatest dance number ever filmed.”  This clip is of the fabulous Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold, who have sadly both passed away.  One of the first films to features African American entertainers with an all-star cast including Bill Robinson, Lena Horne, Fats Waller, Cab Calloway and more.  It was Bill Robinson’s final movie appearance and Fats Wallers last screen performance.  A truly influential film and probably “the greatest dance number ever filmed.”

In the lindy hop community Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, who worked and performed under the direction of Herbert “Whitey” White, are the principal historical figures of vintage lindy hop.  The most reknowned clip is a performance by the Harlem Congaroos, the top troupe of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin’.  The dancers are Frances “Mickey” Jones and William Downes, Norma Miller and Billy Ricker, Al Minns and Willa Mae Ricker, and Ann Johnson and Frankie Manning.  This scene embodies the sheer raw energy with which the lindy hop was performed; a departure from the clean movement of concert dances.

These two scenes are ones that always leave me in awe each time I watch them.  I can go back to them at any point and feel re-inspired.  When I introduce people to lindy hop, Hellzapoppin’ is the first clip I show them.  It was one of the catalysts for the swing revival in the 80’s and many troupes have reproduced the choreography.  Stormy Weather aways brings me back to some of the best of solo jazz movement and rhythms I have ever found.

For the Dance Blog-A-Thon these two clips truly define traditional jazz dance and lindy hop; thus why they are featured here.

This past weekend a horde of followers descended upon Rochester, NY for the first North East Girl Jam.  Put on by Jojo Jackson and Groove Juice Swing it was the first event of its kind in the northeast.

Girl Jam’s are events which focus solely on the followers in the dance to highlight the important (and often times under appreciated) role they play in the dance.  Historically we have paid more tribute to the leaders in the dance.  Even today it is more common for leaders to be booked for gigs and then have a partner brought along then the reverse.  Girl Jam is an attempt to bring much needed awareness to these topics and provide a space for following technique and creativity be at the forefront.

Friday night began with the Boilermaker Jazz Band, with Naomi Uyama on vocals, playing in the Tango Cafe.  The space is a beautiful hall with high ceilings, nice wood floors and great lighting.  As always, the Boilermakers did an excellent job with their song selection.  One of my favorite tunes of the evening was All God’s Chillun’ Got Rhythm which is a tune found in this clip from “A Day at the Races”.

Friday also included a solo charleston and jazz contest where the winner was determined by tap out.  Rachel Woods of Rochester, NY won the competition.  The crowd was enthusiastic and kept the energy going while the participants all had a friendly attitude in the competition.

As always in Rochester, once the band wrapped up the party headed over to the Lindy Compound for the late night where Mike Thibault DJed until 4am.  Late nights at events in Rochester are some of my favorites as they aren’t held in a dance studio but rather someones house.  There is space to relax, socialize, eat and dance which creates much more of a party with dancing atmosphere than a “just another dance” atmosphere.

Saturday I assisted Nina Gilkenson with the first class of the weekend, a lindy hop technique class.  The ratio of leads to follows was about 2 to 3 and the room was packed with three rows of couples facing us on the stage.  We started by getting people to rockstep on the 1 2 of the swingout and then Nina worked with the followers on making their swivels maintain that same type of connection while swiveling.  We then worked on using energy build-up and release to propel the follower through the swingout.  The class went well although an hour definitely feels short when you are up on stage teaching.

Unfortunately I cannot report very much on the rest of the workshops on Saturday as my day became caught up in teaching privates.  In the four remaining hours of the workshop day I taught three privates.  The range of levels in each private varied from a beginner, an intermediate dancer, and a much more advanced dancer.  I have not given many privates to dancers who don’t need considerable tweaking to their basics and it was very enjoyable to be able to work on conceptual objects and breaking down rules rather than trying to enforce them to get a particular result.

Saturday night was the battle of the girl DJs Heather Flock versus Gina Helfrich.  Although the battle wasn’t the highlight of the dance, they traded back and forth throughout the evening and created an enjoyable space to dance.

The second competition of the weekend was a Jack & Jill that I helped judge.  It was a tap-out format which is always slightly awkward especially when the floor is really packed at the beginning.  There was no rotation during the Jack & Jill so your first partner was your only partner which can be both an advantage or a disadvantage from a competitors perspective.  The level of competitors was very spread out but overall it was a really great turnout with a very positive attitude.  Rajeev Hotchandani and Nicole Zuckerman won the competition (pictured here) and the crowd closed in to let them jam for the remainder of the song.

Congratulations and trophies given, the DJ spun up a hopping tune and a jam kicked off.

Despite saturday’s late night rolling on till 4 or 5 in the morning, almost everyone showed up for the first workshops on Sunday.  A special treat for the leads was the Following 101 class with Naomi and Nina where they went over the basics of following and by the end of the hour the leads looked pretty solid as follows.  Inside, Giselle taught a Cotton Club routine to the ladies.

With so little sleep, I disappeared to Spot to pick up some coffees to go around and some sushi for lunch.  When I returned they were setting up for the lunchtime showing of clips which highlighted female dancers from our dances history.  Gina Helfrich organized the videos and headed up the presentation including clips of Eleanor Powell in Fascinating Rhythm, Josephine Baker, and many of the follows from Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers and Shorty George’s partners Big Bea (Beatrice Gay) and Pauline Morse (thanks Gina).

I gave one more private in the afternoon and then taught a Spins and Turns class with Nina.  The class was definitely smaller from the previous mornings class with enough space to form a circle and have us on the floor.  We started off with some basic turning down the floor and then progressed to variations on the tuck turn and an inside turn from closed.  The inside turn variation was one of my favorite ones that Nina does and it was really fun to teach that with her.  We also taught a double outside turn where the leads needed more instruction to get the follower through it in the eight counts.  I had to leave before the day was up and so missed Naomi’s solo jazz class which finished off the weekend.

With the workshops out of the way everyone who was still in town made their way back to the compound for the unofficial “Grill Jam” wrapup party.  Chicken, veggies and beef were grilled happily on the porch while drinks and other goodies were consumed.

Girl Jam was one of the most social of events I’ve been to without feeling like it was forced or cliquish.  Sadly I missed some of the classes I had really wanted to take.

If anyone went to Northeast Girl Jam and can say something to the various classes, please go ahead and leave a comment.  Or even if you just went to the parties and dances, let me know what you thought of the event.  Comment.

A few weeks late of the Youtube uploads but here are the Instructor Jams and various performances at Lindyfest back in March.

My favorites in no particular order:

Dawn and Frankie: I had mentioned in my post on Lindyfest the impact and delivery that old-timers like Dawn and Frankie have in each simple step and you can see the commitment to it in every step here.

Skidoo and Jam: A solid opening into a jam with members from 23 Skidoo and event instructors.  Polished off with a California-like routine at the end.

Lafayette by 23 Skidoo: We saw this routine win at ULHS 2007 and it is just as tight in this performance sans costumes.

Here are the rest of the videos as links.

• 23 Skidoo Big Apple
• Chazz Young’s Tap Performance
• Instructor Demo Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

If you missed the last video round-ups, check them out here: Raw Video Round-Up, Solo Jazz Video Round-Up, Blues Video Round-Up.

I met up with Jesse and the rest of the band on the poet’s walk in Central Park at noon just off of 68th St. on the east side.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous, in the 80s with the sun pouring down; nice and dry with the occasional breeze.

Tin Pan has been playing all week in the park from 12-3pm near the Alice statues off of the boat pond (near 75th) but they moved down to the higher trafficked poet’s walk again today.

Evita Arce and Nathan Bugh arrived about halfway through the second tune, set their stuff down and Evita and I started dancing and a crowd of teenagers immediately gathered to watch.  They were probably on a school trip to the MET or something but it was great.  A couple of them even got out and danced with us for a few bars.  Cameras were out everywhere and it was a fun mid-tempo tune to jam out to.  The crowd was so large that Jesse asked them to pull in tighter so that people could still get past.  Unfortunately, being mostly kids that crowd didn’t leave much of a tip as they wandered off down the path.

This was my first time out busking with Tin Pan and it was such a great experience.  Evita had some advice on how to manage the endurance aspect of dancing for long gigs on the street; sitting out the first chorus, sitting out when someone is singing, etc.  It also helped that Nathan was there and we traded off dancing solo, partnered with Evita and taking a song off here and there.

Nathan and I did a really tight solo number together based off of the shim sham where we spotlighted on breaks and varied it up a bit.  It was such a good feeling to be out there performing with live music behind us and an interested crowd.  Nathan is exceptionally creative and well-rounded in his solo jazz and I can’t wait to work with him more.

This was my first performance-for-money type gig and it definitely got me thinking about how I held myself as a performer (and less about what I was thinking as a dancer).  It is different to be in front of a crowd of non-dancers and be performing rather than just social dancing.  The way you present and interact with a crowd of people who don’t know you and don’t understand the dance puts a different sort of pressure on you.  It forced me to simplify my movement and I constantly reminded myself that my dancing wasn’t just part of a social event (say as it can be at Banjo Jims) but a performance.  The audience is just as much a part of the performance as the band and the dancers and can’t be an afterthought.

It was a wonderful gig and definitely a learning experience.  I can’t wait to be out busking with Tin Pan again.

Have you busked?  What was it like for you?  Let me know.  Comment.

Exchanges aren’t my top events during the year to attend but DCLX had a line-up this year that you couldn’t just walk away from.  There were five hot bands playing five dances with a double-hitter for the Saturday main dance.  The New Orleans Jazz Vipers on Friday night with Gordon Webster’s band playing the late night; The New Orleans Jazz Vipers opposite the Blue Crescent Septet at Glen Echo Saturday night with the Cangelosi Cards playing late night; and the Boilermakers wrapping up Sunday night.

I took the bus down from NYC Friday evening after work and met up with Lily (who was my lovely host for the weekend).  We got ready for the dance and headed down to Glen Echo’s bumper car pavilion for the New Orleans Jazz Vipers.  Glen Echo is a wonderful representation of art deco architecture and while we weren’t in the wonderful Spanish Ballroom until Saturday night, the atmosphere is still great.  The dance was packed with barely enough room to swing out even when the band pitched the tempo really high.

Rather than head to the late night, we ended up doing a midnight monument tour.  I’ve been to DC before but this was the first time I got to see the tourist spots, albeit at 1am.  We managed to take in five memorials in about an hour.  We had an entertaining back-and-forth with a pair of cops at the Washington Monument who were probably as bored as we were tired.  The Korean War and Vietnam War memorials were both touching and haunting in the late night, while the World War II monument gave resolve with inspiring quotes and its grand stance.  We ended the night at the Lincoln Memorial and were provided with some interesting trivia provided by our impromptu tour guide.  Exhausted, we skipped the rest of late night and crashed.  If anyone was there for Gordon’s band on Friday night, let me know what you thought.  Comment.

Saturday we took the metro into the Capitol for the afternoon dance.  The weather was spectacular, despite a 60% call for rain, with the sun out and a slight breeze, perfect for an afternoon dance.  Despite the granite and some technical troubles with the generator powering the DJ booth and speakers, it was a wonderful afternoon to lounge and dance a bit.  Plus there were three Starbucks within throwing distance and I managed to inhale six shots of espresso to combat the already budding exhaustion.

Saturday night was the double-header with the New Orleans Jazz Vipers opposite the Blue Crescent Septet.  I have to say both bands were great musically.  They played very well, song choice was good and the musicians worked well together.  Unfortunately I felt the energy of the night remained relatively flat.  The song tempos picked up and fell back to mid, dropped and picked up to mid, without departing from a content middle.  The energy never climbed high enough for a jam to break out or for the floor to cycle enough.  The bands didn’t capture the dancers and bring the room together as one.  The music, while good to listen and dance a bit, did not drive me to the floor on every song or inspire me to let loose.

Saturday’s late night was a whole different matter.  With a smaller venue and the Cangelosi Cards down on the floor with the dancers the atmosphere was much more intimate and cozy.  Many dancers spent the first few songs just listening on the sides to the pure voice of Tamar and the rich sounds of the rest of the musicians.  I get to see the Cards relatively regularly in New York City at Banjo Jims or Telephone Bar, but it is the rare occasion that I get to see them in a fully danceable space with a great sound system.  The late night recalled memories of the late night at Swing Out New Hampshire where they played until 5am with exceptional energy and interaction between the band and the dancers.  The only complaint I heard was that the songs were too long.  I danced almost every song minus the first few where I sat out and listened and I wouldn’t have known they were long if someone hadn’t mentioned it after the fact.

Sunday we skipped the afternoon dance which was rained out and relocated to the bumper car pavilion and instead went for a delightful brunch at Belga in the Eastern Market section of the city.  The service was exceptional, our server entertaining, the food was well presented and tasted exceptional.  Here is half of the gnutella and banana crepe that Jerone and I split; included was fresh mint and vanilla ice cream.

Bringing the weekend to close was the Sunday night dance at El Boqueron, a bar and Mexican restaurant halfway back to Baltimore.  The Boilermakers played from 9pm to 12am and really had the floor going.  Like the Cards, the Boilermakers interact very well with the dancers and the only jam of the weekend broke out at the very end of the Boilermakers last set.  Whether intentional or not, the organizers managed to choose the band that would leave the weekend on a high note.

Overall, DCLX had a solid lineup with good DJs, bands and spaces.  As one of the only large exchanges I have attended in a while, DCLX was definitely the one to go to despite the lull in energy at the evening dance on Saturday.  There was also no reggae.

Did you go to DCLX this year?  What did you think of it? Comment.

Darren over at ProBlogger has pronounced today, April 14th, as the [unofficial] Blogger Appreciation Day.

I show my appreciation for the following bloggers/blogs.

• Alain Wong - Alain got the idea of blogging about dancing into my head with his blog and I’ve since grown quite a considerable readership (for a tiny niche blog) and networked with a number of other bloggers who I would never have had the chance if not for my inspiration from Alain.  We are now working on a collaborative blog project that will launch this summer.

• Alex Steffen - Alex is a wonderful writer in the eco and sustainability blogging community as the executive editor of WorldChanging.com.  I began reading this blog a year or two ago and it definitely helped shape my goals and aspirations for the future.  I keep up with his blog and many other eco and sustainability blogs on a regular basis.

• Lifehacker - Organization has never really been my strong suit.  Pair that with my ability to get sidetracked and you’ve got a definite prevalence to get off topic, lose track of time and much more.  Lifehacker is a great blog that includes articles and links to great efficiency tricks and tools.

• Arstechnica - I have a fascination with all things technologically-related whether it is laws, the latest developments, gadgets or games.  Arstechnica keeps me up-to-date on all of these topics with exceptional reporting and writing.

This is a non-exclusive list but these are my highlights.

Last night (Monday) Gordon Webster’s band with some stand-ins killed it at Banjo Jims.  The musicians are Jesse Selengut on trumpt, Cassidy Holden on upright bass, Dennis Lichtman on clarinet, the drummer who I can’t remember nor pronounce his name, and Gordon Webster on piano.

The night was made all the more hot with the addition of Skye Humphries and Ramona Staffeld showing up and tearing up the flooor.  What a night.

I had the pleasure to attend Lindyfest on March 13th to 16th.  It had been a last minute decision on my part but I was very glad to have attended an event that I have heard so much about and that was launching the much anticipated Lindy Hoppers Fund.

I arrived Thursday afternoon and enjoyed karaoke, some drinks and time with friends new and old before crashing relatively early (2 or 3 am) to get some rest from a day of travel.

One of the great things about Lindyfest is that there are always too many amazing classes that it makes it difficult to pick which ones you’ll attend.

Friday I started the day sitting in on Andy & Nina’s “Fierce Moves” class which had some great dynamic moves showcased (really one of their specialties).  Because it was such a gorgeous day Andy, Nina, Swifty and I decided to lounge under some trees in the grass between the two class venues and ended up missing the second class of the day.  It was worth it having come from the drab gray of New York.

The last two classes I attended were Manu & Ria’s masters class where they had us breakdown and use a six-count swing out in some very interesting ways; and Naomi’s instructors class which was, in her words basically, “an experimental class”.  Naomi’ class was great as she not only had some great points on instruction and teaching from years of experience but also had us run some exercises in teaching.

Friday night dancing commenced at 9pm with DJed music till 10:30pm when the instructors got out and jammed for everyone.  Like last year, the instructor jams were excellent to watch with the young instructors really tearing it up and the old timers owning every little step.  Hopefully they’ll be up on YouTube soon.  After the instructor jam the floor opened back up and dancing commenced to great DJs like Ryan Swift, Jesse Miner and more.

Saturday classes were again spectacular.  I started the day with Andy & Nina’s masters class which took us from dancing with the heart of old-timers to Andy’s guru like words on enjoying moving through space.  This was probably my favorite class of the entire event.  It was exceptionally concept oriented with a variety of exercises which broke down the strict rules of lindy hop into more-or-less loose guidelines.

I took my customary afternoon break, missing the second class of the day to spend time with friends.  Following that nice break I attended Max & Annie’s masters class which was had some very interesting concepts to at work in a sequence of moves they had us do.  While the concepts were great and difficult to work on, they were not explicitly discussed which for a masters level class they should have been.  The last class of the day I attended, partially, was Andy & Nina’s Tips and Tricks for Showing Off.  Although I was in rotation most of the class, I was distracted by Mikey Pedroza, Bobby White and Kate Hedin working out some things on the sidelines, so I didn’t get the full experience.

Saturday night had a special presentation on the life of Carnell Pipkin, who passed away fall 2007.  Carnell was a pivotal figure in the early Houston lindy hop scene and inspired and worked with so many.  I never got the chance to meet him, but the how he affected the lives of my friends and nurtured a community touched me greatly during the presentation.

Later in the evening there was a set of special presentations from 23 Skidoo, Max & Annie, Naomi, Ramona & Nina and an all-out jam MCed by Peter Strom and Manu Smith.  These were great to watch and I have to hand it to 23 Skidoo for performing three routines  with minimal breaks.  Hopefully there will be footage up soon, similar to last years wonderful show by the Silver Shadows.

After the show, dancing again commenced until 1:30am when the ALHC Regionals happened.  I don’t exactly know how it happened but I ended up in the competition with Teni Lopez-Cardenas.  The format was frustrating with each couple getting 30 sec. or so of a different song to spotlight to.  This broke up the energy and made it difficult to get into the music and I hope the format returns to a single song with each couple going out for eight eights like most jam formats.  There was a mid-tempo round and a low-end fast round.

Mid-tempo round:

Fast round:

After competition, I headed back to relax a bit, changed and then went down and danced till Peter Strom wrapped up his fantastic soul room DJing at 6:30/7am.  Teni and I went for breakfast as normal people were getting up enjoying omelettes and fruit at the hotel restaurant then crashed for the few hours available before classes started.

Sunday, despite exhaustion, I attended Naomi’s isolation class, latte in hand (which got a comment).  I forget how great movement isolation is and how often we neglect to work parts of our body.  Her isolation class pushed the edges of where my muscles were sore and tight from not having done enough stretching and warmup.  Isolations are definitely something I should go back to at least once a week.

After the first class everyone headed over to the Wortham Theatre for a session with Frankie Manning.  I have heard Frankie talk before and often it is some of the same tales which he spins over and over, but this time it was really great to have Manu moderating and asking questions of Frankie.  The stories he told were varied from prior talks and Frankie is still wonderfully animate and entertaining.  A short session was opened up for questions near the end and questions were both entertaining and thoughtful.

Classes resumed and I attended both Peter & Ramona’s Advanced Lindy Hop class and their masters class.  Peter & Ramona have a great dynamic as a teaching couple and the material they worked on was great.  Peter is a straightforward technician when it comes to the dance in some ways and to get feedback from him is always great and often blunt.

The last class I attended was Steven & Virginie’s masters class.  I had hoped that they would have us work on a great concept or exceptionally difficult move, but unfortunately we spent the first half of the class working out the swing-out with some variation.  They have great material and feedback but I really wanted to move beyond just the swing-out in a masters class.

Sunday night was the great wind down of the event.  I spent most of the evening in the bar eating dinner and conversing with Mikey, Marty, Marc-Andre, and Nina.  The rest of the night was spent mostly socializing until 2am or so when we hit up the soul room again for some late night dancing.

Monday I shipped off back to New York City.  My plane was delayed out of Dallas, so I was switched to another flight and then they lost my luggage.  After such a great weekend, it wasn’t so bad.

The highlights from the event were all of Saturday night, Andy & Nina’s masters class, relaxing on Sunday evening, and meeting so many new people from the southwest.

The unfortunate things: the class venues were mostly poorly floored and ventilated rooms, with one room even kicking up so much dust as to make it hazy.  Also, in prior years the dance venue was in a real ballroom and this year it was in a hotel.  Now, hotel events can be great for their convenience, etc. but they definitely take some of the atmosphere out of an event.

I hope to make it back next year.

Did you go to the Great Southwest Lindyfest this year or prior years?  What were your experiences?  Comment.

First off, thanks to those people who humored my post Lindy Hop for America Bill.  I understand that we would all wish to see such a great initiative and perhaps it is not too far fetched since George Bush Sr. passed National Tap Day into existence in 1989.

Not many dance bloggers jumped on the April Fools posting in the blogosphere but a great deal of high profile blogs and websites did so.  For those who read Gizmodo there was a spree of Mr. T references; Problogger had a spoof PayPerTweet post which has sparked conversation about a budding topic; Google had a number of them; and even the BBC got in on it with flying penguins.  The folks over at Jam Cellar did get in on the action with a YouTube video though.

Problogger writes about the opportunity cost of not participating in these kinds of events as they can build awareness and hopefully traffic to a site.  Proof in numbers: yesterday was the highest trafficked day of my blog to date, recording a quarter of the hits in one day that I got in the month of February.  Hopefully people will keep returning for the regular reviews and articles.

Boston Tea Party is one of the largest swing dance events on the East Coast, with 1400 attendees and 500 competitors.  Co-produced by Steve & Rebecca Drzewiczewski and Dan Mez it brings together international teachers and competitors from both the Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing communities under one roof.   It is one of the few events where Westies and Lindy Hoppers dance and compete together; the best example of this is the Invitational Crossover competition.

I arrived Friday evening and settled into my hotel room before meeting up with my Strictly partner, Joanna Lucero, to dance and warm up.  The prelims for all of the Strictly competitions started at 9pm and ran till a bit after 10pm.  Heats were quite large but the energy of the crowd was good and the music was laid back and excellent thanks to Naomi’s DJing.

Following the prelims the main ballroom opened up to general West Coast dancing while the smaller “living room” opened up to the lindy hoppers.  This weekend, as per prior years, had amazing DJed music that kept the floor crowded late.  A number of jams broke out throughout the weekend (check out some footage on Rik’s blog) with some excellent dancers jumping in.

I was up early to volunteer at the entrance to the lindy hop classes, checking wrist bands, which was fine with me since I mostly sat there and sipped at my latte, greeting people as they came in.  The classes, although I didn’t get to partake of the rotation, were varied and packed with students.

Having made finals for the Strictly, Joanna and I met again to prep some material, particularly an aerial/lift I’ve wanted to try for a while.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get it to work but in the process created a whole new step that we did unveil in the finals that night.  The process of collaboration is something I will definitely touch on in further posts.

Competition in the Strictly was incredibly fierce and the crowd was wild for everyone.  It was probably one of the best competitions I have ever entered, the line of us swinging out at the end was amazing and every competitor brought their best to the floor.  Watch last years finals as part of the “Why the competition?” article.

The prelims for the Jack & Jills were in the afternoon and I got to watch many of my friends compete, some for the first time, which was great.  I competed in the prelims for the Adv. Jack & Jill and didn’t really expect to make it to finals, although I did manage somehow.

Saturday night was filled with great dancing after the competitions wrapped up, leaving the energy high and lots of people packed onto the dance floor.  I can’t even stress how wonderful the DJs were at keeping consistently good music playing and me on the floor till 6am when Peter Strom closed out the living room.

Sunday everyone was tired and you could tell during the Jack & Jill finals as the energy had dropped from the fervor of saturday night.  The Novice and Newcomer Jack & Jills had great music and the dancers and the crowd were into it.  Unfortunately, the music for the Adv. Jack & Jill finals didn’t inspire much and the dynamic was lost.  The rotation direction was also changed and some dedicated partners ended up together which worked against the intent of a Jack & Jill.

Most of the lindy hoppers went back to the living room after the finals where there was Westie music being played (even though the Westies were having their Jack & Jill finals then).  So Mike Thibault plugged in and spun the last two hours of DJed dancing for those who wanted to dance.

The award ceremonies closed out the weekend (results here) and I have to always say after this event that Sean Morris and Robert Royston are two of the best MC’s you could get for an event.  With many sad goodbyes to friends who I won’t see possibly till September, it was a wrap and people headed home.

The highlights for the weekend:

• Amazing DJ’s
• Invitational Crossover Jack & Jill
• Open Strictly Lindy Finals
• Seeing friends I haven’t seen since the fall

The lowpoints:

• Volunteering during the Invitational Strictly
• No video recording allowed (people should go the ULHS route or at least offer a digital downloads)
• Not having enough time with my friends
• Final divisions were too large (cut it down to 10 couples)

Overall, Boston Tea Party is one of the hottest events on the East Coast and some of the stiffest competition outside of ULHS.  It is on my calendar for next year.

Did you go to Boston Tea Party? What were your thoughts on the event?  Comment.