The Portland Dance Eclectic YouTube

A great resource for dancers is YouTube. There are excellent videos of just about every different style of dancing. You can be inspired, motivated to learn, instructed, film yourself dancing and then upload the video. You can discover a form of dance you never heard of like Zouk or check out how they are dancing on the East Coast or what you favorite instructor is up to.

You don’t need another reason to spend hours surfing on the Internet when you could be dancing, so here is the Portland Dance Eclectic YouTube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/DanceEclecticPdx.  When I find something that might me of interest to the group, I will sometimes put it in a blog,  but all the time it will be posted on the channel. Let me know what interests you and feel free to suggest additions.

Check out Fred Astaire dancing the blues to a very nice version for St. James's Infirmary by Jonah Jones. The dancing is in the second half of the video. It is also an example of 50's TV cabaret skits that were common on shows then.

Another Taste of Tango - an example of alternative tango

We are fortunate in Portland to have a great tango community as well as two world class festivals. Going to the festival milongas (dances) can be an intimidating experience with so many experienced and accomplished dancers from around the country and world descending on Portland to dance obsessively at all hours, in many styles and numerous venues around Portland. It is also is inspiring to see how a dance and a community can grow and prosper in the 21^st century as an alternative to passive activities where we sit and are entertained by performers. What is it about tango that makes it so addicting, that it allows us to be entertained just by our participation? What can we take from the tango experience and use in other dancing? 

One characteristic is the way Tango focuses on creating a connection with your partner that is responsive to the particular musical moment.  Other dance genre seem to focus more on patterns and finding a rhythmic groove while tango focuses on developing a vocabulary that can create an expressive response to both the rhythm and melody. 

Here is a video Homer and Christina - dancers and instructors from San Francisco who are very familiar to the Portland tango community and who are excellent examples tango dancers in the alternative style. They are   dancing to a waltz by Ludovic Einaudi “The Days” that is around 130 bpm (the rhythm seems to fade away at times). This is a moderate tempo for waltz eclectic dancers and a very slow tempo for tango dancers. It is a performance dance by highly experienced dancers doing moves that took years to perfect, but the phasing that they are using as they dance primarily with the melody is an example being focus in the moment and on your partner. 

The first weekend in November we will be having a workshops and a dance that will provide a “Taste of Tango”  as well as dancing to some beautiful music from around the world. Details of the weekend are on the website. Hope to see you there.

Playlist Styles - Blues Eclectic

 Music affects dancers in  different ways. Some music is uplifting and inspires celebration and joyful expression. Some music is sensuous and inspires us to feel the music in the movement of our bodies. Some music is contemplative and brings us into the present moment with a zen-like focus. And some music is soulful, and pulls us down into our own sense of being human, of being an individual.

Over the years I have tried to put together playlists that focus each of these different musical styles. The waltz eclectic playlist which I play at brunches, balls and most Thursday nights tend to be uplifting. The latin eclectic (sensual) and tango eclectic (contemplative) playlists are still in their formative stages. I am beginning to slip a fe songs in on Thursday night and at Tango and Tapas dances. The playlist that I feel is the most developed and focused right now is for blues eclectic. It is soulful, it inspires movement that is innovated and individual. After an evening of being pulled down into dancing the varied moods of blues artists, I feel cleansed and, paradoxically, uplifted.

Below is the beginning of the playlist for Saturday night's Blues Eclectic dance. If the mood of the music interests you, come join us. If you have not blues danced before, Marjorie's beginners lesson will show you how to adapt the dancing you know to blues styling. I will also post has much of the playlist as I can on Spotify over the the next day or so.

Name	Artist	Genre
Death Came a Knockin' (Travelin' Shoes)	Ruthie Foster	Blues West Coast
Walk Away	Christina Aguilera	waltz blues
Temptation	Diana Krall	Blues stroll
Blue Prelude	Asylum Street Spankers	Blues slowtwostep
That's How Strong My Love Is	Taj Mahal	waltz blues
I Got the Blues	Brother Yusef	Blues West Coast
Algiers Hoodoo Woman	Dr. Michael White	Blues swing
Addicted	Gina Sicilia	Blues West Coast
Knockin' (edit)	Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestrii	Blues fasttwostep
Fireman's Lament	Firehouse Five Plus Two	Blues slowtwostep
Please, Mr. Jailer	Rachel Sweet	Blues West Coast
Still	The Jive Aces	Blues stroll
Fallin'	Alicia Keys	Blues sixeight
Wade In the Water	Logan Wells	Blues West Coast
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl	Nina Simone	Blues slowtwostep
Too Little, Too Late	Karen Lovely	Waltz medium
I'd Rather be a Blind Girl (edit)	Etta James	waltz blues
Nobody's Fault	Rising Appalachia	Blues stroll
Fumblin' With the Blues	Tom Waits	Blues West Coast
Blues 2.0	Fruteland Jackson	Blues stroll
Coffee	Papa Mali	Blues West Coast
St. Gabriel	Janiva Magness	waltz blues

 I will have more to say about this and other playlist styles in future blogs. And as always your feedback is much appreciated.

Nightclub Two Step with a taste of tango

Tango is a great dance and a great way to approach dancing. It allows you to dance expressively to the melody of a song; to sink deeply into the music and the connection with your partner. In my opinion it does not have to be done exclusively to tango music and only at tango milongas. Here is a video from a dance instructor pair from San Diego, who are primarily west coast swing, ballroom dancers, using tango with nightclub twostep to dance to a piece of new age music by Secret Garden. Ordinarily you would feel the music did not have a strong enough rhythm to be danceable. Tools learned from tango allow you to feel the structure of the dance in the melody of the piece.

We will have another “Taste of Tango and Tapas” in November. These dances are focused on music and dancing where tango can be combined with other forms of dancing in ways that are both expressive and playful.

Thanks to Don Harvey for finding the video.

Hugh Laurie, " Let Them Talk": Blues for dancing

A blues record by an English comedic actor?  In his own words “ Let this record show that I am a white, middle-class Englishman, openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American south.” 

After passing over it a couple times in iTunes, I spent some time listening to it and was pleasantly surprised. It is a great tribute to the New Orleans tradition of blues and includes covers of 15 standards. A large part of the success of the album can be attributed to producer, Joe Henry and an excellent band that includes such legendary artists such as Dr John, Irma Thomas and Tom Jones with horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint. Hugh Laurie does vocals and plays piano and guitar. His voice is a little thin on the vocals, yet he has a kind of an English actor's phrasing that gives the songs an “eclectic” flavor and makes you listen to the lyrics from a different perspective. I like that.

And it has some great songs for dancing.

 “Let Them Walk” is a blues waltz that has crossover possibilities. Its one of those waltzes where the tempo (150 bpm) does not match the energy of the song. (In a traditional rotary or Viennese style waltz, the tempo and energy mesh and invite a smooth, flowing style of dancing.) Because of this tension it offers other possibilities of using a variety of rhythms to dance to the emotion in the music. 

Other songs that invite dancing include:

“Battle of Jericho” -  A spiritual that is rousing two step. I love the arrangement on this one.

“St. James Infirmary”  -  The second half is a great blues/ west coast.

“Buddy Bolden’s Blues” and “Six Cold Feet” works nicely as slow blues.

Dancers will be hearing these songs at our dances. Let me know which ones you like. 

Check out the rest of the songs on Amazon:

 Let Them Talk

Dance Eclectic DJ Blog - A new start

The purpose of this blog is to open a dialogue between me as DJ and you the dancers of our community, and in so doing improve the quality of the music, the dancing and the overall experience of our events. In this blog, playlists of dances will be published, music of interest to dancers will be discussed, videos of dancing from places such as YouTube will be shared, and testimonial memoirs of our events will be presented. There will also be occasional musings about dancing, dance etiquette, and the dance culture in general as well as discussions generated from your feedback.

The transition to our new newsletter format is a good opportunity to begin a venture like this. I will attempt to update the blog with new content weekly and introduce the content in the weekly newsletter. Your feedback will be especially helpful in this endeavor.

FM to Spotify- the search for dance music

This has got be the golden age of the musical search. There are so many ways to find new music from small groups or distant cultures.

Over the last 15+ years of DJing for first zydeco/swing dances and then for waltz eclectic, the search for music has been one of my most enjoyable past times. Its something like the stamp collecting I did as a kid, finding the rare piece of music from some exotic culture to which you can actually dance. But when going back and pondering the changes that have occurred in my way of searching for music I am just amazed. No longer does one have to buy numerous CD’s or stick to the tried and true repertoire.

Here’s a timeline of how finding music and DJing as changed over the period.

1996 to 2000:  I would hear a song at dance and find the name of the song and “try” to remember it. Record stores like “Hear music” had booths where you could listen to music with headphones which make even mediocre music dance in your head.  So many CDs were bought this way and then rarely listened to again. Then there were FM radio stations, Rolling Stone’s and other magazines’ music reviews. However, while there were more sources for finding music , it was hit and miss with the music coming through cultural and commercial filters.

2000 to 2004: Then there was Google. The Internet opened up the world of music. Typing a few words in a box allowed one to find music from little known artists, to see what DJs from the East coast or Europe where playing and maybe even hear a 20 second snippet of a song. This explosion of accessibility to different music is what allows me to really be “eclectic” in my playlists.

2005 to 2010: Along came iTunes and YouTube.  Typing words in a box was easy but one still needed to find the words. With iTunes finding music became a purely surfing activity allowing me to ride a rhythm of clicks from one artist to the next, listening to samples of music and discovering artists I had never heard of. With YouTube, one could search for dancers and actually hear what they were dancing to. The music discovered through these venues was available to buy with additional advantage of being able to buy just the songs off a CD that were of interest.

The present:  Music from all around the world is now available to everyone and the unique character of that music has not yet fused into a world blend like a MacDonald’s restaurant but still represents the indigenous values and visions of local cultures.  In addition, Itunes and YouTube have been improved and they have a lot of competition. You can now listen to a whole or at least most of a song before you buy it instead of just a sample.

At present my preferred sources for music are:
1. First and foremost, suggestions from dancers in our community. Keep them coming.
2. I still use Google to search forums, artists and other DJ playlists.
3. Online music distributors. I use iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Calabash (for world music) and Spotify.

My current favorite is Spotify. It’s a music streaming service that was developed in Europe and therefore has a strong representation of European and world music. It allows for the creation of playlists that can be streamed through your computer consisting of any music that is on their service. This means I can listen to whole songs numerous times before I decide to buy that song (elsewhere) and play it at a dance. Playlists can also be published that other subscribers can listen to. If anyone would like to subscribe to my playlists and hear music I am evaluating for possible play at a coming dance. I would like to get your feedback. Subscriptions range from free (you need to be invited) to $5 or $10/mo for paid subscriptions. If you would like an invitation, email me.  I only have a few left, so first emails get them.

Lastly I would like to thank the community of dancers who come to our events for allowing me to turn an activity that could easily be seen as a collector’s addiction, into a craft where the end product is the vision of dancers participating in the joy of music.

Playlist for 2011 Black and White Ball

Title	Artist	Genre
As Much As You Lead	Lex Land	waltz slow
Welcome to Mystery	Plain White T's	Waltz medium
Clear Blue Eyes (Feat. Lucinda Williams)	Amos Lee	Waltz medium
Diddy Wah Diddy	Taj Mahal	Blues West Coast
Call It A Night	KGB	waltz slow
Le festin	Camille	Waltz medium
Hesitation Blues	Asylum Street Spankers	Swing EC slow
Dreaming My Dreams	The Cranberries	waltz slow
Good Man	Raphael Saadiq	Night Club Two Step
Les 'Tites Yeaux Noirs	Jambalaya Cajun Band	waltz cajun
Ring My Bells	Enrique Iglesias	Swing west coast
In Gods Hands	Nelly Furtado	waltz fast
sweet_pea	Amos Lee	Swing EC slow
Moon Waltz	Yesh Gvul	Waltz medium
Siempre Me Quadana	Bebe	Night Club Two Step
One More Ride on the Merry Go Round	Jane Olivor	waltz fast
Summertime Ft. Chick Corea	The Jive Aces	Swing EC slow
Wishful Thinking	Rupa & the April Fishes	waltz slow
Cheek to Cheek	Max Raabe & Palast Orchester	Fox trot
Flightless Bird, American Mouth	Iron & Wine	Waltz medium
Crabbuckit [Canada]	k-os	Swing EC fast
Das schlechte gewissen	Annett Louisan	Waltz medium
Fever	Elvis Presley	Swing EC slow
Yumeji's Theme	Shigeru Umebayashi	waltz slow
In These Shoes?	Bette Midler	Cha cha
Nara	E.S. Posthumus	waltz fast
Fenkoro	Smod	World twostep
Beauty in Walking Away	Marie Digby	Waltz medium
Rolling in the Deep	Adele	Blues West Coast
When You Taught Me How To Dance	Katie Melua	Waltz medium
Up A Lazy River	The Jive Aces	Swing Lindy
La Dispute	Yann Tiersen	waltz slow
When You're Smiling (Bonus Track)	Leftover Cuties	Swing EC fast
Erin Shore	The Corrs	waltz fast
What A Wonderful World (3m 58s)	Jive Aces	Night Club Two Step
Il pleut sous la mer	rene aubry	Waltz medium
Original Charleston	Max Raabe & Palast Orchester	Swing EC fast
Il vecchio e il bambino	Carla Bruni	waltz fast
Moonshine	Fran Healy	Blues West Coast
Angel	Sarah McLachlan	waltz slow
Marvin & Miles	Gare Du Nord	Blues West Coast
I'd Rather be a Blind Girl (edit)	Etta James	waltz blues
Dark Sunshine	Dr. Michael White	Blues swing
Stop (edit)	Sheryl Crow	waltz slow
Sunny Side Of The Street	Rod Stewart	Fox trot
we are all in the dance	Feist	waltz slow
Let's never stop falling in love	Pink Martini	Cha cha
Turning (Instrumental)	Suzanne Ciani	waltz slow
Esperanza	Enrique Iglesias	Night Club Two Step
Nothing Else Matters	Apocalyptica	Waltz medium
La Camisa Negra	Juanes	mambo
Joyeuse espièglerie	Marimuz	waltz slow

Dancing as a Language

Music is a language. To those who are not fluet in this music, the conversations are of the musician are magical expressions of feeling and dream like images that amaze us. Like a spoken language, music as a lnaguage consists of a vocabulary and grammar that is internalized to an extent that it becomes a second nature. The language becomes like an ocean that musicians are fully immersed in and give no thought to as they move through their currents of musical expression.

Dancing is in many respects a dialect of this musical language that speaks to and converses with the bodies of those who understand its form. There is a vocabulary of steps that relate to there musical counterparts. In its simplest level it consists of:

1. a one step that steps on each beat.

2. a two step that changes weight twice on each beat

3. triplets that have three steps per every two beats i.e. one and two

4. hestitions movements that rests with the music.

The grammar of a dancing language in its simplest form is how these steps are related to the phasing in the musics. Which parts of the steps are accented. How the steps are combined into rhtyhms that move and stop with the phasing in the music.

The dialect of the language relates to where in the body the movement starts from, how the music moves the body, what part of body does the music move. The dialect is the style of the dance, the look it outw

Playlist for 2009 Winter Ball

Name Artist Genre Album Flambee Montalbanese Madeleine Peyroux waltz fast Vámonos Concha Buika Waltz medium El Último Trago Been Up So Long Joe Purdy waltz medium Last Clock On the Wall Through the Fire Lina Swing west coast Morning Star La Javanese Madeleine Peyroux waltz slow Shave Em Dry Asylum Street Spankers Swing EC slow Spanks For The Memories No Me Preguntes Mas Yuridia Waltz medium Nada Es de Color de Rosa 2009 4 And 20 Joss Stone Blues 6/8 Colour Me Free! I'd Rather Go Blind (edit) Earl Thomas waltz blues Soul'd I'm Alone Because I Love You Preservation Hall Hot 4 Swing EC slow St. Peter Street Serenade A Daisy In December Mick McAuley And Winifred Horan waltz slow Serenade Don't Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down Eric Bibb, Rory Block & Maria Muldaur Blues one step Sisters & Brothers Slow Movin' Outlaw (With Lacy J. Dalton) Willie Nelson waltz slow Revolutions Of Time...The Journey (Sojourn) Esperanza Enrique Iglesias Night Club Two Step The best of Enriqeu Iglesias Eilean Beag Donn A'Chuain Mary Lea And Friends Waltz medium Gypsy Wine Complicated Life Preservation Hall Hot 4 Swing EC slow I Feel Like I've Seen You Before Boulder Acoustic Society waltz slow Punchline Mercy duffy Swing west coast Floras Secret Enya Waltz medium A Day Without Rain If I Had You The Boilermaker Jazz Band Swing EC slow Panama Soon We'll Be Found Sia Waltz medium Make You Feel My Love Maria Muldaur Night Club Two Step Heart of Mine LOve songs of Bob Dylan As Much As You Lead Lex Land waltz slow Orange Days On Lemon Street Soledad Concha Buika Cha cha El Último Trago Stupid Sarah McLachlan waltz fast Afterglow Ring My Bells Enrique Iglesias Swing west coast Insomniac Syrup & Honey duffy Waltz medium I'm Broken Hearted Earl Thomas Blues West Coast Forty Shades of Blue Tell It To Me Tom Waits Waltz medium Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards And Then You're Gone Pink Martini Cha cha Splendor in the Grass One More Ride on the Merry Go Round Jane Olivor waltz fast One Flight Down Norah Jones Night Club Two Step Le festin Camille Waltz medium La Paga Juanes Salsa Un Dia Normal Joyeuse espièglerie Marimuz waltz slow Esperanto sweet pea Amos Lee Swing EC slow En el último trago Concha Buika Waltz medium El Último Trago I'm Lazy, That's All Catherine Russell Fox trot Mingalay Kris Delmhorst Waltz medium Songs for a Hurricane Life Boat Miranda Lee Richards Night Club Two Step Light Of X Jeux d'Eau Cirque Du Soleil waltz slow Waltz A to Z Four or Five Times (Gay-Hellman) Joe Williams Swing lindy For Dancers Only! (A Lindy Hop Compilation) Dance Me to the End of Love with Jerry Yester Eric Bibb waltz blues Friends Waltz(1) Eric Bibb Waltz medium

Playlist from Jan. 18, 2009 Waltz Brunch

I am posting a portion of the playlist from the Jan 18 Waltz Eclectic Brunch with links to Amazon for those interested in downloading any of the music. The brunch playlist is pretty typical of the music we have been playing over the last several months. For the those of you who are reading this and not familar with Waltz Eclectic, we are a group that dances to a wide variety of music with the waltz being a focal point. Think of one of our dances as having the variety of a ballroom dance with the dance rhythms that include blues, various styles and tempos of waltz, swing, two steps plus some latin, a polka and some tangoable music thrown in. Hope you enjoy the music. I will post playlists on a somewhat regular basis.

Name	Artist	Genre	Album	BPM
When winter comes	Chris De Burgh	waltz slow		117
Late Night Swing	Casey MacGill & The Spirits of Rhythm	Swing EC slow	Jump	134
Sweet Forgiveness	Susan Tedeschi	waltz blues	Hope And Desire	138
Crazy Love	Emiliana Torrini	Night Club Two Step	Croucie d´oú lá	72
Lucky Penny	Larry Unger & Ginny Snowe	Waltz medium	Waltz Time II	129
Mar Desconocido	Pink Martini	waltz fast	Hey Eugene!	160
Its Alright	Seal	Blues West Coast	Soul	112
Les 'Tites Yeaux Noirs	Jambalaya Cajun Band	waltz cajun	C'est Fun!	120
Deep In a Dream	Catherine Russell	Night Club Two Step		69.4
Si Volvieras A Mi	Josh Groban	Waltz medium	Closer	130
Up A Lazy River	The Jive Aces	Swing Lindy	Recipe For Rhythm	126
More Than You Should Know	Annett Louisan	waltz slow	Teilzeithippie	115
Il vecchio e il bambino	Carla Bruni	waltz fast	Comme si de rien n'était	153
Knock On Wood	Seal	Swing west coast	Soul	117
Capriccio Irreale	Mary Lea and Friends	Waltz medium	Between Two Worlds	147
Mariposa en Havana)	Si*Se	Rhumba	Latin Lounge	97
It Makes No Difference	Lizz Wright	waltz blues	The Orchard	136
Richland Woman Blues	Maria Muldaur	Blues swing		132
Junk	Sara Gazarek	waltz slow	Return To You	117
I Idolize You	Lizz Wright	Blues slow2step		68
Never-Ending Road (Amhrán Duit)	Loreena McKennitt	Waltz medium		128
Wish I Didn't Miss You	Angie Stone	Swing west coast	Mahogany Soul	125
Angel	Sarah McLachlan	waltz slow	Surfacing	120
Erin Shore	The Corrs	waltz fast	Forgiven Not Forgotten	154
Shout, Sister, Shout!	Maria Muldaur, Marcia Ball, Angela Strehli, Tracy Nelson	Blues swing	Shout, Sister, Shout: A Tribute To Sister Rosetta Tharpe	141
Its A Mans Mans Mans World	Seal	waltz blues	Soul
The Closest Thing To Crazy	Katie Melua	Night Club Two Step		70
Das schlechte gewissen	Annett Louisan	waltz fast	Teilzeithippie	160
Love That Girl	Raphael Saadiq	Swing west coast	The Way I See It	124
Love Is The End (edit1)	Keane	waltz slow		120
La mar⁄e haute	Lhasa	waltz fast	The living Road	160
Real Emotions	Los Lonely Boys	Cha cha	Los Lonely Boys	123
The Light Was Worth The Candle	Eric Bibb	waltz blues	Painting Signs	127