Tag Archives: dance

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Shim Sham Shimmy

I had to choose shim as my Ragtag Daily Prompt today because I am relearning the Shim Sham!

I learned it years ago, but forgot it. Now the dance group that I hang out with on Fridays does the Shim Sham as the end of their dance evening. This is a line dance but it’s a line dance from Harlem in the 1920s and 30s. It started from tap dance. “At the end of many performances, all of the musicians, singers, and dancers would get together on stage and do one last routine: the Shim Sham Shimmy.” Here.

I am learning it from this teaching tape. The individual moves are not that hard, but it is fast and it’s the transitions that I really have to work on. It is fast enough that it has to be memorized and automatic, I can’t think about the next step.

Frankie Manning was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing. I got to take lindy hop classes with him in the 1980s in the Washington, DC area, when swing and lindy hop were having a revival. It is still going on, and what better exercise is there than dance?

And the photograph is Jonathan Doyle and friends playing in late March 2023. I love dancing to live music!

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More dance

Now, here is some tricky twirling. The photograph was taken by Terry, in April 2023 at the Bishop Hotel. Tom had an injured ankle but we danced anyhow! I was very careful twirling because his balance was tricky, his foot was sticking out and I did not want to knock him over! I didn’t, and we both had a good time anyhow.

This is from March 31, 2023, right before the Swinging on the Sound dance weekend. Live band and lots of dancers warming up for the dance weekend.

My daughter called home from college at one point and said, “Mom! I love to TWIRL!” She was contra dancing and soon started swing dance and shag and other styles. I bought her dance shoes for her next back to school supplies. We bring shoes that we don’t wear outside, to protect the floors of old 1930s dance halls. We need leather or suede soles often so that we can twirl and slide!

Here is the band that Tom and I were dancing with: Jonathan Doyle and friend.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: twirl.

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Dance the night away

I chose the word hospice for the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. Last weekend I traveled back to Port Townsend to see my friend who is in hospice. She is doing well, but I wish she had more visitors. She has a brother in Alaska, but has always been a fairly solitary person. Maybe I mind more than she does. She said that I was too far away, but no other complaints.

Last night I went to a dance and danced my socks off. This was a fundraiser for the plane in the photograph and the Commemorative Air Force that flies it and takes care of it. And I can’t credit the photographer, one of the gentlemen of the Commemorative Air Force, many thanks!

Isn’t it a fabulous poster? And a live band in a hanger at the airport, two food trucks, classic car and the plane and dancing.

It is nice to be alive.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: hospice.

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Tongue twisters and counting rhymes

My mother taught us the tongue twisters that she learned growing up. My favorite is “the mistle thrush whistles in the thistle bush”. There are mistle thrushes in Europe but not in the United States. It is also found in temperate Asia and North Africa, here.

A counting rhyme that we learned is this:
“Intry mintry cutetry corn
Apple seed and apple thorn
Wire briar limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew east, one flew west
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest
Sit and sing, by the spring
One, two, three
Out goes he.”

Here is another version, from 1920: https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/74/nursery-rhymes-and-traditional-poems/5204/intery-mintery-cutery-corn/.

We also learned some of my grandfather’s songs. A piece of this one:

Only we learned it as “chop, chop” not clap, clap. It’s like a 1960s line dance, isn’t it? Shirley Ellis, 1965.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: whistle.

And here is a version with the clapping:

I would bet that there are way more elaborate versions of the clapping.

Before that, a song called Little Rubber Dolly was recorded in 1930.

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Dance!

I took this at the 2023 Swinging by the Sound Dance weekend in Port Townsend, Washington. This is the dance contest at the live band dance in the evening. The ballroom is at our American Legion Hall and has a fabulous floor to dance on. I was volunteering, since my lungs still were not up to that much dancing.

I do love to dance, though, and plan to for as long as I can. It helps with balance and reduces fall risk, too! My ex says it’s the most fun you can have with people standing up.

Jonathan Doyle led the band and they were and are fabulous.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: ballroom.

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Dance

Sometimes I am an extrovert
sometimes an introvert
we are all a mix
we all have preferences
which can change with time
and situations

I would go to parties
check the exits
and spend time studying the bookshelves
when I was tired of people
greeting familiar friends on the shelves
and knowing a little more
about my host

I start dancing
meet my spouse
we took dance classes
dance with lots of people
and invented moves
and taught each other

Dance takes balance
paying attention to a partner
sometimes we dance with someone new

Sometimes I am an extrovert
sometimes I am an introvert
and I almost always love to dance

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I took the photograph yesterday through my front window. A bird dance!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: extrovert.

We love to dance to this rather naughty song. It’s pretty extroverted!

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Names

Last night I go to the Cowboy Ball, replete with cupcakes. It is the kick off of our local county fair, which is in two weeks. There is an hour two-step lesson and then a really fun band. The crowd is very mixed. There are some people who can two step, though not very many. There are some people faking it. After a while there are people dancing six count swing or tango or salsa, but everyone waltzes when they play the waltzes. It’s not quite a polka.

One dance partner asks, “Are you the poet doctor?” I blink. “Yes,” I say, pleased. “Which open mike were you at?” “Disco Bay.” I have done four there in the last three months, three at the poetry open mike and one at a music open mike. I was assured that they want poets too at the latter. Ok, then. “And what do you play?” I ask, because it must have been the music open mike. “Drums.” He is with a band that I know. “When do you play again?” He wrinkles his forehead. “I’d have to check my calendar.” “Get back to me!” I say and he says, “Thanks.” All this while dancing. We are doing some two step, falling into swing whenever one of us messes up a step.

I am nicknamed the dancing doctor by the coffee stand at the Farmer’s Market. She writes that on my cup. They are right next to the outdoor “stage”. I try to lure small children out to dance, solo since they don’t know me. They are wonderfully free and fun when they do come out.

I am pretty thrilled to be the poet doctor! We will see if that sticks in this community.

The photograph is Simon Lynge and Janna Marit two weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market. And here is the coffee stand.


And look! The poster for the Cowboy Dance in the lower left!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: community.

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Happy

Happy

May Sarton writes of happiness, in the quiet at home.

I am so happy when I dance that I smile with joy.
I wonder about the Sufis spinning
and if it is the same.
The poetry has that joy
and anyone who calls God/Dess the Beloved
has my attention.
One who was almost a friend
would laugh with me at restaurants.
Twice strangers thank us for having so much fun.
say our laughter gives them joy.
Thinking about happiness,
I think of my son’s capacity for joy
and wonder where he got it.
Surprise: from me, I think.
From me.