Herräng 2007

Some social dance for a change. With Alexia in Rennes (North of France) during the Crep'Swing Festival. Then with Marleena in Herräng. On this last one you can probably tell how minimalist certain moves are. Two reasons for that: I like tiny little details, and I was really tired :). Both amazing followers!

Crep'Swing Festival 2007

Some of the performances of the workshop Rock Swing Boogie Rendez-vous which was held in Laguiole (Middle of France). There are two boogie woogie performances by Hélène & Allan, a slow and a fast one. The 'Nicy Nicy Charleston 20's' which I taught during the workshop (3 lessons, one hour each). By the way let me thank the participants! The charleston classes were early in the morning, the music pretty fast and the students had a lot on their mind with all the different lessons they took each day. Good job guys! Last but not least you have Tutti Frutti (Vincenzo&Isabella, Henric&Joanna) for a lindy hop performance. See you all next year in Laguiole!

We had some doubts concerning whether we could achieve this or not but we did it! And it was worth it! What?! To build a team routine by sending each others videos. We choreographed the first half with Sandrine in Toulouse (South west of France). Natasha & Olivier choreographed the second part in Nice (South east of France). A huge hello to Alice (from Montpellier) with whom I was supposed to dance but who got injured just before BarWingONA. Next time?? Also a huge thank you to Violetta (Russia) who replaced Alice at the last minute. Amazing job!

Choreographers: Sandrine & Jay (Part 1), Natasha & Olivier (Part 2).

Performers: Natasha & Olivier, Sandrine & Nicolas, Violetta & Jay, Géraldine & Fabrice.

Results: Team routine 2nd, BarSwingOna 2007 (Barcelona).

This is all the material we taught during this workshop. You definitely should have attend! We will do that again eventually but I can't tell you where or when, so stay tuned and visit this site again from time to time :op.

A little piece of social dance with Kevin St. Laurent during the 2007 Mini Crep'Swing (By the way you should all have attend!). I know there's just a few seconds but hey, better than nothing right? I am grateful to the person who thought about grabbing her camera and shoot the end of the dance :). For those who know me they know I like to spin, and for once I have a pretty clean one on tape, while dancing with Kevin. I am not gonna complain =). Thank you to allow me to host it on my website.

One thing true for the others can also be true for me :). I had a lot of comments during the last years concerning my very special way of following. I must say that I am pretty bad at it, but definitly with an attitude ;op. Once again, bad technic is not a style!

Here is the content of my beginner lindy hop class during this workshop. Thanks to Sandrine, we were able to shoot the whole thing in the end. Hope it'll help!!

Bonus: The performance of Sandrine&Nico. The music is 'Bounce Me Brother' from the Andrews Sisters.

A very good performance which underline the fact that bad technic is not a style (well, in my opinion at least :) . I wish I'll be able to upload more of these in the future! Thanks to Alexia & Nico who were kind enough to perform it several times so I can have nice shots. Any comment is more than welcome, you can send them to either Alexia or Nico. If you plan on insulting them you can also do that but don't expect an answer then :op.

1.0 version

2.0 version

What you need to know before watching this video: We actually never danced West Coast Swing, we never learnt it, we stole almost all these moves to other people that definitly know more about WCS than us... And yet we trained and performed! We're like that :). It is far from being perfect and you can see some mistakes here and there. The main idea was to produce something completly new and underground (at least for the french scene) and believe me we had a lot of fun doing so!! Last note: sticky floor = sucky slides :)

For WCS aficionados, you can flame this address: dontknowanythingaboutWCSbutworkingonit@jayswing.com

Ok the first time you watch this video you think "they suck!"... The second time you watch it... "hmmm, they still suck!"... Anyway Anne & Baptiste didn't know lindy hop before and this is how far we went in one evening! :) As we are proud of the accomplished work, we just want to share the result with you =). Thank you both guys for your commitment in the first 'One Night To Hop'!

.: Germany 2006 :.

All the things we did in Germany! First routine is just charleston moves. We work mostly on concepts so that you do not end up with one move but with a lot of options. The other routine was about musicality and how to use technic to hit specific beats in the music... Enjoy!

Bonus Ps: Some social dance/practice in addition :)

Here is what I taught in Norway, I hope it will help you remember what we accomplished :) If you want more stuff like that (Or other stuff too) just make me come back! It was really good for me working with you guys! By the way, if you didn't dance with Karine Sørby yet (From Oslo, Norway), you should! Amazing follower =))

I know I should have put this video online a long time ago but it took me ages to get it from a friend. Anyway, it's up now! Originally I made this routine for a "rhythm & moves" class, then I realised I liked it a lot so I figured I could use it as a solo performance. Ok you can not really tell about the "performance" aspect considering the lighting, the angle of shooting, and the 12 filters I had to use to make it "seeable" :) Hopefully I'll be able to up a better version.

Here are the videos (trailer as well as class content) of the workshop organized by houbaswing last October (2005). Unfortunately I do not have the level 2 video so if you have it or know someone who does send me an e-mail. Then I can find a way to put it online and share it with others!

Still I managed to produce some work-related stuff this summer. Here are the videos proving it. To all the people I said I'll put these videos online : TA DAAAAA! For the others, it's free, so just take 'em :) You'll find the balboa classes I taught during the Sea Sun & Swing camp (Montpellier, south of France, http://www.seasunswing.org/) and also the content of a lindy class from the Paris Lindy Exchange (Paris, north of France, http://www.parislindyexchange.com/). If I promised other videos, if they're still offline, if it's been more than two month, feel free to send me a "nice & gentle reminder note" at this address. It'll just mean that my natural laziness reached some interesting proportions =) (oh by the way, I hope you like my new "jungle style" scenery)

Here are the videos of the workshop which took place in Grenoble, June 18th. Thanks to Vinnie for the videos ! You can download the high quality version of each at this address http://www.grenobleswing.com). The floor was too sticky to slide so I apologize one more time for our "non-slidy" performance :-/

Here is my performance during the Jack'n'Jill Final of the 2005 Capitale Swing workshop. I was convinced I raised my leg up enough... Seems like I was wrong. I missed the hand of just an inch :) We ended up third with Delphine once again. Thanks to Frank for the video!

Here is my performance during the "2005 Balboa On The Promenade" Jack'n'Jill Final. I Placed third with Delphine. Enjoy !

I find this one awesome ! The Jack'n'Jill was over and the organiser made us dance for like a minute. I rarely switch parners while dancing bal... Just thought it was a good opportunity to start :)

Here are some reminders of the different classes I taught during the past few month. I hope you will find them useful!

Here is the full choreography of the Shim Sham (except the "social dance" part at the end because the music was over ;)

Here is the content of the 2005 Montpellier Swing Dance Festival beginner level. I think it is a good way to show people how far you go after 4H of lindy hop classes and assuming you never danced lindy hop before! I did not plan anything precise for this class so we took all the time we needed to complete each move :)

The concept of this taster was to teach three moves that can be either lead by the guy or by the lady, in both case the visual looks really similar. We perform it twice on the video with a basic swing out and a lindy circle as a transition. I lead the patterns the first time and follow them the second time.

We danced two "fast rounds". The first time the DJ made a mistake and played a 270-280 song. For those of you who are not familiar with this notation it means the number of beats per minutes and that's definitly a lot of them! If it still not clear how fast it can be, just play the video in the background and try to dance! Do I need to say that we were like dead after this "fast round"? :)

And here is the "real" fast music. I must say that I found it rather slow after what we have been through ;op I switched for sticky shoes before this last piece of music started because we had hard times keeping our balance during the previous round.

Slow round of 2005 Montpellier Swing Dance Festival Jack'n'Jill. I was really having fun and I hope you can tell seeing the video ! :)