I was at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on Sunday for Symphony Ballroom. A friend bought the tickets in bulk last summer, and I’m pretty sure I just agreed to something dancing-related, without knowing the full details - I turned up with little clue as to what I’d be watching. It turned out to be the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra playing tunes from the 30s/40s/50s, sometimes accompanying ballroom and latin dancers. And it was good fun.

It was my first visit to the Symphony Hall¹ and it’s quite the venue. I generally see professional dancers in large, boring rooms², so it had a strikingly different atmosphere. I was mildly concerned when I realised the show was as much orchestra as dancing, just because sitting still and listening to music usually makes me antsy. Also, big band stuff isn’t particularly my kind of music - I don’t mind it, but it doesn’t do much for me - and I briefly wondered if I’d need to fake not being bored. But it wasn’t a problem: the music was fine, and it turns out that orchestras are pretty visually interesting. I’d never seen a full-size orchestra before, and I don’t know all that much about instruments, so it was a surprising amount of fun working out where all the noises were coming from.

A Grey Haired Old Chap was playing the harp, which is weird as I thought you had to be a young lady to learn that instrument, but I liked him as he looked cheery. Some didn’t. In fact, some looked miserable as sin. Man On Large Drums played, we think, twice, both times for about ten seconds, and spent the rest of the time glowering and possibly plotting ways to lure small animals into his custom-built Shed of Death. Also, there was a Man With Sticks. Just two sticks, which he hit together like I used to in ‘the percussion section’ at school. I have to give him credit as the irregular rhythms were off the beat and did actually sound rather difficult, but the sight of a Man With Sticks reading music is intrinsically funny, and I couldn’t help smiling.

You’d expect professional dancers to put on a good show, but their performances were particularly impressive due to the lack of space. The stage in front of the orchestra was wide but extremely shallow - there were perhaps three strides between the conductor and the edge - yet Anton and Erin somehow pulled off a Viennese Waltz, amongst many others. The Latin couple were last minute replacements for Ian and Camilla and did a good job despite looking rather nervous. Their paso doble was great fun.

I never used to enjoy watching ballroom. The latin was fun and entertaining, but the ballroom impressive yet false - fixed smiles and set routines left a robotic impression on me. I remember describing latin as ‘every couple trying to be different’ and ballroom as ‘every couple trying to be the same’. It was always much more fun to do than to watch. But in the last year I’ve learnt much more technique, and at some point the concept of grace clicked. I now seem to ‘get’ the flow and beauty of the ballroom dances, and I react emotionally rather than just intellectually. Technically speaking, I can also now see how the professionals are doing the same things as me, just a thousand times better. It’s difficult to pick up technique tips from tv demonstrations due to rapidly changing angles, so a live demonstration was great. The footwork was too fast, but the overall stance and floorcraft was understandable. Given the reactions of the crowd, I could certainly do worse than emulate Anton du Beke

It was a good afternoon. During the interval I recognised somebody from photos I’d seen on their blog, which is the first time that’s ever happened. I said hi, hopefully without sounding too odd, and they turned out to be very friendly³. I think the show was only on for a couple of days, and isn’t touring or anything, and I’m glad I was able to see it. Interesting and entertaining in lots of ways, especially for people unfamiliar with live orchestras.

1. I asked my guitar teacher if he’d been, and he casually replied that he’d “played there once or twice” [↩]
2. Strictly excluded - you don’t get much more bling than that [↩]
3. natch - haven’t found an unfriendly blogger yet [↩]

We bought Guitar Hero III for a friend this Christmas. Mistake. Should have gone for Dancing With The Stars:

Is it bad that I quite want it? Unfortunately it’s apparently not up to much:

While you’re moving your hands around, your couple will be dancing up a storm, doing their best to impress the judges. This is where one of the biggest faults of this game appears: namely the complete and total disconnect between your motions and the actions of your couple. While you’re going through the motions, your couple will dance impeccably, regardless of how poorly or how well you’re hitting all your moves. In fact, putting the Wiimote and nunchuck down and not doing a blasted thing while the song plays results in your couple having the time of their lives with the only indication that you’re not doing so well being the boos of the crowd and the disgusted looks of the judges.

Shame - the risk of ‘doing a Matt’ would be an incentive. There’s doesn’t seem to be any real element of competition either. But:

herein lies the hidden fun of Dancing with the Stars, however — in a group, it’s both fun and hilarious. Like any other rhythm game that gets you off the couch, Dancing with the Stars becomes exponentially more fun the more people you have around. What’s more, since it’s user-friendly and features something a lot of people know about (celebrities and music), it probably won’t be too hard to rope family members and non-gamers into the swing of things

Hmmm, his birthday’s coming up.

We went to an intermediate jive class on Monday. It wasn’t our usual venue, but I admit to being fairly confident about my ability to keep up, as the jive has generally come fairly naturally over the past few years.

Ha.

They used a different timing. Where we go quick-and-quick quick-and-quick quick quick, they go slow slow quick quick. It was like a different bloody dance. Lynsey adapted without a problem. I was pitiful.

The thing about getting to an intermediate dancing level is that you begin to do things automatically: muscle memory takes over and you can even forget what comes next then find yourself doing it anyway. This leaves you free to concentrate on arm movements etc.. Which is what we did. Except I couldn’t concentrate on steps and arms simultaneously. I got a bit pissed off before realising this was pathetic. Sorry, Lynsey!

I’ve been practicing around the kitchen. Don’t want to make a fool of myself again next week. The bright side is I won six lessons for me and a partner in a competition last year, so it’s not costing us anything.

Meanwhile, here is what jive looks like done properly:

See look, they go quick-and-quick quick-and-quick quick quick.

I am going mental for the dancing. Lynsey and I will have been learning for three years next month, and it’s starting to feel graceful for minutes at a time, rather than just occasional moves. The waltz is probably the best for this, although the quickstep is getting there. Then, at the recent Christmas Ball we managed to complete a foxtrot without stopping. I cannot emphasise enough how big an achievement this was The foxtrot has been our nemesis for a long time, and to do it ok and feel vaguely elegant at the same time was fantastic.

We’ve been greatly helped by starting private lessons, which we began after my university course began in October. Getting to London just wasn’t compatible with a dance class the night before - catching a train at 2130 wasn’t great as we had to leave the class after only 25 minutes, and I then ended up walking down deserted high streets at gone midnight. Didn’t like that very much. So after a few weeks we decided to go for private lessons instead, this time on a Tuesday. It was a shame to leave the group of people we’d been with for so long, but there wasn’t much choice.

As it happens, the Thursday class has now pretty much folded. A bunch of people left after it became obvious the rest of the group wanted to hone existing moves rather than learn anything new, and most of them were only turning up one week in three anyway. We got out at the best time, I think.

The lessons are obviously better than a private class, as we get one-to-one help. Our every move is dissected. Shoulders down. Move with the waist, not the legs. Look up. Etc. It’s sometimes tough, but you improve quickly Also, we’ve progressed more in a couple of months than we did in a year at the class. We can pick up new moves fairly easily, and it’s nice to be able to set our own pace.

The only thing that’s missing is a practice session. The hour’s tuition is good, but we tend to stick to one or two dances. At the class we’d get a chance to practice all seven (don’t really go for the Paso Doble, sadly) every week in a general music session after teaching, but now it can be a long time before we get around to our weaker ones. At the most recent ball I did the Samba entirely from muscle memory. We’ve found a few Saturday-evening dances, which should help (if I’m around) and there are rumours of adding a practice hour to Tuesday nights. That’d be perfect.

We’re starting a six-week intermediate jive class tomorrow. It’s half an hour’s drive away, but I won a competition so the lessons are all free. Should be great. The jive is my favourite of all the dances, and definitely the best exercise. The DJ at the Christmas Ball tried to kill me by playing two jives, followed by a 4.5 minute Viennese Waltz. I confess I had to have sixty seconds rest between the two, but a 3.5min Viennese Waltz isn’t too shabby.

Dancing is totally unlike anything else I do, and I love it. I never expected to be this enthusiastic, but I want to work on the medals too. Happy to progress until we hit the stage where fake tan is necessary, anyway.

Definitely the closest final yet. I thought they were neck and neck after the first half, so it was really down to the show dances. Matt’s was probably technically better, but it just didn’t do much for me - the style of the music and costume was good, but it didn’t have the extra spectacle I wanted from a show dance. Alesha’s was, to be fair, a little messy once or twice¹, and I suspect the final lift went wrong, but I still preferred the powerful performance and style overall. It’s just a shame she didn’t completely blow everybody away with a Darren & Lilia / Mark & Karen style final dance, though, and I’m sure she could have. I can see how you could argue the other way based on tonight’s show only, but imho there’s no doubt that talent-wise Alesha was the fair winner.

No more proper Strictly for 9 months. What am I going to talk to people about now?!

Update: I take it back. Just watched the show dances again (shut up) and Alesha’s messiness was mostly camera angles - what looked like an imbalance was just the supporting arm while the other was hidden from view (directing such things must be a nightmare). Not spot-on perfect, but better than I thought; still not sure about the final lift though. Somebody pointed out that Matt didn’t move much in his, which is true but a bit mean - he was still pretty damn sharp. Would that I were that good. Am in the mood for dancing now. Shame it’s 2320.

1. although the camera angle can trick you in this regard - I didn’t think the earlier ballroom dances were shown to their best effect [↩]

Is exciting. The last two finals have been edge-of-the-seat stuff, and a highlight of my Christmas break. I’m not sure tonight’s will be quite so tense - Alesha is ‘Manchester United’ to Matt’s ‘Watford’ according to the head judge, and it’s hard to disagree - but anything can happen on the night (muppetgate!) and it’ll be easy to get caught up in it.

Should be spectacular entertainment, too: they’re both performing five dances - five! - but it’ll likely come down to the show dances, always difficult to enjoy on first viewing as your heart’s in your throat hoping they don’t make a mistake.

I don’t want it to be over, though - with the results show on a Sunday I’ve had a Strictly fix (not to mention Claudia) every day since October. January may be bleak.

I’ve been watching Strictly for four years, and despite dancing myself I’ve rarely been particularly emotionally affected by routines on the show. Sure, I’ve really liked some and disliked others, but there’ve only been two that have sent shivers down my spine. One I was in the audience for: Mark and Karen’s salsa from last series. The second was their Argentine Tango a few weeks later. But nothing else really got to me until today. Gethin’s jive came close, but Alesha and Matt’s Viennese Waltz was just astonishing:

If you don’t want to watch the preamble you can start playing, then pause and skip to 1:40ish once it’s downloaded.

YouTube mangles the quality somewhat, but the essence is there. I’ve seen it a few times now, and it’s got me each time. Here’s Gethin’s jive, for good measure (skip to about 2:30):

So yesterday’s plan to stay in all day reading Harry Potter didn’t go as planned. Stratford had a little rain overnight:

Here’s a before/after of the basin:

which is pretty bad, but further downstream it was crazy:

Not being one of the people who has to clear up, I found it very interesting. Plenty of kids, and some families, were having a great time splashing through the water on the main street, and the residents walking from their houses in wellies seemed in good spirits. These lads asked if I’d take their picture:

I emailed them a copy, although the initial address bounced back and I guessed at a correction, so hopefully they received it…I was also impressed by and jealous of this couple:

A passing child asked its mother why this was happening. The mother replied that it’s the kind of thing that happens after people have had too much to drink. Which might be true, although I prefer to think they were just having fun, but nevertheless they could actually dance. The cha-cha, unless I was mistaken. A salsa, I’m told. Isn’t that lovely? It was the best thing I saw all day

The BBC and various other organisations were filming, and there were crowds everywhere. I saw a canoeist set sail from the bandstand in the centre of town and finish a mile or so downriver.

Today the waters had receded from the main street, but parts of the basin and most of the far side of the river was still pretty bad:

and they were pumping out the Swan Theatre. My uncle lived here for ten(?) years and said he’d never seen the theatre flooded. I bet nobody thought it’d happen in July. Thankfully the waters didn’t quite make it to the Courtyard Theatre, so the RSC hasn’t had to close down completely¹. It hasn’t rained in the past 36hours that I’ve noticed, so hopefully the worst is over. The entire set of pics is here.

1. the main RST is closed until 2010; the Swan Theatre is in the same building, hence the flooding [↩]

A while ago I decided to start entering competitions. Nothing long-winded or complex, just the two-minute jobbies I get in my email every day. Any kind of competition that requires sending an email, or clicking through to a site and answering a question / filling in a survey etc., I enter. I get enough spam that much more won’t cause any hassle, and I use Gmail’s monkeys+whatever@gmail.com formatting so I can see exactly who’s been selling my address on.

Today I won six free dance lessons for me and a partner! Not at my local class (which might not last much longer, but more about that some other time), but at a Worcester school who run regular six-week courses. It’s where I learned the American Smooth and Argentine Tango. I’m not sure what I’ll do yet - I might hang on for an advanced jive - but there’ll be plenty to choose from. Great stuff!

On Saturday morning a group of us headed over to the Hay Festival. Originally only two of us were planning to go, but we’d been explaining its literary nature the night before, and at breakfast a few others asked if they could join us. The Hay Festival is a week-long event, run by the Guardian, at which authors and thinkers debate, lecture and engage with anybody who wants to come along. I’d never actually been before, and was looking forward to it. Hay-on-Wye turned out to be further away than I’d anticipated, and after a lengthy journey via the sat-nav’s favourite country lanes we parked in the wrong car park and walked up to the festival site.

It was a gloriously sunny day, and we wandered beneath the tents. While the others bought “sheeps’ milk” ice cream I wandered into the official bookshop, and looked up to see Neil Gaiman:

He’s one of my favourite authors, and for a few moments I hovered in front of a woman I later realised was Anne Fine, and took a couple of pictures. I had Fragile Things in my bag, and made to join the signing queue, but a lady ahead of me was turned away as they’d closed the line. She was most annoyed, wanting to know why. I wasn’t, strangely. It would have been cool to get something signed, and I even had something not-too-stupid to say - I was going to wish him luck with his new dog - but I didn’t mind not being able to say hi. Maybe I’m not as dazzled by celebrity as I used to be.

I think the Hay festival isn’t designed to be something you just turn up to. There’s a huge amount going on, but most of it is scheduled and ticketed, and the most interesting things were sold out well in advance. I’ll certainly go again next year, but shall plan ahead. We walked around the stalls for a while, and just before lunch caught the shuttle bus into Hay.

This is an incredibly obvious thing to say, but there really are a lot of bookshops in Hay-on-Wye. I can’t understand how I’ve never been before. I’ve also no idea how they all stay in business. One in particular was enormous, and I nearly got lost upstairs. Every aisle looked like this:

It was too much, actually. I could easily spend ten minutes going through the contents of an individual shelf, and spend days in there without realising. I’ll have to go back with Abi. None of the bookshops we visited had any comics or graphic novels, strangely. I wonder whether it’s because they’re too niche, and keeping a decent stock would require a reasonably detailed knowledge of a subject your average book lover doesn’t find interesting…I can’t think it’s a snobby thing.

The town itself was decked out in bunting, and it was a lovely day to walk around. Despite numerous warnings from Lynsey, I got sunburnt. No excuse.

We had some good times dancing, too. It’s rare to have a ballroom not in the basement, and it was nice to dance in the evening sunlight:

On Sunday we drove home via Ross-on-Wye, complete with steampunk fish and enormous houses, and Ledbury with Mrs Muffins and happy dogs. I also drove into this particularly evil bit of kerb:

on my new-last-week tyre. Whoops.

But the best thing I saw all weekend was the people who ran to Harry’s side on Saturday night. Although ultimately unsuccessful, they knew what to do and didn’t hesitate. I was barely aware what was happening, and they were already working. They’d undoubtedly deny it was brave, but anybody who has the ability and presence of mind to react and help in such situations has my full admiration.

Not a weekend I’d want to repeat, but there were good times too.

The dancing weekend had some great highs, and one sad, horrible low, when on Saturday night the other group’s teacher collapsed on the dancefloor. Despite strenuous efforts from dancers with medical training, he died shortly afterwards. The following isn’t particularly pleasant reading and I’ll hide it from the front page.

Continue reading ‘Symonds Yat dance weekend - the (very) bad’

I’m back from the dancing weekend, but, as you might have seen on the twitter updates, it ended abruptly and sadly when one of my fellow dancers passed away. I’ve written it up, but want to re-read it in the morning to check it’s ok and appropriate. I didn’t sleep much last night - hopefully tonight will be easier.

My to-read pile is teetering perilously. It’s all because of Neal Stephenson’s excellent but enormous Quicksilver, which I’m now into the third month of reading. It’s the first in a trilogy of similarly-sized titles, too. I’m going away this afternoon, and taking it, Fragile Things, Scott McCloud’s amazing Understanding Comics, and the latest Steampunk magazine. Waiting at home are many books borrowed, stolen and given as birthday presents. It’s all good, I just want to read them right now.

This afternoon I’m heading to a dancing weekend in Symonds Yat, and on Saturday we’ll pop over to the nearby Hay Festival. I’ve just discovered that Neil Gaiman is going to be around, so might have to leave a Sandman graphic novel in the car just in case he’s signing. Incidentally, I’ve decided it’s stupid to wait until I can afford pristine new copies of the Sandman books - what do I want to do, read the story or look at the shininess on the shelf? - so am bidding for the cheapest, most battered eBay copies, as well as finding out which ones my local library can supply.

Best get packing. The last two dance weekends have seen me running around like a chickenless head after unexpected events ate up my morning, and I’m hoping for this to be slightly more relaxed…I fully expect a computer crisis to develop in the next half hour. We’ll see.

That went smoothly. Weird. I expect something to catch fire any moment. I struggled to remove the ninja, but my only real mistake was somehow downloading the latest 300mb AutoPatcher in Polish. Whoops. Once the main programs are up and running I’ll plug in the webcam / card reader and leave the computer running overnight. If it’s still going in the morning I shall perform the happy happy dance of the geek. Napoleon Dynamite has nothing on me.

After the initial Windows setup I installed Kubuntu to a separate partition, and the first thing I did was go into System Settings and configure the monitor and resolution. It asked for a restart, then came back with mangled fonts and a completely broken interface - anything I tried to open crashed immediately, including System Settings. I booted with the ‘recovery’ option and ended up at a prompt, which isn’t much use for novices like me. So that was a short-lived experiment. I’m sure it’s worth persevering with, but if the supposedly most user-friendly Linux distro ever is this persnickety I might wait a few more years.

I had a 400-word writeup published in the Midland Amateur Dance Club magazine this week. Unfortunately copies are only available to members (I’m not one), and it’s not online. So I could be making this up, and nobody would ever know. Having said that, everything I write here could be made up and nobody would ever know. I once held a tarantula.