Polyball 2009

DSCN4446, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

A year ago I went to the Polyball for the first time. I didn’t know many people here in Zürich at the time, so I went alone. I quickly found the salsa dance floor and started dancing with an energetic girl named Elisa. She and I danced many dances together and exchanged numbers before the end of the evening. We’ve kept in touch in the past year, but hadn’t managed to go dancing again because she lives in Ticino and is in Zürich only occasionally.

This year I went to the ball with Lilian and Daniela, two lovely women I met at Linea Salsa almost exactly a year ago, one week after last year’s Polyball. As last year, I gravitated toward the Latin music. I danced a couple of dances with Lilian and Daniela. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw someone waving to me. As luck would have it, Elisa—the girl from last year’s Polyball—was about two meters away from us! It’s a small world indeed.

I introduced Elisa and her friends to my friends, and we hung out together for most of the rest of the night, dancing disco, swing, and even a few Viennese waltzes. Throughout the evening, I also ran into many other people I know, including several colleagues and folks from the rowing club. It was a really fun party, and we left only around 4:30 in the morning. I am already looking forward to next year’s Polyball!

Lindy hop dancing by the lake

_MAL9353.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The weekend concluded with one more fun coincidence. Almost exactly one year ago, I bumped into fellow Lindy hop dancer Lee on the subway when I was heading home after an afternoon of rock climbing. I ended up tagging along with her to an outdoor pavilion by a little lake near the university, where a gang of folks had assembled to picnic and dance in the evening sunlight.

Well yesterday, the same thing happened again.

On my way back home from the extended brunch, I sat across from a girl who looked quite familiar. After exchanging a few inquisitive glances, I asked her how we knew each other. "Lindy hop," she said. She reminded me of her name, Jenny, and we got to talking. I learned with amusement that she and her friend Jonna were on their way to the same dance place in Stora Skuggan that I'd been two one year before. As I did last year, I decided to tag along.

I saw lots of folks I knew, including Lee, my friend from last year, and Lasse, a fellow photographer who often takes photos of Lindy hop dancing in Stockholm. Jenny's friend Jonna is also a photographer. She had her D80 with her and took a few photos of me while I was dancing. If I manage to get copies of them, I'll post therm here.

Rueda practice

_MAL8396.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

I've joined a group of folks who meet every Saturday morning to practice dancing rueda di casino, a variation of Cuban style salsa in which several couples dance in a circle, switching partners frequently. It's a lot of fun. It's also a great way to learn new salsa moves. I think part of the reason is that we practice one move at a time, over and over again until we have it down pat. Another reason may be that each move has a name. I think this makes it easier to file the move in the brain, somewhat like an index card in a card catalog helps one locate a book in a library.

I think the move I'm doing with Mikaela in this photo is called the carousel.

Sailsalsa pre-party 2008

_MAL5624.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The Sailsalsa 2008 pre-party was this past weekend, and it was a lot of fun. Helena and I met at Bromaplan, where we caught the bus out to Ekerö. At the very end of the bus route we stepped off and walked a few hundred meters to Älghorn, a little piece of land that sticks Northward into Lake Mälaren. It was there at the club house of the Essinge Boating Society that we had the party. Lots of people were there, including Janne, who came all the way up from Copenhagen just for the party (well okay, she had some work to do in Stockholm too).

We played some games outside, including frisbee races around the cabin, and seeing who could stand the longest on a mat of tiny plastic spikes (no big deal!).

Then we grilled our food over a fire down by the lake and ate dinner. After dinner, it was time for dancing. There were a few more women than men this time around so I didn't have much time to rest. We danced until the first light of dawn appeared reflected in the lake outside. We even danced a bit of Lindy hop!

The weather was just lovely, and we spent quite a bit of the time outdoors. When the sun was shining, it was warm enough to sit outside in just a shirt. And even when it wasn’t that warm out, there was always the sauna. Several brave souls warmed up in the sauna and then took a dip in the lake’s cold waters. Refreshing!

When we left to return back to Stockholm on Sunday afternoon, it was with considerable reluctance. After such a lovely weekend, I’m looking forward to Sailsalsa in week 31.

Hej från Göteborg!

I'm in Göteborg for the 2008 Scandinavian Salsa Congress. I attended last year, and had a blast, dancing with lots of fun dancers and taking hundreds of great photos. This year's congress is shaping up to be even better than last year's.

The congress is basically a weekend filled with three sorts of event: workshops, shows, and parties. During the day, salsa instructors visiting from all over the world hold workshops concentrating on one area of dance or another. One instructor might lead a workshop on footwork, while another teaches dips and tricks. There are four different ballrooms in the hotel where the congress is being held, so at any given time during the day, there are four different workshops going on. This means you can chose the workshops that interest you the most. Yesterday I took one on "salsa seduction," basically a bunch of dance moves involving close body contact between partners. It was fun and involved lots of dips, where the man dips his partner down and she leans back gracefully in a smooth sweeping motion. It's very cool when it works, but I'll have to practice before I am able to incorporate these moves seamlessly inyo my repertoire. These are moves that are best done to slow romantic music, and unfortunately most of the music played in social dance settings is quite a bit faster.

After that workshop I took another one on spinning. In the first half of the workshop, men and women practiced single turns individually. Then we worked in couples on a dance routine involving lots of double turns and fancy handwork.

After dinner, there were several shows on the stage in the big ballroom. Dance companies from all over Scandinavia and the world performed carefully choreographed routines in flamboyant outfits. Many of the performers were the same ones who held the workshops during the day. There have been some amazing dance performances the past two evenings, and it's amazing to see what really good dancers can do.

After the shows, the chairs are removed from the ballroom and the party begins. The parties are basically dance socials, but on a large scale. Three different ballrooms offer dancing with slightly different atmospheres. The DJs play different mixes in each place. In one of the rooms, the DJs played a mix of Latin dances including salsa, bachata, meringue, and reggaeton.

A lot of dancers skip the workshops during the day, and simply pay 200 SEK doe admission to an evening's shows and party. That's what I did last year. This year, however, I got a full pass to the congress for free!

Well, okay, it wasn't actually free. I'm working for it. When I arrived Friday night, I spoke with one of the arrangers of the congress, Adriana Mendes. Having seen my photos last year, she agreed to give me a full pass to this year's congress in exchange for letting her use any photos I take this year. Great deal for me, because now I can dance and take photos with her official sanction. I agreed to let Adriana take a look at the photos before I post them, so it'll be a week or so before I post most of them. Expect to see some of my photos on the official home page of the Scandinavian Salsa Congress soon!

I'm staying with friends Liza, Evert, Camilla & Maria in a cramped 5-bed room in a youth hostel a few minutes by streetcar from the hotel where the congress is being held. The hostel, Slottsskogen Vandrarhem, is actually quite comfortable, and has a nice and recently renovated sauna. I finished breakfast and offloaded photos from my memory cards to my laptop. I'll probably try to catch a couple more hours of sleep before heading to the hotel for a couple of the afternoon workshops.

Level 5 @ SalsaAkademien

_MAL4815.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

Last night I went down to Odenplan for my salsa lessons. I missed a lesson two weeks ago when I was in the U.S., and I still feel like I’m a bit behind the rest of the class. Last night’s lesson was tricky. Ibi taught us a rather difficult routine and I never quite got the hang of it. Perhaps I'll try to practice it a bit at the social tonight. It begins just over an hour from now! Here are a handfull of photos from last evening’s lesson.

Dance lessons at SalsaAkademien

_MAL2336.jpg, originally uploaded by Michael A. Lowry.

The dance troupe Sacuye recently chose a new name for its teaching operations: SalsaAkademien (The Salsa Academy). This week they proudly opened their new dance studio near Odenplan, at Odengatan 89. It’s just next-door to Container, the place where ClubSalsa used to arrange socials on Sunday evenings. SalsaAkademien is offering free trial classes for all of this week and next. Wednesday evening I attended several of the classes: level 4 salsa, footwork & body isolation (pictured above), and finally level 5 salsa (renamed from level 4+ to reduce confusion*).

Marina’s body isolation exercises were challenging as always. I swear that woman must have some snake genes in her, the way she can move. The level 5 course was more difficult than I expected, in part because one particular dance move vexed me. I kept messing it up, and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. After the class, Ibi showed me what I needed to change, and with a few repetitions, I got it mostly right. It was then that I realized that I had already learned this move years ago, but had only forgotten it, probably due to lack of use. Once I did the move a couple of times, the memory of how to do it suddenly manifested itself again in my conscious mind and merged with the newly-formed memories from practicing the move that evening. Then it suddenly clicked and I could do it without problems. The brain works in mysterious ways.

I brought my camera along and took a few photos during and after the classes. You can see how nice the new studio is! All ten photos from the evening’s lessons are online.

* Marina insists that the so-called level 5 course is not truly what she considers level 5. Apparently, there aren’t yet sufficiently many dancers of that caliber in Stockholm to merit the existence of such a course.