Fieldwork Diary Entry (April 17, 2013)

This is my last entry into this fieldwork diary.  I never really planned a finish.  My two parameters were the end of Rosaria Sativa's classes at the Cockpit Theatre in February and the time when I would need to start writing up instead of researching.  After Nikki's class at Wild Times in March,  my fieldwork journey seemed to come to a natural end.

As predicted, Baz Luhrman's  film of The Great Gatsby due for release in the UK on May 16, 2013 is sparking off a wave of interest.  The Evening Standard on Thursday April 18, 2013 printed a four page life and style spread all to do with 1920s dress, lifestyle, Gatsby-esue quotes and a half page about the Charleston.  I was pleased to see that Rosaria's classes got a plug although they misspelt her website.

I have relished the fieldwork process.  Of all the modules I have taken at Roehampton so far, it is the one I have most enjoyed as it was so self directed.  And driven by experience than theory.

For me the most significant thing I have learned about fieldwork is that it is an emotional experience and needs to be.  If you are not emotionally invested in your subject matter, I think it would be difficult to be sustained during times of disappointment, dead ends and other challenges that may occur.  However the difficulty of this emotional investment is that you also need a certain degree of detachment; scholarly or otherwise.  Without  this detachment, your fieldwork perhaps may have too much personal fiction and not enough fact.

It is a fine line to walk; this insider-outsider tightrope. And as all researchers are different,  our fieldwork will resonate through us differently. The outcomes surely reflects the disparities amongst us all.

I  think I have not been detached enough throughout this experience.  But I also believe in the old but good maxim, The personal is political.  It is my fieldwork.  It is driven by me.  It does reflect my opinions, my life, my prejudices and my interests.  This fieldwork is but a moment in time. Everything changes once you write it down. 

That said, I know I needed more detachment throughout. I think if I could leave my fieldwork research to breath for a few months and then come back to it, I would be able to handle the results with a clearer head.

Speaking of results, I cannot really say that the 46 respondents to my online general survey about Charleston nor the 5 completed questionnaires I got back from class participants shed any great light for me as to why the Charleston is less popular than other vintage dances in London. It was clear from the responses that the majority of people regard Charleston as a fun, energetic and frivolous vintage dance. I feel that this lack of an answer is more due to a flaw in my survey and questionnaires rather than anything else. I left out a key question. I didn't ask why they thought Charleston was less popular than other vintage dances! If they did that is.

Talk about being too embedded in my research.  Or just being stupid!

The clues I did get as to why Charleston is not as popular was through my interviews with Rosaria and Nikki. They both have a good feel for the vintage dance scene on London and also, I remembered to ask them! I won't cover the reasons here as I will be looking at that in my essay.

Throughout the process, my interest in solo Charleston dance has remained.  I know more about it now than when I started.  I have a good handle of where to go and who to speak with in London about solo Charleston.  I can dance it more easily now and it still makes me laugh more than any other dance form I have experienced. By far.

My journey with Charleston is far from over.  Since finishing fieldwork I have attended a solo Charleston class with Julie Oram and will be attending some of Rosaria's advanced Charleston course she is starting in late April 2013.

What will happen now that it is no longer a fieldwork project. Will my interest in solo Charleston wane over time?

I have no clue.  The one thing I do know that has been further confirmed by my fieldwork research is this.

Even though many view Charleston  as dance of the past, it isn't.  No more than ballet, jazz, tap dancing and other popularised forms of dance are.  It seems to me that the historical themes embedded within Charleston, themes of freedom, gender equality and rebellion are more relevant than ever. The physical rigours and unusual technical demands inherent in the form make Charleston a dance to be reckoned with at any time.  It is off beat;  in personality, in execution and in general. 

It is fitting therefore to quote the last sentence of the seminal novel of the 1920s, the Great Gatsby to highlight the relevance and contribution of the Charleston to modern dance:

And we beat on , boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

We may try and place it in the past but that is our mistake. It is as relevant as ever and always will be.



Fieldwork Diary Entry (March 12, 2013)

Nikki Santilli met with me tonight before her Solo Charleston class at Wild Times so that I could interview her.  We met at six pm at Itsu in Convent Garden at her suggestion.  This would give us an hour before we needed to leave for her dance class.

I arrived first and it was odd to be waiting to interview someone I had never met before.  With the last two interviews, the interview subjects were people I had known prior and also had attended their dance classes.  Nikki arrived and she couldn't have been friendlier. She looks to be in her early to mid- 30s and is of Italian heritage although born and raised in London. She has a PhD in English Literature and was very interested in my research.  She has a company called Hot Jazz Rag through which she teaches vintage dances including Balboa, Lindy hop, Authentic Jazz and Charleston. Before the interview begins, I am worried about the loud background music being played in Itsu. I resolve to try and take as many notes as possible if the recording turns out to be undecipherable because of the music.

Nikki Santilli. Photo courtesy of Hot Jazz Rag

The interview with Nikki goes well and she raises some points that I have not considered as to why  solo Charleston is not as popular in London as other vintage dances.  She says that solo dancing is no longer a big deal now the way it was in the 1920s when it was a statement to dance solo. Also that in the 1920s they were possibly all incredibly intoxicated or high which fuelled the madness of dancing the Charleston for hours on end. Something that is harder to do when sober.  Her view about vintage social dancing is that people do it nowadays to meet people and hence the partner swing dancing is more popular for this reason. She is very open with me about her view of the swing dance world and if it weren't for the class that she is teaching and I am attending, I feel we could have continued talking for some time.

Afterwards we walk to the class together.  The last time I had been to Wild Times was in September 2012 where I took a solo Charleston workshop with the Bees Knees. It was my first every Charlestonclass and whilst the class was less than brilliant, it clearly did not dampen my enthusiasm for the Charleston.

Wild Times is a weekly dance night run by the London Swing Society in a venue in Holborn. The venue has a large hall where partner swing classes are taught and a basement lounge space where solo jazz classes are taught.  The basement lounge looks like a seventies student den with a bar along one wall,  booths along the other and a square open space with tarquet flooring in the middle where the classes are taken.

At tonight's Charleston class there are 23 students in total ranging in age from approx 20's to 50s.  Over half of them are men which is unusual to me.  Some of the students are dressed in 40s swing dance style clothing and I guess they are attending this class before moving upstairs to the swing lessons.

Nikki launches straight into teaching us a call and response routine Busby- Berkeley style. She splits the men into one group and the women into another  and shows us our different movements,  It's an unorthodox way of teaching with no warm up which I find troubling as some of the movement she has us do include small jumps.  We then run through our actions, the men starting, the women following, the men going again and so on.  The men are together in a cluster in the middle of the room whilst the women form a circle round them, facing out.  Throughout this I wonder when the Charleston will come into the routine.

The men's movements consist of a sailor jig, Cossack style jump with both legs tucked under whilst in the air and side kicks.

The women's movements were travelling steps going clock-wise facing out. We took two shunting steps backwards, torso bent forward, bum sticking out with one arm stretched out in front at 90 degrees and the other in a triangle position (the point of the triangle being the elbow). We then took two steps to the side and then kicked left and then right.

Together we all then did the Birdy walk to the centre to form one group. And then Nikki taught us the following routine:

• 2 x basic Charleston
• 1 x basic Charleston with wide kick. 
• The wide kick happens when kicking one leg up in to a wide circular arc off the ground by bringing the leg to the front and instead of stepping onto it as you normally would do for the Charleston, you lift it up and kick it and then fall back into the basic Charleston.
• 1 x basic Charleston with kick forward into Scarecrow pose.
• End the basic Charleston with a flick kick forward and then drop into Scarecrow pose
• 2 x Charleston slaps on right leg
• 2 x Charleston slaps on left leg
• 4 x Charleston slaps on right leg turning
• 4 x Charleston slaps on left leg turning

As the class progressed, I tried to maintain enthusiasm but felt increasingly like I wanted to leave. Nikki's teaching style was very haphazard and scatty with none of the structure I am used to in a dance class. The movements weren't really explained and 3/4 of the way through the class, I still did not feel warm.  Nikki herself could do the movements very well but her transmission of them to the class was not so well done.  I felt bad about my thoughts, especially as Nikki had given me such a wonderful interview.

I wasn't the only one who felt the way I did.  I noticed one lady who had told Nikki  that it was her first Charleston class, leave halfway through the class. The other thing about the class that was disconcerting was a sense of cliquiness and coolness.  Many of the students seemed to know one another and obviously were waiting  to go to the swing class upstairs.  Everyone seemed very serious.  The atmosphere was different to Rosaria's classes which I feel are warm and accepting.  Nikki had discussed this clique aspect with me in our interview and I experienced it for myself shortly after.  She had said some people get very serious about the dancing, so serious that the enjoyment goes out of it.

I think that if I had started Charleston at Wild Times and only here, I would not have progressed with it.  Not because of the dance but because of the oppressive and cliquey atmosphere that prevails there.

Dance Fieldwork Diary (February 24, 2013)

I went along today to Rosaria's new Solo Charleston course at the YMCA near Tottenham Court Road.  This new course is on Sunday afternoons from 1330-1430.  I know Rosaria is hoping that the class time along with the more central location will result in a larger numbers of students attending.  I am attending so that I can supplement the core fieldwork I have done with her at the Cockpit Theatre and also because I miss dancing the Charleston.

The YMCA venue is very different to the Cockpit.  From the street, the doors open and you enter in to a vast, cavernous, multi-levelled building.  A huge, underground rabbit warren with many studios, a gym, pool, cafe and exercise spaces.  It takes me awhile to find the studio where Rosaria is teaching.

The studio is about half the size of the one at Cockpit Theatre with lower ceilings but a better floor.  It has mirrors along one length of the room. There were twelve students present including many familiar faces from the last course. Lynn, Amanda, Jane and Otila are all present.  New people included four males, one of which is a young child.  In fact there were two children in the class - they looked to be around 9-11 years of age and had come along with their mother.  It was refreshing to see new faces and have a few more men in the class too.

Rosaria ran the class as usual but I did notice she kept the pace punchy and there was no lag.  The class was an introduction to Charleston and she covered steps that I and several others in the class already knew.  Rosaria is aware of this as she commented to me after class that she might run an Advanced Charleston course for those of us that are ready to move to a different level.  I resolve to attend a few more of Rosaria's current classes, more to keep my hand in than for any other reason.  I  hope she runs the Advanced course.

I noticed during this class that although we have very little space to dance, this creates an interesting dynamic for the dance.  Charleston is originally meant to be danced in small spaces and I found that by having to keep the movement small and contained, I had much more control and could dance faster, with more fluidity. By keeping the 'wild, crazy' movements of the Charleston contained, the dance could be more wild and free. An interesting juxtaposition.  These thoughts reminded me of a clip I had seen of Bee Jackson doing the Charleston where her feet never moved from the one spot:

                                          Bee Jackson - Charlestoning on the spot - Youtube

Last Monday I went along to a Balboa dance night to listen to the music. The Balboa dance classes were run by a lady called Nikki Santilli who teaches vintage dance through her company, Hot Jazz Rag.  I saw on her website that Nikki was going to be teaching some one-off Solo Charleston classes at Wild Times.  I emailed to book a place in her class and also explained my research and asked if she would be interested in an interview.

On the interview front, Alia from Bees Knees has not replied to my email so I have sent a follow up one. Sharon Davis has emailed me back to say that she is teaching in America at the moment. I respond to say I can wait for when she returns to conduct the interview as it will still fit within my fieldwork time frame.  Fingers crossed.

Some of my email correspondence with Sharon Davis. Unfortunately the interview never happened



Fieldwork Diary Entry (February 23, 2013)

After the very useful editing lesson with Eulanda at uni today, I realise that a lot of my fieldwork photography and film footage is not up scratch.  Not for the way I would like to use the material anyhow. It is too late now to go back but I do wish I had known some of the things that Eulanda taught us today about story telling through editing before I started recording footage in the field.  It's all a learning curve however.  Next time.... 

I hear back from Sharon Davis this week. The body of her reply is as follows:

I don't know of any regular Charleston classes in London, but there are certainly irregular ones around town. This is a good page to find out all the different schools in London:

 

http://www.swingoutlondon.co.uk/

Most dancers serious about learning 1920s Charleston and other jazz roots styles, usually go to dedicated weekend workshops, such as the Paris Jazz Roots Festival, Stompology, or the Authentic Jazz tracks at Herrang Dance Camp. There aren't many places in the world where you can take regular authentic solo vintage jazz dance styles - there's just not enough of a demand for it. I mostly teach at festivals (here is my calendar: http://www.sharondavis.com.au/calendar).

If you're interested in taking a private lesson with me, my rate is £50/hour and you can come to my apartment in Dalston (N16 7XB). Just let know.

 

I have already contacted the people running the SwingOut London website and hit a dead end re Solo Charleston classes.  I wonder if I should use 1/3 of my fieldwork fund to go and have a private lesson with Sharon.  In truth I am a bit taken aback at her requesting me to pay for her time. It is not unreasonable for her to request this though.  I realise that  up until now I have been lucky so far in my fieldwork to have been the recipient of people's generosity with their time and knowledge, all of which so far has been given freely.  Sharon makes no mention of my request for an interview.  This is really what I would like from her, more so than her to teach me for an hour.  I email back offering to pay her £25 for 30 minutes of her time in an interview.

 

I wonder what the response will be?




 

Fieldwork Diary Entry (February 17, 2013)

Responses to the survey I sent out are coming through. To date I have 26 responses. The results can be viewed here by signing in with the user name of MrsMoz and the password is Mozaffar.

So far the results show that people do see Charleston as a dance of the past, an old-fashioned or vintage dance which they know about through popular culture mediums such as television, books, magazines and /or film.  Some have experienced dancing it at a class or night out. The keywords associated with how dancing the Charleston made them feel is fun, happy, silly and drunk.  Most of those who had not danced it were open to trying it out as it looks fun.  Its image is strongly associated with the 1920s Prohibition era; that being the flapper and gangsters.  It is perceived as genderless in that both sexes can dance it.   It is generally viewed as a fun, free, happy dance.  The music is seen as an important part of the dance as is dressing in the style of the 1920s.  A few respondents acknowledge the influence of Charleston on current dance but most seem to regard it as a gilded dance form of the past.

I have been doing some online searching for other Solo Charleston classes in London. My search led me to Adora Derriere, aka as Melanie Bryant who runs Sugar Blue Burlesque, a company that teaches vintage style dances in London and Perth, Australia - my home town.  I email her to see if she has any advice as to where I can access more solo Charleston classes in London and also to ask if she would be interested in being interviewed.  She responds almost immediately and suggests I get in touch with Sharon Davis; another Perth person who is now based in London and travels internationally, teaching and competing in a range of vintage dance styles.

I look at Sharon's website and I see that she has described herself as an international Charleston champion. Furthermore she has released an instructional DVD on 1920s Charleston and has put up a Youtube clip to give a brief overview of 1920s Charleston:

 

Clip featuring 1920s Charleston posted by Sharon Davis on Youtube

 

 

Sharon Davis performing a Charleston routine at

Rock That Swing Festival in February 2013

 

Sharon seems like an absolute minefield of information about Charleston so I email her immediately, explaining what I am doing and asking if she would be interested in being interviewed. I also ask if she knows of any solo Charleston classes or courses in London I could attend in the next few weeks.  I feel very hopeful that she will get back to me. After all, we're both from Perth!

 

 

 



Interview with Glambop Fitness (February 13, 2013)

Interview with Glambop – Naomi Coombes & Sara Anderton

Wednesday February 13, 2013

20:15

Mission Hall, Parsons Green, London

Set Questions Pre-Interview 

• What are your dance background/s?
• What is Charle-swing?
• Why Charle-swing and not another amalgamation of other dance forms?
• What was it about Charleston that suited the needs of your dance fitness choreography?
• Where has your knowledge of Charleston come from?
• What do you know about Charleston?
• What has been the feedback of Charle-swing from your class participants?

Transcription:

LS: Ok, so thank you for agreeing to be interviewed, umm, can you tell me a little bit about your, firstly just say you names and your ages if you don’t mind, or your age range if you’d rather?

NC: Absolutely. So I’m Naomi Coombes and I’m 28, 29 this year.

SA: And I’m Sara Anderton and I’m 26 tomorrow.

LS: Ok, so can you tell me a little bit about your dance backgrounds?

NC: Yep, I used to study, well when I was a kid I went to a local dance doing ballet, tap and modern um, then I did an A level in dance and at eighteen I went to the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts for a year and then I did some freelance dance work and then when I was twenty three I applied to study a degree in dance at Roehampton.

LS: Ok and was that majoring in contemporary or classical?

NC: Yeah - The degree was in, did a variety of contemporary dance, like Graham technique, Cunningham, ballet, Limon.

LS: Alright. Thanks.

SA: So similarly I did a lot of dance growing up like jazz, tap, ballet. Then at sixteen I went to Miskin (?) Theatre Dance school to study advanced dance for two years and that was doing shows and stuff like jazz, modern, tap and everything. Then I went to performance college and then I decided to, I was only there for a short time, decided to do a degree in dance same as Naomi, at Roehampton.

LS: So how did that lead you guys to Charle-swing?

NC: Well in our second and third year at uni, we taught a lunch time class in jazz fitness and we both really enjoyed teaching, well teaching generally, but also teaching a dance fitness class. [We] both have quite a strong interest in fitness and spent a lot of time in the gym doing other fitness classes, um and then when we graduated, decided to put together a dance fitness class just to test it and see how it went, um and having a full-time job it proved really tricky finding the time to fit it in so it took a little bit longer than expected but eventually we came up with a class, just decided to test the waters and that’s how we got here really.

LS: And can you tell me a bit about why you chose the forms of swing dancing and Charleston in particular as opposed to say, maybe other forms?

NC: Well we initially we actually wanted to African dancing

LS: Oh, ok!

SA: We did start looking into that and I think we just…

NC: My partner gave me a CD of an artist called Parov Stelar and we really like their music and it kind of gave us a taste for, their music is commercial beats but it is very much a Charlestoney influence

LS: Ok, can you just stay their name again?

NC: Parov Stelar

LS: How do you spell that, do you know?

NC: [Spells it]

LS: Ok, alright.

NC: And the music just really motivates us. It makes you want to dance. It makes you laugh.

SA: It’s a bit cheeky

NC: Yeah, really cheeky so we thought why not just try it and we found it was actually more fun for us to try and improvise movements to that music than come up with an African routine.

LS: And was that like, your kind of first, kind of exploration into Charleston and swing?

NC: Absolutely, yeah.

LS: And so in terms of, as you both have done various types of dance before, um, when you were exploring it, when you danced the Charleston, how would you say it was different to the other styles you’ve studied? What is unique about it to you? What makes it, distinguishes it as Charleston?

SA: Certain types of movement. I think it’s quite cheeky. Bouncy. Quite um. Very quirky.

NC: I find that you, um, you almost don’t have to take yourself too seriously. Like ballet is very rigid, very, you know. Very, very disciplined whereas Charleston, I’ve never studied Charleston professionally, I don’t really know. We’re yet to do an actual Charleston dance/class but uh, just from improvising movements from a Charleston influence we’ve found that its just really fun and easy to pick up if you’re teaching it.

LS: And um, ok, sorry, I just have to go and get my list of questions over here. Cause I’ve forgotten what I was going to ask you next. Um. Actually you’ve pretty much answered most of my questions that I have here. Um, what kind of feedback have you been getting from the classes that you’ve been teaching and the people that have been doing it?

SA: Well my classes that I’ve been doing, [Sara teaches classes at lunchtime in a gym in Canary Wharf] they like it because it takes their mind off about going to the gym. You don’t feel like as if you’re exercising because they are coordinating their body at he same time, they sort of forgetting almost that they’re getting a lot of exercise

LS: A workout at the same time

SA: Yeah and they find it good fun and takes your mind off it

NC: Yeah and here similarly they find that it’s just a fun way of getting fit and um also , they are also, there are lots of other dance fitness classes out there but I guess it is very similar to them but with a slightly different take if you like. But there again, we haven’t been going for too long and um, we haven’t had a huge number of people come into our classes and take part in the experience yet. We need to do a lot of promoting and then eventually, hopefully we’ll have more feedback

LS: What was I going to ask you? Have the participants said anything about it being based on vintage dances, have they commented on that at all in terms of that it was new to them or um, you know, it interested them in a different way to maybe, like Zumba or Body Jam or some of the other classes out there?

NC: One comment I had from a lady who does attend the class regularly is that she does Zumba as well but she finds that with Zumba they very much ask you to feel sexy whereas in this class it’s more about, almost being a bit foolish and having fun with it and taking the mick out of yourself really and not taking it too seriously at all. So I think that’s the difference between the two. Um But you know it depends on the persons taste

LS: Of course

NC: I think we did actually have someone attend our class initially and she had quite a strong Charleston background. She came once and she hasn’t come back yet.

LS: So maybe a bit of a Charleston snob, maybe?

NC: I think something we both need to learn is that we’d like to experience a lot more Charleston classes.

LS: It’s a matter of time isn’t it as well? Finding the time. Um, I forgot to ask you at the beginning of this interview. It’s your business so how would you kind of, like, define Charle-swing? What is it? What is Charle-swing?

NC: Well how we describe it on our website is a combination of Charleston and swing influenced dance moves within a fitness routine, so we focus on having fun. The benefits are, well, you obviously have fitness benefits but it’s very much taken from Charleston swing influence. Dance influence.

SA: It’s a mixture of 1920s and 1950s sort of beats

LS: Do you think, obviously this is a fitness class so you wouldn’t be dressing up in the Charleston gear but do you think that the music is key to those kinds of dances or do you think the choreography stands alone?

NC: What do you mean?

LS: You know how like Charleston music is quite distinctive that syncopated beat, do you think um. You know how you said you were inspired by the music to explore the dances a bit, do you think with the Charleston, the music is quite crucial to the dance itself?

NC: Yeah I do. I think that it’s really important to have the right beat for Charleston, possibly even the right instruments even so to be able to have that flavour of Charleston and that can influence your movement, your choreography and it makes you feel like you’re…. it’s a little bit slapstick isn’t it, the Charleston.

SA: People in my class say that the music gives them more energy almost. It really keeps you going, they really like the music.

LS: It’s very perky isn’t it?

SA: Yeah it makes you want to bounce

LS: Yeah, definitely. So if you guys could define your experience Charleston in one word, in terms of the Charleston dances’ personality, what word would you choose?

SA: Quirky

NC: I‘d say cheeky

LS: Well thank you very much and all the best with Charle-swing and Glambop.

NC: Thank you very much

Dance Fieldwork Diary (February 13, 2013)

I attended my second Glambop Fitness Charle-swing class tonight for the express purpose of filming and interviewing Naomi & Sara after class.  It was a freezing cold night  and I had forgotten to bring my trainers so I did the class in my boots. Sara had come to tonight's class especially to speak with me afterwards; a bit of a hike for her as she lives in Canary Wharf.  There were only two other students in the class apart from myself and Sara.  Naomi put us through our paces as vigorously as she had done at the last class I attended.  It was a good way to get warm on a cold London night.

The thoughts I had during this class was that with it being such a fast paced class with no explanation or break down of the moves by Naomi, the average person might have trouble picking up the choreography; especially  if they had no dance training.  Naomi teaches by doing the exercises as they were meant and leaving the class to follow. I think a more methodical approach to teaching the exercises might mean a better outcome all round.

After the 45 minute class ended, I asked Naomi and Sara to pick one exercise from their Charle-swing repertoire that was strongly derived from the Charleston for me to film.  I had decided to film only one exercise as prior to class starting, Naomi had mentioned that Sara had come a long way to be at class that night and they were both tired.  I understood the subtext so resolved to keep filming to a minimum.  They launched straight away into a routine which obviously had many hallmarks of the Charleston.  As I filmed them, I started smiling as did they. The Charleston is infectious in this way:

                                    Charle-swing routine demonstrated by Sara & Naomi

Prior to the interview beginning, Naomi asked me what questions I would be asking so she could be prepared.  I  showed her my list of questions but assured them both that I was more interested to have a conversation with them about the development of Charle-swing and for them to feel free to ask me questions as well.   I sensed they were anxious about the footage I had just filmed so reassured them that the footage would only be seen by Ann and my classmates.  As it was a cold night and the girls preferred to do the interview in the studio, I said I would keep it brief.

As the interview progressed, Naomi did most of the talking with Sara answering occasionally.  They seemed slightly uncomfortable about being interviewed, perhaps concerned as to what was going to happen with the information.  Or  maybe they were just cold and tired.  I had a strong sense that they were worried about their Charle-swing concept being co-opted by others.

After the 'official' interview had finished, I turned the recorder off and we continued to chat.  They both were much more relaxed and wanted to get my feedback about their concept and business idea. My feedback to them was to copyright Charle-swing straight away.  I suggested Dance UK as a starting point of how to do this. They then told me that they were concerned about others stealing their idea but because they both worked full-time, they had little time to build up the business.  My response was that if they wanted it to work, they would have to find a way to build it up regardless.  I said to imagine how they would feel if someone else did it before them, especially since they (they told me this) had worked so hard to develop the whole choreography and idea.  I said that they could get in touch with me any time if they needed any help and we all left the studio much warmer than when we had walked in.