Fieldwork Diary Entry (January 14, 2013)

Since my initial class with Rosaria, I have been researching online to try and find other solo Charleston classes or social nights in London that I could attend.  The results are very thin on the ground. I don't know if it just that I am not aware of where to look but a general Google search throws up very little.  In comparison, there seem to be a wide range of lindy hop classes going on all the time.   Charleston seems to have taken a backseat in both demand and popularity within the swathe of vintage dance styles available in London.  I wonder why?   It seems that  Rosaria is one of the few teachers in London offering on-going solo Charleston dance classes.

While my search does not throw up any new solo Charleston leads, it did lead me to a 'charle-swing' dance fitness class run by a company called Glambop Fitness.  On their website, they write:

The first Glambop fitness programme takes inspiration from the 1920s Charleston and the 1950s Swing to create a cheeky, fun and exhilarating workout.

Below is a Glambop Fitness promotional clip from Youtube:

I was instantly intrigued that 1920s Charleston was being used in such a way and emailed Glambop who turned out to be founded by two women - Naomi and Sara.   I explained to them the nature of my fieldwork and my interest in the 1920s solo Charleston in present day London.   I asked if I could attend their class to gauge a comparison between how Charleston is experienced within the schema of a dance fitness routine as opposed to a dance style.   Naomi wrote back inviting me to attend their class and agreed to speak with me afterwards, although they did include the comment that  'there were no promises'.  I  took this to mean that they could not promise to offer me the information that I may be looking for.  This was fine by me as I didn't even know that myself.  

After my first fieldwork class with Rosaria, I realised that I would need to try and find other solo Charleston classes for my fieldwork due to the short duration of her course and also the slight disadvantage ( I feel) of already having completed a Charleston course with her.   I wanted to enter a fieldwork site that I was completely new to.  Because a key aspect of my research is to see how solo Charleston is located in London, I also needed to take a wider sample than just one class for an hour a week.  I decide to attend the charle-swing class with Glambop and perhaps incorporate it regularly into my fieldwork schedule.

Apart from Glambop's classes, the only other block of regular solo Charleston classes my online search uncovered was classes being taught by the Bees Knees at Claridges hotel. The cost of these classes are £125 for a block of four, two-hour classes.  Having already attended a workshop with the Bees Knees that I was unimpressed by, I balked at the cost even though it is happening amidst the luxe art deco surrounds of the Claridge's ballroom.  Claridge's are marketing these workshops on the back of the anticipation for the new film of the Great Gatsby that is being released in the UK in the summer of 2013.  The director, Baz Luhrman has a vivid aesthetic when it comes to his films and I'm sure the Great Gatsby will influence a trend towards a 1920s aesthetic. I hope this trend will mean that Charleston classes in London will become more available.

I am also anxious to start filming Rosaria's classes and documenting the site in this way so I have lined up a friend to attend the class on January 25, 2013 to film for me.  As I am participating in the class, I find it very difficult to have the necessary detachment to observe the site as fieldworker.  Once I am in a dance class, years of conditioning take over and I enter into a mode where I am fully focused on the dance and oblivious to all else.  Not so good for fieldwork.  I wonder if it would have been better for me not to participate in the class and only observe instead.  I chose not to do this because I want to conduct my research from an embodied perspective.  After all, it is dance fieldwork and I am a dancer.  It would seem odd and slightly disingenuous to conduct my research in any other way.  But perhaps this is just an excuse for my selfishness in wanting to just dance the Charleston because I love it.  I reason that the necessary detachment can be gotten from the third eye of the camera as opposed to myself.