Fieldwork Diary Entry (January 25, 2013)

I am at the Cockpit Theatre waiting for Rosaria to arrive.  I got here early as agreed during our phone conversation this week so that she could tell me about her plans for a diversity project.  I have been waiting for 30 minutes and she is still not here.  My friend Nu is coming to film the class tonight and I left her to make her own way here in order to meet Rosaria early. I'm a bit pissed off.

So instead I will use the time to write about the dance class I took with Eulanda Shead at Roehampton Sport on Tuesday January 23, 2013.  The class was held at the Jebb Auditorium on campus.  Eulanda is a fellow student in my Ethnographic Fieldwork module and has an extensive background in dance.  She currently runs regular classes at Roehampton in salsa and swing.  She'd  told me that in swing class this week, she was going to teach partner Charleston.

So I made my way there after work on Tuesday night on another snowy London night.  I was looking forward to dancing as I was freezing so I'd decided to take Eulanda's salsa class which precedes her swing class as I figured it would be a good warm up.  It was my first time taking class in the Jebb Auditorium which is a community hall set in a student residential block on campus.   Before class started, I told Eulanda that I was going to participate in half the swing class and watch half of it.   As this was not my regular fieldwork site, I decided not to take any images and just experience and watch the class. 

As the hall has no mirrors, Eulanda had us face the windows in order to see the outline of our reflections as we moved,  When class started, it was just myself and two other students. Within 10-15 minutes, more people arrived and the total class number was 18; four males and the rest female.  The  age group look between 19-39 (39 being me)

The salsa class was enjoyable as I felt no pressure to be in 'research' mode.  The rest of the students seemed familiar with Eulanda and she them so I assumed they came regularly.   After salsa finished, Eulanda changed tack and started on the swing dance.  Eulanda had told me prior that the swing section was called 'Flashmob' and her modus operandi was to teach the group one swing style and once they had mastered it, move onto a new swing form.

Eulanda started by going through the Shim-Sham. The rest of the group had done this with her before but it was my first time and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Relaxed, stylish and coquettish; it feels like a fun, sulky dance which is easy to pick up and get into.  Eulanda told me the shim sham originated from Harlem during shows at the Savoy where they wanted a slow and easy movement sequence that everyone, including the orchestra, stagehands and so on could do together at the end of the night.  Below is a Youtube clip of the great Frankie Manning teaching the Shim-Sham:

After we'd done the Shim-Sham a couple of times. Eulanda started teaching the 'rock' step' of the swing Charleston, a backward and forward step involving transfer of weight.

Rock step

Count 1 - Step back on left foot
& -  Step onto right foot
Count 2& - Kick left foot forward and step onto left foot
Count 3 - Kick right foot forward
& - Still off the ground, bring right foot in beside left leg
Count 4 -  Kick right foot to Corner 4
& - Step back onto right foot

Eulanda drilled us in this step repeatedly until we all had a basic grasp of it. She is an excellent teacher, coming up with some funny and unique movement metaphors to help us learn the steps.  She then partnered us up to do the rock step in pairs.  After this, I decided to watch the rest of the class learning the classic drop and catch partner move where the female lifts one leg up to 45 degrees and with both arms outstretched, falls backwards to be caught by her partner beneath her armpits.

The rock step that I learnt from Eulanda is for Charleston swing dancing and it feels incredibly different to the solo Charleston which I have been learning with Rosaria.  It feels much more linear and rigid.  Solo Charleston is all inversion, awkward angles, very fast weight transfers, exaggeration and looseness.  The former feels like a technique whereas the latter, from the very beginning, felt more like an attitude. An important thing I picked up from Eulanda tonight is that I need to slouch more.  I know this extrinsically but have not managed to translate it yet into my body.