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