Hyperreal

I spent the weekend in Pitlochry, at the “Dance Fever” weekender organised by BoogieNights.

This is the second of three posts about it, in this one I will talk about the dances, and in the others I talk about the workshops, and the weekend as a whole.

Outside of the workshops, there were three dances – Friday evening, the big Saturday party, and the Tea Dance on Sunday.

Friday got off to a slow start. Although it was scheduled to start at 9:30, by the time people were there and the hall was ready it must have been around 10. The hall took longer to prepare than I guess anyone expected as although it was a beautiful sprung wooden floor, it was also quite sticky. It required copious amounts of talc to sort it out.

In fact through-out the weekend there were regular top-ups of talc given to the floor which resulted in some extra-fast spots occasionally. I don’t blame the organisers for this though, but it is another black mark against the venue.

Back to the Friday dance… There was supposed to be a short class at 9:30, but it was dropped in favour of dancing.

There was a noticeable excess of women which for a guy was good, as I was in demand all night, but it did mean I ended up dancing when occasionally I didn’t feel like it.

All weekend there were two main reasons why I didn’t want to dance at any point. First, when I was either tired, or anticipating tiredness and wanted a rest. Second, when I didn’t like the music.

I’m sure that lots of people really did enjoy the music – there were a lot of “swing” people there who are well-suited to the style of music being played. Although both DJs had a distinct style, their typical track probably wouldn’t be a favourite of mine. I have to give credit though that both did play a lot of music I did like, and I don’t think they played any MJ tracks that made me think “I can’t and won’t dance to this”, and so if asked I’d always dance. The exception to this is when some music for Salsa or one of the other dances was being played. I’m not confident enough in any other dance style to actually dance a whole track without direction from a teacher. It was the same when I started Ceroc too.

On Saturday or Sunday there was one song played whose entire lyrics were (repeated over and over) “one two three –– five six seven ––”. (In actual fact, somewhere under that I think I heard someone singing “Lovely Day”, but it was very low in the mix.) Not much lyrical interpretation possible there, but it would certainly help as dancing to this song I wouldn’t have to do the counting myself!

I’m getting side-tracked again! Where was I?? Ah yes, Friday night!

Based on my experience at the BFG I decided I’d take it easy on Friday night so I would had energy to survive the next day, but I did have lots of lovely dances. It was good to dance with lots of familiar faces I hadn’t seen for a while (and some I had seen just the weekend before.) I also met and danced with a lot of people totally new to me, and made lots of good discoveries.

I didn’t think I was dancing particularly well though. As I hadn’t done any Ceroc during the week, was already a bit tired, and without the warm-up of a class, it was always going to take me a while to get going… In fact, I don’t think I really got going all night, even though I had lots of people saying how much they enjoyed my dancing, or similar. I’m not saying I was dancing badly, but just not with the same level of passion and inspiration that I can sometimes reach.

That night over, I went to bed shortly after 1 am.

Saturday night was the big one. I’d taken a nap after the workshops to make sure I was ready for it, but in the end I was probably more tired than I’d have liked. I did have a really good night though.

Besides lots of good dancing, we had a brief Lucky Dip competition, a fancy dress competition and four cabaret acts.

In the lucky dip I got a rather good dancer, but we weren’t selected for the second (final) round, and I have to say that the couple that won really really deserved it. They might even have been good enough together to win a proper competition. I’d guess they have danced together quite a bit before, but I could be wrong.

I didn’t do fancy dress, but there were the usual mix of witches, devils and cat-women. None really jumped out at you, but the prize-winners were a bit unusual and appeared to have gone to some extra effort.

The cabarets were good. First we got a wee bit of sword dancing from three ladies wearing short skirts. (Wasn’t really watching their dancing… ) Next up I think was the belly dancers from the workshop earlier in the day, led by their teacher. I thought they did very well to learn so much so quickly.

Then we had some “proper” dancing, first from Lindsay and Brady giving us a demo of Lindy Hop. That looks like a really fun dance, though a bit too manic for my tastes. Very entertaining. Then last we had James, and his wee demo, giving us samples of a few different dances. They were just spectacular. Some fabulous moves, a few neat aerials. Really impressive.

Then it was back to dancing! The night was due to end at 2 am, though as the clocks went back at 3 am, we got an extra hour of dancing for free! In the end I didn’t stay to the end. I left at about 1.40 am (BST), which was 12.40 GMT.

I had had a much better night than the Friday, felt much more “in the zone” as it got later on, but at the same time I began to get tired and the music began to get slower, and I decided to take advantage of the extra hour in bed, rather than on the dance-floor.

As well as the folks from the weekend, a fair number of people had travelled from further afield to join us, which was appreciated. I had lots of lovely dances with some of my favourite dancers who were there. (Did have a few dances which annoyed me as my partner spent much of the dance looking around the floor rather than paying me much, if any attention. Don’t think I’ll be asking them again, but curious about the ones who asked me… )

Over-all though, a good night.

On Sunday after the workshops were over we had a tea dance (though we didn’t have any tea!) A lot of people took this opportunity to scoot off home early, but as I wasn’t getting a train until about 6, I wasn’t going anywhere. I think I’d have chosen to stay even if I had the choice, but who knows. I’m sure lots of folks had other things they had to do and wanted to get home while it was dry and still light.

As befits a Sunday afternoon, the music was chilled. I shouldn’t have to explain what I feel about this, but I will anyway. I really think the music suited the occasion. I didn’t think the music suited me. I’ll talk more about this in my next post.

I danced quite a bit though, when I was asked, when a tune I particularly liked came on, or just to get a dance with a spare woman while she was free. I don’t think I had time to ramp up my dancing, but i was told that my dancing had improved over the weekend, which I can well believe. Certainly I was dancing much better on Sunday than on Friday.

And then it was over.

Despite my reduced number of dances, I really enjoyed the three dances. Saturday especially. I don’t think they matched the Ceroc parties I’ve been to though, but as one visitor to Pitlochry on Saturday night explained, you can go to one of them any time, while this event was something special. I’m not sure I’d have made the same choice in her shoes, but then there may have been other factors in her choice – there certainly would have been in mine.

Now go on and read the last part of this report!