Camp Hollywood XIII (2010)

So lemme just tell you how awesome Camp Hollywood XIII was:
VERY MUCH SO.

 I’m not sure if this year was just an incredibly great year to be there, but Camp Hollywood just meant more to me this time. I think it has something to do with all the friends that I’ve been making while dancing; as I become more involved in the ‘swing scene’ / get to know more about the people who are so active in the community, the events  become more and more significant.

Special thanks go to Nathan, Susan, Alan & Heather for letting me crash at their hotel room in between dances / classes / competitions.

Speaking of which – on to the Competition videos!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I can accurately describe how many people “brought it” this year in words – I’m just not that good a writer.

ALSO unfortunately, there was some rule about not filming the competitions unless you had some kind of “video pass” (which I knew nothing about).

What’s even more discouraging was the fact that my camera decided to crap out on me after only a few pictures (same problem as last time, too!)

But FORTUNATELY, a lot of other people have already uploaded youtube videos from this weekend that I can use!

1st PLACE IN THE TEAM COMPETITION: The Fly-Rites

1st Place (?) for "Showcase" (couples performance):  Patrick & Natasha

SHOWCASE HONORABLE MENTION:  JOEL & VALERIE

Look at how amped the crowd was by their performance.

UNDERGROUND FINALS

If you’re noticing that people are tired in this video, it’s because this contest was held at 2:00AM with even more dancing afterwards. I didn’t got to bed until 4:00AM myself that night.

As for my competition (the amateur Jack & Jill contest), I did about as well as I expected. In other words, I didn’t make it to finals. That’s about as specific as the scoring can get when the judges have to keep score for over 100 people. Either you stand out, or you don’t. I had a lot of fun though, and that was the whole point. 

My First Jack & Jill

Now that I’ve had a day for my legs to rest, lemme tell you about the Jack & Jill! 

So I obviously didn’t place / win, (you should’ve seen who entered) but I think it was a good learning experience for the Jack & Jill at Camp Hollywood. There were over 40 dancers (20 couples) competing, so they divided the preliminaries up into two rounds. (I was in the second round)

A couple things I’m going to whine about:

• The songs they played were a lot faster than the ones they played for the first round.
• I thought it was a little unfair that some of the “pros” were in this competition with the rest of us amateurs.

But here’s what I learned the Judges look for:

• “Everyone can dance the basic steps, so do something that will set you apart right away.” (duh, obvious but I didn’t think to do it)
• “Smile!”
• “Make your movements big!”
• “Ask the judges for notes afterwards”

So basically what it boils down to is ‘showmanship.’ It’s technically a performance, so you gotta PERFORM.

(Again, duh – but I didn’t think to do it)

Training for Camp Hollywood

I’ve been making an effort to go out dancing more often in an attempt to train for the “Jack & Jill” competition I signed up for at Camp Hollywood. 

The competition’s in a few months, so I figured I should get started now. Of course my “training” just consists of me trying to dance with as many follows at as many venues as I can think of & trying to watch / remember / learn as many steps as I can from other dancers.

This will be my first lindy hop competition and I’m not really sure what they’re going to be judging us on other than musicality, form and how well we can improvise with our random partner.

For those of you who don’t know what a “Jack & Jill” competition is, it's:  

…..a competition in partner dancing, where the competing couples are the result of random matching of leaders (male dancers) and follows (female dancers).

Even though it’s one of the larger Swing events in the world, I figured I would sign up for the Jack & Jill at Camp Hollywood because of how less pressure there would be to do well. As many as 30 couples are out on the floor at once and judges can only look at so many people at once. I figure not that many people will be watching me specifically so if I royally embarrass myself, no one will really notice.

I’m actually more worried about signing up for the Jack & Jill this weekend at Third Saturday Swing – it’s advertised as a “Practice Jack & Jill” to prep everyone for Camp Hollywood, but since it’s a smaller venue (where amateurs will be lined up with pros), more people will be watching. (Yikes)

Here’s some videos I found of other “Jack &Jill” competitions to give you an idea of what it’s like.

Oh boy....wish me luck!