Dancing Through The Decades

(Left) Foxtrots and swings Saturday night at the Hoblit Performing Arts Center. My primary interest was seeing who turned out Saturday night, and why. Turnout was fairly low (as I expected it might be) for this first-ever experiment with utilizing the Theater's downtime for best advantage: money-wise, facility-wise, community-wise, otherwise. Despite the turnout, I nevertheless met several new people, including Jackie, Tev's mom. It's interesting how different activities bring out a different crowd!

Advantage tonight seemed to belong to several Lindy Hop swing dancers who came out to dance. As DJ, Arthur did a good job of approximating the Top 40 of the 1940's (which reminded me just how many novelty songs and marches they used to have), but since the Lindy Hoppers have idiosyncratic tastes in dance music, in the future, if we aim to please, we might have to tailor the musical program to suit. The floor was a bit sticky - the dancers suggested talcum powder.

Of all the possible dance genres out there (ballroom, hip hop, folk, country, Lindy Hop, rancheros, Scottish, salsa), it seems to me that ballroom and Lindy Hop are most compatible with DMTC's mission to preserve and present Musical Theater. Indeed, with its syncopated rhythm, and devotion to the style of the 40's, the Lindy Hoppers are probably best suited of all.

In comparison, ballroom dance, as fun as it is, and as much as I like it, is somewhat denatured - the rhythms and style of swing and tango, among other dances, are altered to (not always the best) taste. For example, as far as I'm aware, the founder of the Nightclub Two-Step, Buddy Schwimmer, is still alive. Schwimmer put that dance together in 1976, to take advantage of the surfeit of weird, disco-derived schlock (e.g., Lionel Ritchie, among others) that made dance floors of the 70's so tedious (and I'm a huge fan of disco - I remember having to wait through all the rest of the musical program to get to the good stuff!)

We will be hosting another dance in early June, with a Fifties theme, and who knows who will turn out then, but tonight's turnout suggests to me that we aim at Lindy Hop dancers, who already patronize several nights at several venues in the Sacramento area. I don't know what people do these days in the Davis area, but several years ago, I know they used to patronize "The Grad" on Sunday evenings for swing dancing: perhaps they still do. If our venue was a predictable refuge for swing dancers, with scheduled, regular nights, we might build a good following of dancers quite compatible with the Theater's main aim of fostering musical theater.

In a way, we may be attempting to kill too many birds with one stone with the 'Dancing Through The Decades' fundraiser. Ideally, we want a fundraiser that:

1.) utilizes the facility;
2.) brings in lots of money; yet is,
3.) relatively trouble-free to manage.

In many ways, the Aioli Fundraiser was ideal for bringing in money, aimed as it was at those with disposable income (mostly the older folks), but it wasn't held at the facility. A dance uses the facility, but it's mostly an activity for the young, who have less money. People have different interests and different aims. So, we should accomodate the audience. We should worry less about fundraising in regards to the dances and worry more about making the dance night scheduling consistent, in order to build a loyal following.

Kid's Tile Wall going up at DMTC.

Here is a long-term project beginning to come to fruition: the Kid's Tile Wall! Many thanks to Jeni Price for her hard work on this project!