Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Shag Now or Shag Later?

Shagging in public--the scandal!
I expected this post to be about shagging. In Ottawa. It's cold up there, you see, so one of the more enjoyable ways of keeping warm is to shag long into the night. I'm speaking, of course, of the annual Shag Explosion dance event and competition.

Alas, it was not to be. Lynn had unfortunately taken ill, and the weekend was instead spent watching movies at home.

But, that's not going to stop us from shagging as much as possible. In public, no less.

Collegiate Shag, like all of the swing dances that arose in the early part of the twentieth century, has a somewhat hazy history. Terms like "shag," "swing," and "jitterbug" were used more broadly to label any of the swing dances being danced in those days. (People from that time period would laugh at how specifically we label our dances today; to them Swing, Charleston and all the rest were interchangeable and determined only by the tempo and style of the music.) It's thought that Collegiate Shag as a distinct style arose out of New York City in the 1930s. From the ferver of fast-tempo dances this particular style of shag was adopted by the younger--you might say, collegiate--set of dancers.

It looks a little something like this:



Lynn and I have been learning shag from Tony Fraser, who is an awesome, energetic teacher. He and his partner Jamie Shannon are pushing the limits of the style and really having fun with the dance. What I enjoy most about them is that they really emphasize the playfulness of the dance, always encouraging everyone to put their own spin on the style. There aren't a lot of shaggers in NYC these days, so we're building on the small community here. And I'm happy to say that those who did make it to Ottawa, like Eryck and Liz shown in the picture above, did exceptionally well.

Here's Tony and Jamie:

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