swing

Swing, Swing, Swing

Yesterday, I told you about the visit to the Vintage Cocktail Club, and the ritzy start to the evening. After leaving the club, we went to dinner at an Italian restaurant and then headed on to the Button Factory. I’d been dying for about 3 weeks to go see the Swing Cats – but tickets were 20 Euro. It seemed a bit steep – but when the offer came up for 2 for 1 tickets on one of the local discounter websites, I couldn’t pass it up.

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Dressed up in a swing style outfit and ready to boogie, I switched from my flat shoes into my 3 inch high “dancing shoes” upon our arrival. It was about 7:50pm, and the place was already nice and full. The opening act was a trio of French girls – performing Andrews Sisters tunes. They did excellent covers of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, and Bushel and a Peck. They were fab, but it was only as we went into the main show that I realized I wasn’t enamored of the set up.

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The stage was great – but as you can see from the pictures below, the Button Factory had tables all over the hardwood dance floor – while the people who wanted to dance were jammed into the back entrance area near the stairs (this meant limited dance space – as only 2-3 couples could be there at a time and were constantly jostling with folks trying to get to the bar). And worse yet – they had a balcony with seating area that was almost completely deserted! (Had it been me, I would have moved the tables – opened the space closer the stage for those that wanted to dance – and had people who wanted to just “watch” sit in the balcony… but it wasn’t, so I made the best of it and danced when I could – while totally enjoying the music.) That being said, the band was great.

The Swing Cats are an Irish band that plays big band era music. Every thing they do is designed for Swing Dancing (aka West Coast Swing / Jitterbug / Lindy Hop) and tonight’s presentation was called “The Story of Swing”. I must say they covered everything. Starting out with some classic charleston, they quickly progressed through into classic big band era songs like Sing Sing, In the Mood, Pennsylvania 6-5000, and the Jungle Book.

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From there, they went on into the Rat Pack (They also introduced a “friend” to help them out with some classic Sinatra and Dean Martin), keeping us singing along, toe tapping, and moving like mad – before progressing into Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife and then their version of Stray Cat Strut.

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After nearly 3 hours of their singing and my dancing my butt off (I had to switch back to the flat shoes part of the way through as my feet were done in), the Swing Cats left us breathless and concluded with a great rendition of New York, New York and got a standing ovation.

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It was a great show (I do think 20 euro is quite reasonable for the band now that I’ve seen them live). If you want you can check out some video at their website – http://www.theswingcats.ie/ and I’m sure you’ll be hoping they’re in town too.

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After this, we ended up walking over to the Gypsy Rose for a last couple drinks of the night (And a bit of acoustic metallica covers) before heading home around 1 am. Good fun was had by all – and thankfully, there were no hangovers – and only sore feet. (photo below- one tired but happy girl) 🙂

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Ceroc Dancing

Since late last year, I’ve been taking some dance classes in a style called Ceroc.  It’s been a great opportunity to meet a few people, learn to dance, and have a fun evening out that’s not sitting at home!

As can only be expected, the dance class is mostly women, but we have a good few men in the class who are learning as well.  I’m surprised at the ages of the different classes – I’ve seen people from about 20 all the way up to their 60’s learning to dance.  I have a sneaky suspicion that it’s because of shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “Strictly Come Dancing” that some people are in the class – but I have to say whatever the reason, its been fun to dance with multiple partners – and even more so, to have partners that actually WANT to dance and are enjoying themselves too.

So, you ask me, what is Ceroc?

Well, it’s a male led dance that is a combination of modern swing, jive, salsa, and merengue.  It also has steps from the Tango and Rhumba, but not necessarily all the complex footwork.  It’s fairly easy to learn – and in a single class, you learn enough moves for most guys to actually “look” like you know what you’re doing on the dance floor. 🙂 Oh – and the best part? It can be danced to almost any type of music you want. There’s over 250 steps by the time you make it through the highest level advanced levels – with the beginners learning about 18 or so in the first 6 weeks. They’re done in any combination (as led by the man) and it’s always a treat to see the different styles of the people on the floor – in combination.

I don’t have any videos or pictures of myself dancing (I’ll see what I can do), but I can give you a few samples, thanks to youtube. The one at the top of the page is an intro to one of the mid-level classes, and the one below is as well. The bottom one is a guy teaching some modern jive – but he also teaches ceroc – and you get an idea of how the steps are introduced.

Now, anyone want to dance?

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