2012/13 Dance Season No 4

Daventry - Cool, Blue and Funky

I wish I could put my finger on the solution to the Daventry problem.  It’s run by good people, who work very hard, it’s a place to which many people love to go: but something has changed since I started going there and its not hitting the spot for me.  I will try and explain why.

A lot of people enjoyed Daventry on that Saturday night, so what was my problem? I don’t know really but these are the things which I noticed were different:-

When I started going to Daventry - it was daunting: two rooms full of the most accomplished dancers from across the country.  The Blues room was like the Roman colosseum: the competition for dancers was high and each dance occurred under the noses of one’s competitors.  The main room was a little more forgiving but it wasn’t for the self-conscious or reticent. But as financial pressures have applied to the pockets of dancers across the country so travel to dance distances have, I suspect, shortened.  The result was that this Daventry wasn’t as busy.  And the event has lost its leading edge - more relaxing as a result for some I guess, but less immediate for others.  This may be because like so many other venues, the average age has gone up - again I think this is something to do with disposable income.  

The main room was busy and I suspect those who had chosen that as their base had a good time.  The Blues room was perplexing - I couldn’t quite get on the edge of that wave that some were obviously enjoying.  The room was cold and though the new layout allowed more space - dancers were slow to make a start.  The music in the first part of the evening required more energy than I could muster and was at times just too much to take in whilst chatting to people arriving. As the evening went on I switched between rooms and noticed how fast and furious it was in the main room - that high tempo was too much for me too.  The pace was upbeat and with Messrs Ambridge and Moore in charge it would hardly be otherwise.

Back in the Blues room one might have slipped back in time 2 or 3 years - WCS was vying with whatever folk do in a blues room on Ceroc nights (I’m assured by experts that its not blues). The tracks had the whiff of mundane regularity that one gets when WCS tracks are being aired.  Too much of it was very familiar too though to be fair to the DJs this may have been more noticeable to regular weekender participants like me.  I’m diffident about WCS but far less tolerant of the music that accompanies it.  I’m left cold by track after track of it’s repetitive musical devices and norms.

As the room filled up. warmed up and we slipped into a more chilled zone: things began to improve somewhat.  I’m tiring of some of the tracks which I’m hearing too often in slow music rooms.  The music was largely familiar and the punters loved it, but it was at this stage people started to go home.  And even when the main room finished, the exodus for the car park was noticeable.  People are leaving dances earlier than they used to and its a long time to 3am which perhaps makes them less likely to stay to the end not more likely.  The blues room (a misnomer but I’ll stick with it) never really had bite - whether this was through distractions or just a consequence of group will, I don’t know.  Friends felt the same too.  We can hope next time the jigsaw pieces will fit.

I had some lovely dances at Daventry and yet the overall effect was of a slightly empty experience - which given its a five hour round trip makes me wonder....

Ceroc Breeze at Brean Sands

Saturday at Brean was one of the best days dancing I’ve had in Somerset easily on a par with the Southport weekend I reported here.

Friday seemed to be a conscious nod to those who had returned to the Ceroc fold after missing Southport in favour of other events.  So WCS was too the fore.  At one stage the blues competition practice session was liberally populated with WCS dancers. One day I’ll write about my perception of what WCS is: its a study in the tyranny of learning.

Its also a pain in the backside not knowing just how much WCS there will be at an event and how to avoid it, if, like me, the music drives you spare.  For a couple of years the dance has been of limited impact during Ceroc events.  WCS’ers have had their own events to go to in the UK, Europe and the States.  I recall a weekender in Skegness 2 or 3 years ago where WCS had its own room.   Things seem to be changing and there was much more WCS being undertaken than I’d expected with the consequent banal music feeding their habit.  Sunday suffered from this uniformity too.  Its not to say Ceroc classics are much better - though in many cases they are more interesting to me - but as someone who listens to Wagner and 19 guys scraping cacti spines maybe my musical taste is too bizarre to guide any DJ.

What happened on Saturday was more to my taste - from Chris Uren’s Swingers Hour to Jim Edward’s Sack the DJ slot - (5 or 6 hours) - we got variety, sets which steered a path, and as a result - fantastic dancing.  Each set reflected the musicality of the DJ - and each was different: overall ranging from almost salsa tracks to almost Lindy Hop and so much more on top.  The glory was that this continued into the late night and early morning in the Blues room with subtle and progressive DJing.  Sunday night after the competition started that way too but then lost its way with a combination of tiredness, a mood crushing increase in volume and a steady loss of dancers.  I left early - ears ringing and grateful that Saturday had been so good.

I watched the semi-finals and final of the Blues competition for the first time in two or three years and left none the wiser as to what Blues dancing is.  The judges were clearly looking at couples performing in many different styles some of which seemed so far apart from each other it was difficult to sort out.  Some of them were so far away from the music too - not just in terms of musicality - but also in terms of sentiment.  For my money there was only one couple who came close to the sentiment of the music being played and they won - so that was reassuring but I have no idea what separated the others.  It was rather like looking at a dozen of so great works or art: one clicks with some, one respects the workmanship of others and others leave one cold.  Connection seems to be the word - but actually I think the problem here was not so much the ability to shape a dance to a jointly understood vision, but how the preconceptions of a Blues dance differ between couples.  I pity and applaud the judges, and I wish next year’s contestants luck - I still don’t know what this “blues” dance is.