At first glance Romney Marsh wouldn't be the first place that you'd guess jivers would assemble for dance weekenders. The winding roads, ever present ditches, wind farms, sheep and acre after acre of fields would scarely indicate you were near a thriving dance venue. And whom amongst the dancers there would venture beyond the wide expanses of teh Camber Sands themselves down to the spooky settlement of Dungeness where wooden houses nestle in the shingle bank. In doing so there would pass not only a nuclear power station but also a fantastic nature reserve run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Venturing northward past Camber they would alit on the ancient town of Rye - its harbour home to 40 odd fishing boats and its tiny cobbled streets winding up hill replete with tower and 12th Century pub.
But jivers assemble to do their thing at Pontins Camber Sands and one can hardly blame anyone as November's gloom descends for ignoring local history and making for three days of dancing. Except, unlike Southport, the layout at Camber does not allow for dancing morning, noon and night. And the measures such as using the small dance floor in the pub are foreshortened when the perfectly good temporary flooring has tables and chairs on it, or a quiz is run there or a sack the DJ DJ doesn't show. The use of a room off the main room upstairs - christened The Cube - is welcome, but this too is used for lessons.
That said when there was dancing on Friday and Saturday, it was very good.
Increasingly as people choose to shorten the weekend: coming from work on Friday, leaving to get home on Sunday night - at the extremes of the weekend the rooms start to thin out quite early. There's some signs of the recession biting or boredom setting in - who knows? These dance weekenders remain very good value for money - unfortunately people are short of time too nowadays.
Despite the very good dancing there were some truly awful dancers about - the leaders who inadequately protect their partners in drops being the worst miscreants, the couple's dancing big in small spaces caused numerous collisions, but the inadequacies of floorcraft on display took some beating.
- One geezer was so insistent on getting onto the floor upstairs that he broke through the outstretched joined hands of two Ceroc teachers who were already dancing. I suspect their shocked faces were lost on him.
- A lady carrying a pint of something across the chill out room floor tripped, she fell forward and in doing so her drink flew upward and doused her face and then the floor. She rushed to the bar and asked for paper towels - and she dried her face and ordered another drink. It took a fellow dancers to get the barman to wipe up the slippage on the floor.
- As usual, I guess due to enthusiasm and unfamiliarity with the dangers of a big dance floor, we had leads reversing onto the dancefloor, beaming at their prospective partners but paying no attention to the dancing around them - most unwise.
There will be an accident one day and it will be seen as appalling by those involved. Recently I had a lecture from a dancer who said "something must be done about dancers who cause injure to other dancers" I'm pretty sure that she's right - but I've got no idea what would work. New dancers - lost in the escapist world of dance euphoria - tend just not to listen as teachers. Someone being taken off the dance floor and given a good talking to might help, better still send the blighter home.
I'm happy to report that there was some fantastic music played (some tracks were played far too often) but the crowd seemed harder to please and less up for being challenged by new tracks. This is sad but not surprising given the relative conservatism of dancers in London and the South East compared to further north and in Scotland. What was less appealing was the volume of the music in the Chill Out room - indeed it was that which ended the weekend prematurely for me. I spoke to several people to check it wasn't just me - everyone I spoke to agreed the sound was too loud and unsurprisingly distorted. The same problem with escalating volume occurred at Southport: loud doesn't equal good when the sound quality goes off so quickly. Go to Walkabout at Temple in London and you'll hear huge powerful expensive speakers pumping out very loud music, but you can talk right next to them because the sound is clean. If you have to shout in the Chill Out room it's not very chilled out really...
I commute to and from Camber by train nowadays - its quick and easy from St Pancras - so I too miss the delights of the Kent/Sussex border country. Its a bit sad because if I'd got my ass out of bed: there was at least time to visit these attractions whilst at Camber.
Was it blissful? Despite all of the wrinkles above and my early finish, yes it was blissful - there are some very fine dancers there and I was fortunate enough to dance with many of them.
But jivers assemble to do their thing at Pontins Camber Sands and one can hardly blame anyone as November's gloom descends for ignoring local history and making for three days of dancing. Except, unlike Southport, the layout at Camber does not allow for dancing morning, noon and night. And the measures such as using the small dance floor in the pub are foreshortened when the perfectly good temporary flooring has tables and chairs on it, or a quiz is run there or a sack the DJ DJ doesn't show. The use of a room off the main room upstairs - christened The Cube - is welcome, but this too is used for lessons.
That said when there was dancing on Friday and Saturday, it was very good.
Increasingly as people choose to shorten the weekend: coming from work on Friday, leaving to get home on Sunday night - at the extremes of the weekend the rooms start to thin out quite early. There's some signs of the recession biting or boredom setting in - who knows? These dance weekenders remain very good value for money - unfortunately people are short of time too nowadays.
Despite the very good dancing there were some truly awful dancers about - the leaders who inadequately protect their partners in drops being the worst miscreants, the couple's dancing big in small spaces caused numerous collisions, but the inadequacies of floorcraft on display took some beating.
- One geezer was so insistent on getting onto the floor upstairs that he broke through the outstretched joined hands of two Ceroc teachers who were already dancing. I suspect their shocked faces were lost on him.
- A lady carrying a pint of something across the chill out room floor tripped, she fell forward and in doing so her drink flew upward and doused her face and then the floor. She rushed to the bar and asked for paper towels - and she dried her face and ordered another drink. It took a fellow dancers to get the barman to wipe up the slippage on the floor.
- As usual, I guess due to enthusiasm and unfamiliarity with the dangers of a big dance floor, we had leads reversing onto the dancefloor, beaming at their prospective partners but paying no attention to the dancing around them - most unwise.
There will be an accident one day and it will be seen as appalling by those involved. Recently I had a lecture from a dancer who said "something must be done about dancers who cause injure to other dancers" I'm pretty sure that she's right - but I've got no idea what would work. New dancers - lost in the escapist world of dance euphoria - tend just not to listen as teachers. Someone being taken off the dance floor and given a good talking to might help, better still send the blighter home.
I'm happy to report that there was some fantastic music played (some tracks were played far too often) but the crowd seemed harder to please and less up for being challenged by new tracks. This is sad but not surprising given the relative conservatism of dancers in London and the South East compared to further north and in Scotland. What was less appealing was the volume of the music in the Chill Out room - indeed it was that which ended the weekend prematurely for me. I spoke to several people to check it wasn't just me - everyone I spoke to agreed the sound was too loud and unsurprisingly distorted. The same problem with escalating volume occurred at Southport: loud doesn't equal good when the sound quality goes off so quickly. Go to Walkabout at Temple in London and you'll hear huge powerful expensive speakers pumping out very loud music, but you can talk right next to them because the sound is clean. If you have to shout in the Chill Out room it's not very chilled out really...
I commute to and from Camber by train nowadays - its quick and easy from St Pancras - so I too miss the delights of the Kent/Sussex border country. Its a bit sad because if I'd got my ass out of bed: there was at least time to visit these attractions whilst at Camber.
Was it blissful? Despite all of the wrinkles above and my early finish, yes it was blissful - there are some very fine dancers there and I was fortunate enough to dance with many of them.
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