Most of my weekenders look remarkably like this from about an hour in....until they finish 60 odd hours later. They are the most fun you can have but they can be daunting. They are full of great dance enthusiasts and ideal places to combine learning new dance styles and techniques in a concentrated wine. They are the peak of dancing finesse (or they should be see below).
I know that the behind the scenes staff worked very hard to get this Southport event (called Blush for reasons that are unclear until the biting cold of an Irish sea wind brings out your rosy cheeks). Pontins seem to invest money here and there in this site but it's starting to show signs of wear. The floors in the pub were grim in places - but mostly manageable. Not for the first time a layer of cheap varnish proved to be a reminder how not to treat a floor. That stayed with us as dust most of the weekend. The cracks and bumps near the bar were an adventure. But the size of the floors allow for continuous dancing and that's one of the reasons we all love Southport.
Everything else was much as we left it in September.
On music - I can only speak for the Chill Out Room - I think there were more points where the more thoughtful DJs went off the beaten track and I'd be lying if I said any of the music was awful. I'd highlight a dazzling set from Roger Brent on Sunday and a wonderful varied selection from Chris Uren when Friday night was still young. But there was also great sense in the exploration of heavier rock and much else from Kevin Sambridge and funk from Yorkshire with James Richardson (a DJ I can appreciate locally but who deserves a bigger stage) and Jon Gammon who DJs with one hand and runs the event with the other. David Rokov challenged us but brought in the bacon with superb dramatic tracks. I have nothing but praise for most of the DJs in the line up for pushing the boundaries. One didn't - just stuck to the usual recycling - time he pushed the boat out or was pushed off the plank.
Of the unofficial DJs I didn't hear many but Matt Cox and Jamie Eddy combined energy with a great feeling . Shame their set was broken by someone who should have been sacked, but wasn't. Please support these DJs or sack them. If no one is dancing they should go. It is called SACK the DJ.
Both Swingers Hours were on my hit list - they remain an acquired taste but surprisingly the floors weren't as full. Both were great sets, if anything Mike Ellard pushed us faster. Was all to the good. I loved dancing to Elvis with Lisa Graydon: it almost made the music bearable ;-). My dance with Hayles Nichols on Saturday was to that gorgeous but silly duet, How D'ya Like your Eggs in the Morning. It was one of the most enjoyable dances I've ever had - her enthusiasm for that classic matched mine. A magic moment of mutual zone hitting with singing along too.
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| Swinger's Hour - Saturday |
The afternoons were jolly - if not jollier at times. The sunlight burst through though the cold wind still cut like a knife. But there was something different about this SP.
There were some odd antics by the evangelical wing who found temptation irresistible, in front of the fallen no less too - what hope for us then? Also by dancers who seem only to have one speed (fast) and one level of articulation (bent) and one direction of view (the chests of their partners)...unsurprisingly some unfortunate barging resulted. Old stagers will tell you that you can't dance big on a crowded floor - but some people who were as hungry for dance as a rabid dog is for water seem to care little about the fate of those they bumped stepped on or elbowed.
This kind of thing is I imagine often discussed on Dancers Forum - the leading group for splitting hairs and dancing on pinheads. Their scrutiny of etiquette is frequent, wide ranging, worldly, heartfelt and ignored. I have no idea why such sage advice should be unheeded. It is as though an embodiment of Jena Paul Sartre's nihilistic existentialism or simply that too many didn't give a fu....
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| Sunrise just begins as I leave the dance floor on Saturday morning |
There was worse to come, the amateur photographers too were condemned to be free (as Sartre had it) and fed up with wandering around the dance floor the photographers took to the floor too. In Swingers Hour the straying was bothersome and yet no one spoke to the photographers in question. Some other imperative motivated the man who stood in the centre of the busy dance floor on Sunday night videoing - who told me to "fuck off" when I asked him to move. I scarcely had time to make my case given his repeated insistence that I should "fuck off". So I fucked off....and stood in front of his camera. But how odious was that response. I hope our friend on roller skates is proud of his video when he gets it.
Frankly it's a disgrace that dancers behave in this way - not thinking of others or themselves. You may argue that they have every right to take pictures (I somehow doubt that they do at a private event). But they do not have a right, indeed they may well be contravening the law, to put my health and safety and yours, at risk. Standing on a dance floor, waddling off it, standing and chatting to your new friend or dithering about whether to go and get a drink, are not quaint inconveniences. When I'm dancing at speed and I hit you cos you are unexpectedly standing in a room full of moving dancers, I will hurt you - I am heavy. And you will hurt me cos I'm slowing down in a collapsing move collection of limbs and 100kgs plus of annoyed Viking. You hurt me and I will sue your lackadaisical ass. Or I might hurt myself or your friends taking avoiding action.
So to those who do this, the message is simple
GET OFF THE FLOOR IF YOU ARE NOT DANCING
STAY IN YOUR BIT OF THE FLOOR IF YOU ARE DANCING
KEEP OFF THE DANCE FLOOR IF YOU'RE NOT DANCING
AND STOP BUGGERING ABOUT - SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET BADLY HURT AND IT WILL PROBABLY BE ONE OF YOUR SLOW WITTED FRIENDS.
And to the disgraceful bugger, who I spied trying to "teach" my friend his wide variety of badly executed, dubiously motivated, uninsured and desperately dated dips and drops STOP IT. We know why you see to "teach" - you're an open book, a rather sad, unreliable one. Go dance and leave professionals to do that job, they do it better than you and without drooling!
Other than that Mr Lincoln, how did you like the play?
POSTSCRIPTUM: 8 March SN
I've been reminded of a target that I inadvertently let drift from my sights in the above.
The numbskulls who carry drinks across the dance floor at weekenders are course a dancers worst enemy. They should be pilloried. These hard hearts - so keen to get their beers, wines and spirits across to their dance mates - too frequently leave chaos in their wake for three reasons:-
1, Spillage is an obvious hazard - slipping on liquid often had hilarious results in the movies, it's seldom like that in real life.
2. Water also ruins some dance shoes - a costly loss for some
3. this is the most important: whilst concentrating on not spilling the drink people have little chance to see what's about to hit them. Dancers have to take avoiding action. That avoiding action acts in a wake behind the individual like the bow wave of a boat. Dancers dodging drinks carriers end up aborting moves, switching slots, jarring joints and of course swearing a lot.
So Dancer's Forum: what are you going to do about that? I look froward in the debate in which I'm sure we'll see a forensic discussion of the % of water in the alcohol solutions in questions, someone suggesting it is preferably the drinks transporters have preference and someone telling the rapt readership that it's different in WCS.
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