Cambridge Lindy Hoppers Performance Troupe

Our performance troupe is performing next week at the Emmanuel College May Ball! The first number we do is a girls '20s charleston. It is really fun and high energy and we are wearing are new dresses. I love it!

Barcelona I

April 2007

We went to Barcelona for five days with three of our good Cambridge friends. We were visiting a swing dance camp called Barswingona, we looked around Barcelona and we caught up with other dance friends from around the world. I had lots of fun dancing in Barcelona and here are some photos.


The dance floor was very large, very busy and full of good dancers (and a few too many who 'thought' they were THE BEST, but we ignored them).

One day we also danced on a square outdoors to live music.


During the day we went sight seeing and guess what we bumped into: a little jazz band playing in one of the main shopping streets. Of course we had to have a dance.



Everyone watching loved it, especially the funny Portuguese man who you see in the photo below. He walked up REALLY close taking footage and photos with his camera.

Lotte likes, I mean LOVES, dancing!

I not only 'like' dancing outside. I LOVE it!

I was reminded myself when a friend of mine took this photo of me at the Cambridge Lindy Hopper's first ever Lindy Bomb! A 'lindy bomb' basically means you choose a place and time, you bring some fine jazz tunes, you invite your dancing friends and you DANCE :)

Don't ask me what I am doing in the photo. It must have been one of my famous improvisation moves. They are all truly amazing, original and like nothing else!

So, proven here, Lotte is in her element when:

She is with friends and family,
outside in the sunshine,
in a nice location, like a park,
dancing Lindy Hop!

YAY

Holland's Jumping invention!

Dutchies -- what is going on??

Check out this new thing, created by Dutch people, called Jumpstyle. Zot discovered it and we have decided it is very similar to the Lindy Hop charleston steps we do. The kicks are the same really, just the way they put them together is different. And yes, the music of course is VERY different from the jazz music we normally dance to.

But, we think we might spend an hour on some tutorials we found on YouTube and teach Jumpstyle as a warm up for our Lindy Hop classes ;) Should be fun. It was certainly fun to see Zot practising this morning in our living room. He has got plenty of energy, that is for sure.

This clip is quite fun too.

Cute little moorhen!

Punting can be so romantic, idyllic and wonderful. At times the river can be a real stunning place, with the sun shining on the water and on the beautiful buildings. At this time of the year it is even more exciting and lovely because the ducks and moorhens have their ducklings.

So, we are in the boat, punting along, happy times, romantic times, lovely times.
"Look over there!".
"Aaaah, there is a moorhen mum with her little baby duckling. Sooo cute!!"

Next moment, a big SPLASH! Gone is the little black duckling. Under water. It took one second and one big splash. The next moment it seems as if the duckling had never been there. The water is calm again. We could only know something had happened by the concerned, upset sounds of the mum.

I wasn't sure. Some said the duckling was just diving and would come up soon. It never came up though...

My punting colleagues told me later that there are eels in the river that eat ducklings. I read about it and apparently BIG eels eat ducklings. Hope this is not going to happen on many of my tours. It will be an upsetting rather then relaxing tour on the river.

Romantic? Yes. But now I also know the river can be a place of life and death.

Family & friends visiting!

So, when I work, I punt on the river. When I get visitors and I take a day off, I punt on the river! Me and the river are getting to know each other really well :)

My first week of punting

Phew - it is easier to tell you which muscles are NOT hurting, because there are not so many of them. Ouch!

Everything hurts, from typing to laughing. Holding the pole and pushing it makes my hands and arms sore. I can also tell you for sure you are using your stomach muscles -- I feel them all when I laugh and just when I move around.

4 days of work in a row in my first week as Chauffeur. I am proud of my survival. I have had fun and learned a lot about how it all works. I have had people from many different countries in my boat and I am enjoying that. I also made friends with many of my colleagues and we have a fun time together. I did not fall in the water. Not yet...

I don't like the current, the wind, the muddy bits and the noisy ducks.

I love the people who are punting for the first time, I love the wind if it goes my way. It is great entertainment when poles get stuck in the mud and against bridges, especially if it is not mine, haha.

Most tours punted in a day: 4 (for me that means about 4 hours of punting - soon I will have to be able to do it in 45 min)
Highest tip: 5 pounds

Next day I work is Sunday -- first time to work in the weekend. It will probably be busier.

What a test!!

I passed my test :)

I am now officially a 'Chauffeur' -Punting Tour Guide on the river Cam- and I start on Monday. I am working 5 days next week and don't know how I will survive as I am already super sore after the one tour I did yesterday for my test.

For this test I had to just give my first ever tour to one of my bosses. So, a 12 person boat, with 1 person in it, who probably knows more about the river than anyone else and I was giving him the tour! Yes, I was a little nervous!

I think I gave a very entertaining tour, for all the wrong reasons though, haha. My first tour ever, phew. Pretty clumsy. I was reminded yet again how easy it is to get stuck between punts parked on the banks, under trees and bridges and behind other punts on the river.

I also discovered I am not very good at talking and punting at the same time, let alone remember all the information;

"On my right hand (stick out hand..don't loose balance, hold on to stick, oops we are loosing speed quickly, punt on) you see Trinity college which was founded in, ehm.., 1546 by.....(pushing the pole, turning the boat, sigh, sweat)..founded by....eeehm...eehem. (Shit, can't remember, just talk on) The college is known for...ehm..bla bla bla"

I remembered so many names BEFORE I gave this silly test tour, all these Queens and Kings, designers of bridges and founders of colleges. Of course they are all named either William or Henry, Elizabeth or Margaret, which makes it very confusing.

My boss pissed himself laughing for most of the Lotte tour, especially because I simply named every lady Margaret. There were no more Elizabeths or other names in my vocabulary -- they were all Margaret!

Anyway, he had a very simple tick list and timed the trip. A little reminder not to do dangerous things...stay on the right side of the river, never move the pole over the people in the boat. Tick for mentioning the names of the colleges and the bridges......okay, passed -- start ASAP!

Wish me luck!

Chauffeur training

A little update on my training to become a punt tour guide.

I have been practicing the technique of punting and it is improving. I am slowly remembering more dates, names, history and facts. What I really mastered in the last week is to know all the dangers that are ahead!

1. Falling in the river
2. Losing the pole and having to wait for someone to help me out of trouble (as there is no paddle in the tour boats)
3. Hitting other boats due to someone else's fault or my own
4. Talking too much on the way there, so there is nothing to talk about on the way back
5. Forgetting information or not knowing enough
6. Getting very quiet, boring people in the boat, so the atmosphere is making the time drag along
7. Getting injuries

I am making friends with colleagues now and they are very relaxed and friendly. I feel very unsure still about being able to go ahead, but everyone tells me they were all like that when they started. I know they are trying to be nice and helpful, but they keep telling me:

"the best way for this job is just to throw yourself in the deep!"

Sage

Sage, or Salie in Dutch, is just great. I have decided to use it more. I like it for several reasons:

- It tastes great

- It is a good replacement for parsley; very helpful in my kitchen as Zot does not like parsley

- It is known for it's healing qualities; the Latin name for sage is salvia and that means “to heal”

A medieval saying is: Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? meaning "Why should a man die whilst sage grows in his garden?"

When I get a garden again, I think I might grow some sage in there :)

Source: Wikipedia

Budapest III - Budapest dancers!

These photos are from the performance and from one of the classes we taught :) The Lindy Hop scene in Budapest is not very big, but it has been going for years. One of the dancers there told me he has been to the Herrang Dance Camp (Sweden) 12 times! There are many good Lindy Hop dancers and also a lot of really good Boogie Woogie dancers.

Budapest II

I was very busy dancing and teaching, but here are some things I learned about the city:

* Beautiful, famous bath houses
* Nice people
* Big beautiful impressive buildings
* Many homeless people
* Wide streets
* Currency - 1 Pound=350 Florint
* Many big statues of Hungarian Kings and soldiers - Hungary has known many wars and revolutions and has never won any
* Nice food - Goulash, yummie
* Hungarian language - I tried REALLY hard for 5 days and only learned the words for 'thank you' and 'little kiss'. The language is like no other language. I learned the first word because of it was very useful, the second word because it is an english word as well, but with a different meaning. Ask me in person to tell you what they are because the first one I don't know how to spell and the second one I can't write on my blog, or say out loud, without being very rude, haha.

Charleston Dress I

Check out my new Charleston dress!

I am so happy. I have been looking for a proper Charleston dress for years now and yesterday I got three in one go thanks to my good friend Ros! See here, one of them.
Ros is a Lindy Hopper and for her living she designs and makes costumes as Rosalind Evans Design. Ros is on the left in the photo below wearing a white shirt. She just happened to have a whole heap of wonderful Charleston dresses that she 'wanted to get rid off', because they were taking up space. When she said this, it was like a dream come true for us!So, me and my dance friends were visiting her at the first possible opportunity. Thanks to your mum Ros for the wonderful freshly baked scones with jam and cream. Yummie :)

Altogether, one of the most exciting Sundays in a while!

New hair colour

Before....



...and after!

I look much happier after, don't you think so? That was not planned. I think 20 photos later I just got better at taking a photo of myself and so smiling was a bit easier! But, I am also happy with the result.

Budapest I

March 14 - March 19 Lotte in Budapest

I was visiting Hungary to teach Lindy Hop. It was a great trip, with lots of nice dances and lovely people (3 American teachers plus me, 2 Finish students on exchange and everyone else Hungarian) in a beautiful city! Here are some stories.

In this first photo I am having lunch. Very tasty pancakes and a huge cup of ice tea :) I just remember the man who sold them to me. Well, I remember his hands really. His hands were small with big fingers that looked like they had done hard labour all their life, because they were not the frail pink colour of many unlaboured hands in the world. Those hands rolled up the tiny thin pancakes.

My American friends could not believe he did that without wearing plastic gloves -- which is custom in the States I believe. I did not care, because these hands rolled up my little pancake with so much care, they must taste good -- and they did!

See below my 'big-but-careful-hands-pancake-friend'!

Chagrijnig, Sacherijnig, Sjagrijnig

My CV tells me I am fluent in Dutch and English. Sure -- why then, do I find myself so often sitting behind the computer in a frozen position searching my brain cells for words or the spelling of words in either one of those languages?

These situations are not too bad though, because I just open another window, google and wikipedia around a bit, and find the spelling or the word I was looking for, and the frustration disappears as if it was never there. It is worse though when it is in a social situation and I get stuck, or the worst (and funniest at the same time) when I use the wrong word and the meaning shocks my friends! Anyway, today, when I found the spelling of the word, I was pleasantly surprised and found myself thinking: "what a word".

"What a word" -- I should write a post about it! So here is the word:

Chagrijnig
It means 'grumpy'. I like the word grumpy, it feels like the right word for the feeling that is describes. The word 'chagrijnig' though seems weird. I am sure it looks strange for the english speaking, but I wonder if the Dutch speaking, who don't speak english everyday, also think this is a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary word? It is certainly a tricky one for the Dutch, because I found lots of debate about the spelling of it online. I then discovered there are two correct spellings of this word! The other one is:

Sacherijnig

Why?? Why do we need to have two correct spellings?? Is that just so that the chance you get it right is higher? Or because people got it wrong so often it just got generally accepted?

There is another version, which I suspect is not officially correct, but I am not sure about that:

Sjagrijnig

Dutch is difficult I have decided. It is not for nothing there are websites dedicated to tackle problem words in Dutch language (aimed for native Dutch speakers that is). Here is an example:

Probleemwoorden

Now, all you english speakers must wonder how to pronounce it? Well, spelling is one thing... pronounciation is a totally different story. I think this word will give you an interesting pronounciation challenge! Give me a call :)

Pleasure becomes work!

I seem to have just found myself a job! After months of job hunting and job applications without getting anywhere I had an idea....let's check out punting!

A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. Punting refers to boating in a punt. The punter generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole.
Punts were originally built as cargo boats or platforms for fowling and angling but in modern times their use is almost exclusively confined to pleasure trips on the rivers in the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge in England and races at a few summer regattas on the Thames. (Wikipedia)

Punting is a very popular leisure time activitiy in Cambridge and I have gone punting a few times already. Not as easy as it sometimes seems, but very fun and I always enjoyed it as you can see on the photo.

Now, this might be where you will find me most of the time in the near future-- on the river Cam taking the tourists along the colleges, punting and talking away.... They refer to Tour Guide Punters as 'Chauffeurs'.

First I have to pass a 'test' though, which I think just means taking my boss on a tour to see if I am good enough for the real tours yet. I will have to fill 45 minutes of tour talk AND, even more challenging, get this 12 person boat up and down the river in 45 minutes while I am talking, help!

So, over the next week I am studying 8 pages of information on Cambridge bridges and buildings and Cambridge University. I will also practise punting the 12 person boats. Those are bigger than the 6 people punt boats that I have been going on. When I feel ready I will do the test and my 'Chauffeur' career can kick off!

(I was told that my boss fell into the river 7 times in his first year. I will have to leave a spare set of clothes just around the corner at Matt's office I think, haha!)

Lotte's Avatar

Avatar -- I like this word. It has many meanings and the following one is why I got to add this word to my vocabulary:

Avatar (icon), the graphical representation of an Internet user.

I only learned this word a few years ago when I made my first avatar. There was just a website that allowed you to create avatars by selecting all sorts of facial details, hair styles and colours and backgrounds. It was fun and easy to create and I still like the end result -- it is me :)

I especially like the windmill in the background. Very appropriate for this Dutchie! My hair is not so red at the moment, but I think it will be soon. I have got this cheap 'intense red' hair colour product that I might use soon. My hair is too long, but I refuse to have a haircut in England. So, while I am waiting, why not fresh it up a bit? I will look more like my avatar!

Strange world -- Lotte who is going to look more like her avatar instead of the avatar looking more like her!

Call for Elephant or Maker of an Elephant

Searching for a job can be frustrating, tiring, boring, draining, but I found it highly entertaining for just a short moment today.

I am signed up for an online job list that focusses on jobs in the Arts. Everyday I have been getting several emails of vacancies in the UK and there has only been one, so far, that I am interested in. I applied for it last week.

Today I received another one of those emails. It is one that is worth mentioning. It really stood out. In fact, I think I might reply to it, because I think I might have seen an elephant in my kitchen cupboard last night!

See below for email!


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a posting from the Arts Council England "arts jobs" mailing list.
Please send any response direct to the sender rather than replying to the list itself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Call for Elephant or Maker of an Elephant

This is a very urgent call out. we are looking for a very big carnival
type elephant, we are going to be comissioning an artist to make one
unless anyone out there already has one. The elephant needs to be
operated by 2 people and will only be used once so won't need to last
for years and years! it needs to be in a fairly cartoonish style and
will need to be coloured in a specific turquoise coulour (we are happy
to do this, however it needs to be done). Please if you are interested
get in touch by the end of Wednesday 28th

jay kerry

Artistic Director
Malone Bespoke Events Production

Lotte World

Lotte created a blog
Posted a few times
Got really into her holidays
Did not feel like blogging
Zot said it was time to post again
Lotte forgot where her blog was....
Googling around I found the 'other' Lotte World



In Wikipedia it states:
Lotte World (Korean: 롯데월드) is a recreation complex in Seoul, South Korea. It consists of a large indoor theme park, an outdoor amusement park on an island linked by monorail, shopping malls, a hotel, a Korean folk museum, sports facilities and movie theatres in one area. The Lotte World indoor theme park is the largest indoor amusement park in the world, and ranked seventh worldwide in attendance according to the 2002 census[1].
Opened in July 12, 1989, it receives about 8 million visitors each year. Located near the park is Seok-Chon lake.
Lotte World was one of the several spots used for filming the Korean drama Stairway to Heaven.
Due to safety concerns, the amusement park portion of Lotte World was closed indefinitely as of January 8, 2007.

I think I would like a better name for my Blog. Any ideas??

Blogging is easy

Right, so far so good....I posted a photo :)

Easy
I think this is all not too difficult to do. I think the most difficult thing really is to make it entertaining. I guess it depends on who I am writing this blog for -- for me or for others? It's nice to have a place for memories. It is nice for others to find out about what is happening to me. So why worry about what to write or post?? Well, it all goes out to everywhere and everyone in the entire internet world -- that is pretty serious.

Post Idea: There will need to be a post on "what is happening to me", because there is a story about that. Will do later.

HELP! What do you think?
I will need to do some research into what you can post and how to be legal. For example:
- Should I mention the name of the photographer of the photo I posted? I probably should.....
- Can I post images of friends?
- Should I make it a private blog for invitation only?

Elemental

Just a week ago I performed in the show 'Elemental' - CUCDW Dance Show at the ADC Theatre in Cambridge. I performed in a street dance number called 'Wonders of this World', which was really fun and also challenging as I was dancing this style for the first time. I really liked the choreography and only remembered it a week before the show. SCARY, but great experience. I think I will do some more of it this year.

In the photo we are in the blues dance section of the beginning of our Lindy Hop performance Berry Blues/Bottom's Up. This was not as challenging for me as I have performed Lindy Hop before, but it was just as great to do as I had never performed Lindy Hop in a professional stage setting. WHoo hee.

Photos copyright Duncan Grisby, 2007.

Oh Boy -- I started a Blog

HELP! I started a blog. Did not mean to, but found myself creating an account when trying to make a post on my crazy friends' blogs. So, it is your fault friends!

Anyways. We will see what happens....if anything happens......