Next Door Blues...getting to know your swinging neighbours

Ahoy there!

This is the second edition of The Lunar Lounge! I know, the last one only just went up! It's because so many cool events happened in the last few weeks. Once we're all up to speed you'll be hearing these sultry tones (or keyboard taps) around once a fortnight.
This time on the couch I'm going to be chatting about Next Door Blues, Adelaide's newest fortnightly blues dance. NDB (wow we swing dancers really love acronyms don't we?) is run by Meral Nieman, who, apart from being an amazing follow is also a sexy sexy burlesque dancer. She also happens to be one of my closest gal pals, but that doesn't mean I'm biased at all =D.

All of us Adelaide ladies were extremely lucky, as the last NDB played host to Josh McKiterick, who many of you would know is one of Australia's greatest blues dancers as well as a wonderful Lindy and balboa dancer.

I managed to grab some privates with him (and no, not *those* kind of privates. Though how cool would that be? Partaking in random genitalia grabbing. Hmm maybe not. Though you never can tell with some blues dancers). I've done workshops with Josh (and the fab Noni May-Clarke, who I might just have a thing for because she is an incredible dancer), but I don't think anything could have prepared me for the intensity of these lessons. I have never had my swing out critiqued in such detail before. And Josh is not afraid to tell it like it is. Phrases such as 'that was shit', 'when you step on count 3, it sucks', 'no that was wrong', 'no, do it again' were commonly uttered during the few hours I spent with him. I swear, at least 90% of the time, I had no idea how to get my body to do what he was telling me to do. I was thinking to myself 'right...obviously swing dancings not for me..'. However, right towards the end, I finally had the shining moment where it All Made Sense. Now I feel freaking fantastic about my swing outs and bluesing. I highly reccomend doing a lesson with this champ if you haven't already done so, it was very inspiring.

So the actual night of NDB was great fun, Josh and Meral taught two classes followed by social dancing afterwards. There was one serious problem with the night though, which was that almost NOONE ASKED ME TO DANCE. Seriously Adelaide boys, I love you all to bits but man up already and ask me to dance. Now I know that many of you are my students and so you might be a little intimidated but I really want to dance with you! I'm just sick of having to ask all the time. It seems like there is this trend lately everywhere you go that the ladies have to ask. This really sucks! I mean, guys shouldn't have to ask all the time, that wouldn't be fair either, but every now and then would be nice. So that is your mission leads, and you have no choice but to accept it.

On the topic of blues in general, Church City Blues is happening very soon. Blues dancing can sometimes get a bad rap, and everyone seems to have different ideas about the ettiquete of blues dancing. So to prepare everyone for the upcoming blues mania, in the next edition of the Lunar Lounge, our panel of lovely ladies will discuss the dos and donts of blues dancing, with tips for both leads and follows (plus some good ol fashioned bitching about the things we love and hate). So until next time, peace out.
Luna xx




The Lunar Lounge: All the vintage dance lovin' you'll ever need.