Transcript
Speaker: Hi everyone, my name is Adam Price.
Speaker: And I'm Emily Jane Acree.
Speaker: And you're listening to the Relative Rhythms Podcast.
Speaker: Today we're excited to introduce to you dancer and educator Tydrick Hill.
Speaker: Tydrick considers himself a student, educator, competitor, and performer of Black American vernacular jazz dance, specifically Lindy Hop.
Speaker: He teaches and competes internationally at dance festivals and conventions around the world.
Speaker: He is active on social media and passionate about sharing the rich history of this Black American art form through his platform and in the classroom.
Speaker: He focuses on the history of vernacular jazz dance and the through lines to modern Black American dance forms, including tap dance.
Speaker: We talk about some of those three lines, his activism as a black dancer and black man living in this time, and his passion for sharing the dance with all humans.
Speaker: We talk about the importance of language, and we ask him to dispel some of the myths about the Lindy Hop dance and community.
Speaker: This is an awesome conversation and is one to listen to with open ears and an open heart.
Speaker: Please welcome to the podcast, Tydrick Hill.
Speaker: Music
Speaker: Tydrick Hill, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker: I'm happy to be here.
Speaker: Thank you for having me.
Speaker: For those of us who aren't familiar with your work, can you just give us a super quick like superhero backstory about how you came to your art form?
Speaker: Yeah, I've been dancing since I was six.
Speaker: But I moved, I grew up in Dallas, Texas.
Speaker: I moved to Ohio and kind of got divorced away from the community that I was dancing with, which is my family, mostly.
Speaker: Randomly, when I was 21, I was taking this girl out on a date.
Speaker: She mentioned that she liked dancing.
Speaker: So I thought I'd be impressive and show her that I listened.
Speaker: And for the next date, I tried to surprise her by going dancing.
Speaker: And I remember there's an organization in my city called Cabago by Swing Columbus.
Speaker: and they organized a dance to live music that following Tuesday.
Speaker: So it was the Rick Burnetto Big Band.
Speaker: And they offered like a 30 minute taster session, taster lesson, and then you go off and you dance.
Speaker: And I remember dancing, kind of running around in a circle.
Speaker: I was trying to copy what I was seeing other people do.
Speaker: Because you have the taster lesson, but because of my experience dancing,
Speaker: I figured I picked that up pretty fast.
Speaker: So I thought like I'm hot stuff, you know?
Speaker: And so I'm trying to watch and copy and figure stuff out.
Speaker: And I remember I had this moment kind of going around in a circle with this girl.
Speaker: And I was like laughing.
Speaker: I'm just kind of, I'm having fun.
Speaker: It just realized this is fun.
Speaker: I'm having fun.
Speaker: I like this.
Speaker: I want to keep doing this.
Speaker: So that's how I got started.
Speaker: That's how I got started.
Speaker: And it took about two months.
Speaker: I was hanging out with one of my friends and teaching partners, Victor Lillard.
Speaker: At that time, we were both doing Lindy Hop just casually as a hobby.
Speaker: But he was helping out.
Speaker: He was leading the swing dance club in the university.
Speaker: And I remember he mentioned like, oh, but you know, this is like a like it's it's rooted in black history.
Speaker: It's a black art form.
Speaker: And I was like, I didn't know that.
Speaker: And he showed me Hell's a Poppin'.
Speaker: And what's funny is Hell's a Poppin' is this old routine.
Speaker: Obviously it's Frankie Manning and Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.
Speaker: They do the whole air steps.
Speaker: It's a great routine.
Speaker: It's wonderful.
Speaker: But I had seen that clip before a whole bunch of times, but I had not reconciled that that is what I was doing.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: For two months.
Speaker: But I remember I saw that clip and he showed me another clip, which was a day at the races.
Speaker: I had something like a spiritual experience watching a day at the races.
Speaker: The singer, she's singing about how all God's children got rhythm and the children, their clothes are tattered and they're all dancing and singing and playing music in this barn.
Speaker: At the end of the clip, people put on blackface.
Speaker: There's a lot of
Speaker: you see the socioeconomic situation of black people right there.
Speaker: Poverty, racism, it's there.
Speaker: And yet somehow in the midst of all of that, they can sing about how they have a divine right to joy before God, all God's children got rhythm.
Speaker: Maybe they don't have money, maybe they don't have shoes, but all God's children got rhythm to push away their blues.
Speaker: And that really spoke to me, that sat with my spirit in a way that made me feel like, okay, this is my birthright.
Speaker: I have to do this.
Speaker: So I think that was really, I, I, I, I did my toe in the pool because of a date, my toe in the pool of Lindy hop and swing dancing because of a date.
Speaker: What made me chase after it.
Speaker: And more than just a hobby was watching that clip and kind of having that experience.
Speaker: And I didn't realize that's all that I was thinking about watching it.
Speaker: I was like, this is powerful.
Speaker: And at that time it, yeah, it helped me, uh,
Speaker: come to peace and reconcile a lot about my personal identity too, as a black man.
Speaker: You said you were dancing as a, as a kid with your family.
Speaker: Were you dancing like swing?
Speaker: What, what, what?
Speaker: No, man, no, not at all.
Speaker: So my mom, so I grew up, uh, I'm the oldest of 10 kids and, uh, yeah, we grew up really poor.
Speaker: My mom had me when she was 17, got pregnant with me at 16.
Speaker: So she didn't really have resources.
Speaker: Um, and yeah,
Speaker: Because of that, she would always say this, that her greatest desire, she'd know that she succeeded as a mother if we could make it through high school, graduate without being killed or going to jail.
Speaker: She was like, if I can get you guys to graduate without those two things, then I did my job.
Speaker: We're good.
Speaker: And so to keep us away from the things that black kids tend to run into because that are impoverished in our country, like...
Speaker: She had us in church a lot.
Speaker: Steady diet of church.
Speaker: And she herself was a dancer.
Speaker: And it just naturally ended up being that we would sing and we would dance a ton in church.
Speaker: So we did a lot.
Speaker: Miming.
Speaker: We did stepping.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: We did.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, we did.
Speaker: We did that.
Speaker: My mom was also really big on especially as I got in high school, she got really big into pro black.
Speaker: She ran into a lot of pro-Black artist circles.
Speaker: So, yeah, we were just exposed to all of these different movement and music styles in the diaspora.
Speaker: I was super in love with... First, it was theater, actually.
Speaker: First, I did theater, and I did theater from about four...
Speaker: to about 16.
Speaker: When I was eight or nine, I loved music.
Speaker: So my parents bought me a violin, but while trying to tune it one time, we took local classes at a center while trying to tune my violin, the bridge broke and it was too expensive to repair.
Speaker: So then when I went into high school, my mom, she enrolled me in piano lessons and I learned how to play piano.
Speaker: So music was a big thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And basically, you know, I think especially in high school, because of that influence of her always trying to push us towards the arts and my stepdad also being super into the arts, I had a steady diet of theater, of music and of dance.
Speaker: And it just so happened to be that dance is the one that took off for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: in my adult years.
Speaker: I still play piano.
Speaker: I love theater.
Speaker: Like I love films, but, uh, dance is the one that people recognize before.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's beautiful.
Speaker: And I love that the way you talk about dance and the different kind of styles and ways you've participated in the arts is within community.
Speaker: I think that's really beautiful.
Speaker: Your church community or your family community is really, that's how you experience the arts, which I think is not always the case for a lot of people.
Speaker: that that maybe dance or music happens like in a studio or in a room and it doesn't necessarily happen alongside other humans that you're living with and experiencing life with.
Speaker: So I think that's really beautiful.
Speaker: Yeah, I think I always wonder, like I check back with myself about what makes something that I'm doing worth doing.
Speaker: Like why be a dancer instead of studying to be a doctor?
Speaker: You know what I settled on.
Speaker: And what I saw a lot in the way the dance was practiced is that it brings people together.
Speaker: It is normally celebration and community.
Speaker: And I think the dance, as a lot of people recognize it on TV, in a studio.
Speaker: like catered to be perceived in a certain way.
Speaker: That's a valid facet of dance culture for sure.
Speaker: But I think it's more of a reflection of our culture's relationship with capitalism than it is with the human reality, the human motivation to do any of those things.
Speaker: Like we make music, we sing and we dance to celebrate because we're happy to be together to express something, to share something.
Speaker: You know, so for me, I think I know a lot of really talented movers who I think because of the way dance is shared, which is primarily through those businesses.
Speaker: A lot of people have this relationship with dance that is solely about the exhibition of what one person's body can do.
Speaker: And then people are left feeling less valid in a space because their body doesn't reach a certain.
Speaker: Oh, my body isn't that fluent.
Speaker: I can't flip over my head this time.
Speaker: I can't do this many pirouettes this way.
Speaker: Not to say that the working towards the technique and having the ability to do those awesome things with your body is dope.
Speaker: But I think dance is also beautiful because our bodies are such a fragile medium.
Speaker: And we're not going to be able to do these things for forever.
Speaker: Like you may be able to do a really cool double backflip now, but in 10 years, in 20 years, we'll slowly lose that ability.
Speaker: Our joints will weaken, our teeth will weaken.
Speaker: It happens.
Speaker: We age.
Speaker: And so there's like this temporal thing of time and then the temporal thing of our bodies and we push it to the edge and we express something.
Speaker: And I think that that's beautiful.
Speaker: I think that that's beautiful.
Speaker: But I think we also, when we put the focus on the cool stuff, we lose, we lose sight of the human in front of us.
Speaker: We just see the movement, you know?
Speaker: And that's that's that's the fear that I have.
Speaker: And something when I when I tell people that I teach dance, I'm almost remiss to say that I'd rather I think I teach like about culture, about history, about how to be a person, because I think these are the lessons that dance has taught me.
Speaker: I think I think I teach those things more than I teach.
Speaker: movement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Can you talk a little bit about what that looks like in a, in a class or a workshop setting of yours?
Speaker: Like, obviously you, you are hired to go to these festivals to teach technique.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that, that also happens, but can you talk a little bit about how you encompass and embody that within your classes as an educator?
Speaker: It's interesting because with Lindy Hop, at the casual level, when you're just social dancing, it's not a physically rigorous task.
Speaker: I think a lot of people don't take care of their body.
Speaker: So it's interesting because I talk about what I just did, but I actually I lead a pretty intense warm up.
Speaker: We really stretch and we move the body.
Speaker: And then I talk to people about why.
Speaker: we move the body, why we talk about why I play the music that I play.
Speaker: And I'm always talking about what it is that I believe in.
Speaker: Let's say we talk about, we're talking about partnering and a technique of how to move your partner from point A to point B. We talk about the conversation in that.
Speaker: I share my perspective.
Speaker: I share what you think, or I share how to do the thing, but I also share why we do the thing.
Speaker: And I'm always talking about the why.
Speaker: For me, it's more important for students to understand why than how.
Speaker: If they know why, they can construct how.
Speaker: They can engineer how.
Speaker: That will come to them.
Speaker: Sometimes I can help.
Speaker: But really, when it comes to how a lot of times what students need is a you need to tuck your core more or you balance this way or you know what I mean?
Speaker: And then they just put reps on that one little bit that you gave them.
Speaker: It doesn't I don't have to sit and elucidate for an hour for them to know that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So I think the greater part of the class, I give little points here and there about how to move.
Speaker: But the greater part of class, I'm trying to convince my students about why it is that I'm teaching them the thing.
Speaker: And normally that always rounds back to all of this music is you heard house music and hip hop in the warmup.
Speaker: You didn't hear jazz.
Speaker: Why is that?
Speaker: Or you didn't hear what you think jazz is.
Speaker: Why is that?
Speaker: Well, I think they're all connected.
Speaker: If I teach shuffles and philapse a ton, just connected to tap dancing.
Speaker: And then why is that?
Speaker: Because jazz is...
Speaker: I don't view myself as just a Lindy Hopper.
Speaker: Lindy Hopper exists in an umbrella.
Speaker: And when you watch the people that are performing, the swing dancers that performed back in the day could do way more than just swing out.
Speaker: They have to do more.
Speaker: If you talk to Sonny Allen, you talk to Frankie Manning, you talk to Sugar and Barbara, who are all elders who are still with us.
Speaker: Oh, I guess Frankie Manning isn't with us.
Speaker: But the other elders are still with us.
Speaker: They'll talk to you about, well, you have to do more than just swing out.
Speaker: You need more than one act.
Speaker: And for me, for me, I view myself as more complete.
Speaker: I have a more complete experience of a thing when I don't hyper focus on one side, but I recognize that all of the things are connected.
Speaker: So I always try to teach my students, especially like flaps and shuffles, and then to push them down the line because I'm not a tap dance teacher.
Speaker: My goal as a teacher is to try to incite curiosity.
Speaker: And then hopefully when you leave the class, that's where the real work is done.
Speaker: It's not done in class.
Speaker: It's done on your own.
Speaker: So if I can excite somebody about an idea, excite them with a why, then I hope that they will do the real work of learning on their own.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think teachers are more like mentors, more like guiding posts.
Speaker: Here's a remark here.
Speaker: That's a drop.
Speaker: That's what you need.
Speaker: And students really are the engine of their own growth.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if that's clear, but that's the way that I think about things in my classes.
Speaker: And sometimes, especially with older people, the way that I teach is kind of controversial.
Speaker: I've gotten feedback before through other organizers that people say, I'm not ready because I don't teach moves.
Speaker: But I don't think that the community needs moves, at least the swing dance community.
Speaker: I think there's plenty of people that can do really cool flips and turns and stuff, but they're not, they don't really dance.
Speaker: I don't see their heart.
Speaker: I don't understand the reason for any of that.
Speaker: They don't know how to tell a story to music.
Speaker: Like if I told them to interpret a saxophone in one phrase versus another, they might do the same thing with their shoulders.
Speaker: There's no release or contraction or any of that.
Speaker: because they don't understand that.
Speaker: And nobody taught me those words.
Speaker: I've developed that language as I've learned, but a lot of that I picked up naturally by just existing in community with my people.
Speaker: It just, that's, that's the, that those things naturally come.
Speaker: You're saying that they're not listening.
Speaker: I don't think that they listen necessarily.
Speaker: I don't think they listen to the music with Lindy hop, with swing dance in particular, when they teach musicality, Ooh, Ooh, wait, can we compare and contrast when I say musicality, what,
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: Let's have this conversation.
Speaker: What does it mean to you?
Speaker: When I say musicality, for both of you, Adam, you're a musician, Emily, you're a dancer, a tap dancer.
Speaker: So what does musicality mean to you?
Speaker: And I know that's broad, but in all the ways, if I said that, what do you think it is?
Speaker: And I'll tell you what we typically explain in our class, in swing dance afterwards.
Speaker: Go ahead, Adam.
Speaker: You want to start us off?
Speaker: I don't think I ever really use that term, to be honest.
Speaker: I don't really like it very much because it's so ambiguous, I guess.
Speaker: But I would say to be able to like really listen and put...
Speaker: put your soul into the, into the music.
Speaker: It's deeper than just, you know, the, the eighth notes or the, you know, you, you have to get past what's written on the page and then put something into it.
Speaker: I would say.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Oftentimes.
Speaker: And this has been a journey for me, Patrick going through working with Adam and, and just kind of diving more into this side of tap dance.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And it is one of these terms that people say, oh, you know, musicality, musicality.
Speaker: And it's like, what?
Speaker: Just like you said, what does that mean to you?
Speaker: Like, what does that mean?
Speaker: For me, when I try to use it in class or when students will ask me about it in class, I don't think I usually use the word a lot, but I try to explain it like embodying the music, right?
Speaker: We are visual or should be a visual.
Speaker: And as tap dance, you know, we add to the music, right?
Speaker: So first of all, we have to understand
Speaker: what's happening with the music, which takes time and study.
Speaker: And then we have to be able to embody it.
Speaker: And what does that mean?
Speaker: What are we hearing?
Speaker: What are we picking up on?
Speaker: What are we emphasizing with our movements within the music, whether it be different instrumentations or different rhythms that are happening within that.
Speaker: And then how do we as tap dancers
Speaker: if we're in an improvisational sense, how are we choosing what we are playing and does it add to elevate or completely distract us from the music that is playing?
Speaker: I love both of those answers.
Speaker: And I would, I'm inclined to agree with both of you.
Speaker: In Lindy Hop, the first class that I got taught, musicality was the word.
Speaker: I also don't like using the term, by the way.
Speaker: It's very vague.
Speaker: It can mean many things.
Speaker: The quality of being musical, musicality.
Speaker: It's very, right.
Speaker: But the first time I got a class on musicality, I was just taught about phrasing.
Speaker: Regular 32 bar phrasing.
Speaker: So, you know, you have...
Speaker: Let me convert from dancer words to musician stuff.
Speaker: You have eight bars, sorry.
Speaker: You have eight bars, you know?
Speaker: And the seventh and eighth bar, that's like a brick.
Speaker: All the other bars are filler.
Speaker: You can repeat an idea.
Speaker: for two bars usually it cycles and then on the seventh and eighth bar you get a new one.
Speaker: And that's what that's what they taught musicality was.
Speaker: It's very weirdly scientific thinking through the music, calculating the music, trying to like figure that stuff out.
Speaker: You have phrases, eight bars is a phrase.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 32 bars is a chorus and so forth and so on.
Speaker: ABA format, which I think is fine to teach.
Speaker: Frustrating for me because again,
Speaker: If you listen to enough music, I think that's intuitive.
Speaker: I think that people think a lot when they swing dance and because they're thinking so much and authentic
Speaker: It's really hard for people to find that threshold of technique, but then embodiment.
Speaker: It's really super hard for people to go beyond what's just there, what's on the surface and show something deeper.
Speaker: And I do see it.
Speaker: I have a lot of friends who, like a lot of my peers who are also traveling and teaching, I think are beautiful examples of dancers who embody, I think have the soul of the thing, but it's really hard to teach something like that.
Speaker: And my own personal criticism of the community is that, especially in the past 15 years, the teachers were more concerned with their own artistry than their responsibility to their students.
Speaker: And if you're sitting trying to codify something or you're focused on how to preserve your place in a hierarchy so that you can continue to make money, I understand we're all trying to survive in a capitalist society, but you're neglecting your responsibility to community
Speaker: If you're not looking at individuals and thinking, how can I help you be me?
Speaker: How do I get you further away from where you are now to where I am?
Speaker: That's my criticism with things like musicality and whatnot in my community.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What I feel like is maybe challenging within the swing dance or Lindy Hop practice is that it is for the most part improvisational, right?
Speaker: It's up to the lead to lead and the follower to be a good follow, right?
Speaker: But it is, you may have a form and here's your basic step.
Speaker: But other than that, it is all improvisational.
Speaker: And for us,
Speaker: Sorry, for tap dancers, we learn who learn in like a studio setting, this Western kind of like studio setting, which is not where tap came from.
Speaker: It's where it is now in our culture.
Speaker: We learn step, step, step, step.
Speaker: And, and choreography, just like all choreography, all choreography.
Speaker: And even if we do have some improvisation in a studio sense, it's like, you know, maybe you go around in the circle, maybe you take like a phrase or, you know, crazy, a chorus.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: And beyond that, there's no practice in this.
Speaker: How do I actually listen to and embody the music?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: because I'm just doing steps.
Speaker: So I feel like almost in some way it might be harder.
Speaker: Like you said, you think that a lot of dancers maybe are thinking too much.
Speaker: I find that all the time when I ask my tap dancers to improvise, they're like, I can't even think about listening to the music because I'm so worried about like, what step should I do next?
Speaker: Like what, what new step, what, what did we learn today that I need to practice?
Speaker: Like what step, step, step, step.
Speaker: that it's like so far removed from being like, let me listen and respond.
Speaker: I don't know if you have any thoughts on that or.
Speaker: My thought process is that people are too busy really quickly.
Speaker: I, there's one thing with Lindy hop, there's lead and follow for sure.
Speaker: But I like the idea that the dance reflects the music because the dance wouldn't be anything without the music and in the music, there's call and response.
Speaker: And, you know, the bassist may have an idea, the drummer may have an idea.
Speaker: And then whoever is on the head, whoever's soloing may hear that and reference that in the middle of what they're doing.
Speaker: You know, it's very collaborative, even if the person at the head of the person that's soloing is the center of attention.
Speaker: They're still responding and flowing with each other.
Speaker: I think that lead and follow is similar to this.
Speaker: I look at myself when I'm leading.
Speaker: My lead is a question.
Speaker: And I have a followers intention or followers mindset that I'm prepared.
Speaker: On one hand, I have the next shape I have where the music, where the music is leading me.
Speaker: Cause I'm usually relaxed.
Speaker: I don't do a lot.
Speaker: If I do, if I do a really fancy thing, there's, that's maybe, I'm,
Speaker: That'll happen two or three times in a dance, maybe.
Speaker: But for a lot of times, I lead really basic things and I let my partners fill it out.
Speaker: And I dance in my own body.
Speaker: I dance in my own body to the music.
Speaker: When my partners see that, they're dancing in their own body.
Speaker: And then we're really having a conversation, similar to the way musicians interact.
Speaker: And I think in my time, because I'm not just a Lindy Hopper, I do...
Speaker: house and hip hop and I'm learning a lot of other things like I'm learning tack it's happening slowly yeah we're picking it up and I think when I when I listen to music and I try to improvise the process is really similar the idea is just that um I don't need to fill up every single 16th note like yes I can stop and I can listen the music is my lead where is it taking me you know
Speaker: And not everything is, it needs to be a super complicated lick.
Speaker: One of my favorite tap dancers to watch, I got to work with Thomas Waddleton and Sarah Reich, Sarah Reich, Sarah Reich, Reich.
Speaker: In Thailand, in Bangkok in September.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: And they had this thing where they were kind of going back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker: And it was really cool.
Speaker: It was really cool to watch them because they do such a good job with just relaxing.
Speaker: It's like, here's a breath.
Speaker: and a lick and then there's a breath and then a ah and then a breath and then I'll show you like this is technique I have it relax yeah you know but it's like expressing the music all of their technique is employed towards the goal of I want to express the music you know
Speaker: And I think they do such a beautiful job.
Speaker: And so as a as a Lindy Hopper, as a dancer in general, I think that for people to get better at improvisation, they have to relax and wait for a feeling to come.
Speaker: House dance taught me so much because in house, the soul is everything.
Speaker: You can do the most complicated stuff with your feet, but if you have no soul, people will walk away.
Speaker: And I remember my teachers and my friends saying, Tydrick, you just need to go to the club, go to a corner, close your eyes and listen.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: You don't need to dance.
Speaker: You need to relax and listen.
Speaker: And so I put my mind, I put my heart there.
Speaker: And that perspective has really, really opened up everything and other areas of dancing as well.
Speaker: Let me stop and listen first.
Speaker: And I'll just give a little bit.
Speaker: And I'll give a little bit until I really have an idea of where the music is taking me, you know?
Speaker: This is the Relative Rhythms podcast, and you're listening to our conversation with Tydrick Hill.
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Speaker: Thanks for listening.
Speaker: And now back to our conversation with Tydrick.
Speaker: Can we maybe back it up?
Speaker: Because I am not a dancer at all.
Speaker: I know nothing about this world, even though I play for a lot of dancers.
Speaker: Can you explain the difference if there is one between swing and Lindy Hop?
Speaker: Oh, I love this.
Speaker: The plain sense is that swing dance is a term to describe dances that you do to...
Speaker: swing that genre of jazz music that was really popular in the late 20s and into the late 40s um and so collegiate shag is technically a swing dance balboa is a swing dance charleston is a swing dance
Speaker: One might say the tap has a, when you dance to swing, that's an era.
Speaker: It has that era and it's in this music, Lindy hop.
Speaker: And so swing dance is kind of a, it's like a umbrella term.
Speaker: The reason why I don't like to say swing dance when I'm talking about the art forums that I'm speaking of is if you Google swing dance, the images that come up, you have like white people in the
Speaker: and suits or it looked like they're like in suspenders and bow ties and shorts with socks and dress shoes.
Speaker: And it looks more akin to somebody playing pretend in the past than it does to I get that image of this is just like a cute hobby.
Speaker: This is like Civil War.
Speaker: Recreationism, you know, reacting to Civil War versus like when you Google Lindy Hop, what you'll find, you'll see why these Lindy Hoppers
Speaker: Frankie Manning, Al Minns, Leon James, Norma Miller.
Speaker: And it kind of points you more towards the culture and the history and the community that this art form came out of.
Speaker: Why that's important to me to preserve is that when we capitalism wins, when we buy into the label,
Speaker: that was given by businesses.
Speaker: Capitalism wins because it divorces the art from its culture and its community and the art simply becomes a commodity.
Speaker: So I say Lindy Hop and I insist on Lindy Hop or Authentic Jazz in the way that I speak because I'm like in my mind fighting a silent war of ideas against just the engine that would like to
Speaker: divorce the art form that I do away from its culture.
Speaker: And when it loses the culture, it loses the values.
Speaker: And when it loses the values, it becomes something else.
Speaker: And I think we all suffer because Lindy Hop as it is, as it exists in that culture, like I told you guys before with the day of the races, there's such a human lesson to be learned.
Speaker: there.
Speaker: One thing that I stress in my classes a ton is that people can't you can't buy your way into this kind of experience.
Speaker: You just have to be it.
Speaker: Jazz is demanding of you that you come as you are and that you you you will bring that.
Speaker: I want to see that.
Speaker: I want to see who you are.
Speaker: I think that when people are encouraged to express themselves in that way, jazz or dancing becomes movement therapy.
Speaker: And then we see the benefit.
Speaker: This is why this kind of thing is important.
Speaker: People get some kind of catharsis from moving together, from living together in this way.
Speaker: But we lose that.
Speaker: We lose our connection to that.
Speaker: When we say swing dance, in my mind, it becomes about the costumes.
Speaker: It becomes about like, oh, how accurate is the music to the era?
Speaker: And it becomes about steps and less about soul and embodiment and community.
Speaker: And I don't think that the culture then was so focused on the things that we're focused on now, not in the way that we are.
Speaker: It's interesting because maybe they had the stuff that I'm talking about, but it was just not spoken of because that was just what people did.
Speaker: Nowadays, I think we have to really fight for it, especially because we're divorced from the origins of this thing by time and a lot of times by culture.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That makes me think Adam of our conversation with Travis Knights, who's a tap dancer from Canada.
Speaker: We had had him on the first season and he had done a podcast.
Speaker: He's also a podcaster, had done a podcast about changing the name of tap, right?
Speaker: Like changing the name of tap.
Speaker: And there are some musicians who don't prescribe to even the word jazz and say black American music instead and say that we should all maybe adopt tap.
Speaker: a language that, like you said, focus us, refocuses us on the origin of these art forms.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And that's really interesting to me.
Speaker: I think as a white person coming into a black American art form, I didn't learn about that right away.
Speaker: You know, I had white teachers and I'm a white person and we came up in a rural, mostly white area.
Speaker: And so it's taken me a long time to discover a lot of these things.
Speaker: And so I am really intentional in the way I speak about it, but I still use these things.
Speaker: these words like jazz music and tap dance.
Speaker: And it's, it's, yeah, it, it's super, it's super interesting.
Speaker: I like this conversation.
Speaker: I made this post recently about how, uh, I think kind of criticizing people in, in, in the Lindy hop community that are getting more into solo movement, vernacular or authentic jazz, which is the root of, and the foundation of hip hop of house of all these things.
Speaker: I see them kind of, Oh, this is R and B dancing.
Speaker: This is a bebop dancing.
Speaker: I'm like, I don't think those terms serve anybody.
Speaker: First of all, first of all, we have the, the, like probably 60% of our lexicon is just doing tap without the taps.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: That's, that's just a fact.
Speaker: The Shim Shim is one of the first vernacular jazz things that I learned to tap dance routine.
Speaker: And you learn it without the taps.
Speaker: So already when we create these, these borders between things,
Speaker: we're narrowing our vision and I think we're already preparing ourselves to have a less authentic experience than if we just acknowledge that everything is connected.
Speaker: And part of my reasoning for saying that everything is connected is this idea.
Speaker: Duke Ellington didn't like that it was called jazz.
Speaker: I remember seeing an interview where he was saying, but why do you keep using that word?
Speaker: I'm just making music that I like.
Speaker: And then you go forward, you know, 40 years, Miles Davis is saying the same thing.
Speaker: I'm not a jazz musician.
Speaker: I just make music that I like.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: And then the students of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Marcel, you know, these guys, these guys, like, it's interesting because they weren't obsessed with this word or this label.
Speaker: They were just making things.
Speaker: And they employed whatever techniques were necessary to help them make the thing that they wanted to make.
Speaker: And so my perspective about everything being connected and maybe, especially for people who want to learn jazz, it could be really helpful for us to low-key release ourselves as labels.
Speaker: Because I suspect more and more that the originators of this thing were not fighting for labels.
Speaker: And I have evidence to believe that labels are imported or imported.
Speaker: Funk, soul, all of this was imported by corporations that want to package a product and sell it.
Speaker: And they are reinforced by artists whose egos went, okay, I have glory in this corner.
Speaker: So then this is my corner, you know, and it's not to say that those labels aren't bad.
Speaker: It's not to say that each individual genre of dance or of sound doesn't have its own history, its own community.
Speaker: There's still depth to each thing, but if each thing was a star in the sky, why am I focused on this star when I could stop and really marvel at the fact that there's a sky in front of me?
Speaker: It's a beautiful constellation of things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, the closer you get to the star, you see there's a sun and there are all these planets.
Speaker: And how did that happen?
Speaker: There's a lot to learn.
Speaker: There's a lot of depth in each thing that looks like a star, but also every star is a part of one sky.
Speaker: And when we have that perspective, I think our perspective is more enriched.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But when we don't, then it's easy to have people sell you steps.
Speaker: This is how you do something.
Speaker: This is what that is.
Speaker: And then improvisation is hard because...
Speaker: It's a step.
Speaker: There's a step.
Speaker: You're not, you're not, we're not being taught it scientifically.
Speaker: You know, you're not taught to speak from your heart.
Speaker: In some ways language is so important and in other ways it's not of service always.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I put effort into labels.
Speaker: Knowing deep down inside, I don't want there to be labels, but I understand that I live in a world of labels.
Speaker: So if I'm going to play that game, then I'm going to wage a very specific war to make sure that the soul of something that I care about is preserved.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But really, if we're really looking at the soul of it, then I don't know that I care a lot for the individual
Speaker: language of things.
Speaker: I just want people to express themselves authentically and realistically, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Is Lindy Hop...
Speaker: Are you calling Lindy Hop now?
Speaker: Like, does that include like Balboa and like Charleston and things like that?
Speaker: Or is that not at all?
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: Not at all.
Speaker: When I'm talking about the family, I say authentic jazz usually.
Speaker: Authentic jazz.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And in my mind, that includes tap.
Speaker: That includes Charleston.
Speaker: That includes flash acts.
Speaker: That includes Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston, whatever.
Speaker: Just like,
Speaker: The stuff that kind of the movement that exploded in the jazz nebula, I'm going to I kind of naturally refer to that as authentic jazz.
Speaker: I've had conversations with dancers and there seems to be very strong opinions on this.
Speaker: Can you dance?
Speaker: to bebop music?
Speaker: Yes!
Speaker: Oh my gosh, yes!
Speaker: Oh, yes you can!
Speaker: Oh my god, and if you can't, it's because you don't have sauce.
Speaker: Like, just admit, just admit, like, you're not good enough to do that, but you can, you can, you can, you can.
Speaker: If I hear a triplet, and that beat is consistent, swing, I can impose swing on that, yes, 100%, in my body, in my approach.
Speaker: So, so, so the reason why I believe this too, and I think Emily, you would agree, rhythm also exists in the body of the dancer.
Speaker: You're not just responding to what you hear, you exist in what you hear.
Speaker: You're a part of the music.
Speaker: So swing, like swinging it, that's your rhythmic approach as a dancer.
Speaker: You can have that approach and that can be just how you approach the music.
Speaker: from just your perspective.
Speaker: So I can swing.
Speaker: And if I'm throwing in, you know, rhythms here and there, and I'm swinging in my pulse and in the way that I'm, I'm connecting with my partner, a hundred percent, I can dance to bebop, but you give me something in five, four, I'll swing out to it and I'll make it work. 100%.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: I think there are skills that I think you have to work on, or maybe you just listen to music and then you can feel it, but it's there.
Speaker: It's there.
Speaker: You can totally do it.
Speaker: The problem is that people are taught jazz in such a formulaic way.
Speaker: Like, you know, here's, I'm just going to go back to my dancing terms.
Speaker: I'm sorry, guys.
Speaker: Here's three eight counts, you know?
Speaker: And then, uh, then, then on the last one, I do something different.
Speaker: I change it up.
Speaker: Like, yeah,
Speaker: A A B A format.
Speaker: It's gotta be like this.
Speaker: If it's not that, or if it's not a 12 bar blues, then get out of here.
Speaker: I don't know what to do with it.
Speaker: That's bullshit.
Speaker: That's, that's dumb.
Speaker: That's a no, I don't get it.
Speaker: You absolutely can if you feel it, but are you connected to the soul of the thing?
Speaker: Are you listening to the music or do you just expect a formula by which you can superimpose tricks or ideas that you've been taught?
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: Little rant over.
Speaker: I totally think you can dance to bebop.
Speaker: And I love dancing.
Speaker: Charlie Parker goes crazy.
Speaker: Mingus goes crazy.
Speaker: Like, I love dancing to these things.
Speaker: And I'll dance for now.
Speaker: I'll dance like solo to it a lot.
Speaker: But I could definitely dance.
Speaker: Partner, I personally think you absolutely can.
Speaker: And I'll swing out to Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, man.
Speaker: I'll swing out to Mingus, to Parker.
Speaker: You can't...
Speaker: Come on, man.
Speaker: There does seem to be some very strong opinions about the style and the tempo that swing music can be played to dance to.
Speaker: The reality is in the Savoy Ballroom, what we have, Norma Miller used to say, like, quit slowing my dance down.
Speaker: quit slowing it down.
Speaker: You know, people, people are like, Oh, but it's comfortable to social dance at this tempo because you don't have to work so hard.
Speaker: Instead of just getting good.
Speaker: And, uh, you know, being able to, to, to, to speak at that.
Speaker: But in the reality is, is that in the Savoy ballroom, there was a ton.
Speaker: It wasn't just swing music.
Speaker: They had Foxtrot, they had Roomba, uh, they had fast songs, they had slow songs, they did blues, they had ripping Lindy hop.
Speaker: Like it was all in, it was all there and people would show up and they would dance to all of it.
Speaker: And maybe if there was a song they didn't like, or that they couldn't connect with, they'd go and they'd have a drink.
Speaker: But that's one thing that the Lindau community has gotten totally wrong.
Speaker: And that's something that's keeping people from an authentic experience of the art form.
Speaker: So they're trying too hard to curate what is coming to them instead of responding to the music.
Speaker: Very rarely does the dance dictate how the music is supposed to happen.
Speaker: The dance is always a response to the music.
Speaker: The music is the call to the floor.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: So where did dancers get off
Speaker: on telling musicians how exactly they're supposed to do things.
Speaker: And then you know what happens?
Speaker: Musicians are like, cool, you know, I'll just play my little thing.
Speaker: It exists in this box and I'll do that on autopilot because I can do that on autopilot.
Speaker: So they're not living in authentic experience.
Speaker: And if the musician isn't going anywhere, how do you expect the music to carry you somewhere?
Speaker: It can't.
Speaker: You won't go anywhere because you don't expect that.
Speaker: Another pet peeve I have is like dancers don't interact with the musicians that care.
Speaker: Like musicians that really care and they're really soloing or like my friend Ayah will like look at a musician and really try to, sorry, look at a dancer and really try to solo at them.
Speaker: And the dancers just totally ignore it.
Speaker: Like it could be a drum machine for all they care.
Speaker: Like this person is not literally giving their breath.
Speaker: to you.
Speaker: That's your landscape that you get to explore movement in.
Speaker: That's their life force is coming through a horn.
Speaker: Their life force is being, they breathe and that allows their muscles to move on a bass, on a piano, on the drums.
Speaker: We respond to that.
Speaker: We don't get to dictate the boundaries of what is or isn't appropriate.
Speaker: We just wait and respond.
Speaker: That's the way it should be as dancers.
Speaker: That's at least what I know culturally.
Speaker: Like that was church.
Speaker: Like the room responds to the musicians.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: The pastor could be saying something like trying to wrap the sermon up and if the musician gets riled up and we're dancing now, like that's it.
Speaker: That's what we're doing.
Speaker: That's what we're doing.
Speaker: You respond to the musicians.
Speaker: They're the MCI.
Speaker: not the other way around.
Speaker: And this is something that the Lindy hop community has gotten totally wrong.
Speaker: I, and I get it because organizers want to sell an experience.
Speaker: So to have people come to these big festivals, you know, people that aren't going to come if they don't feel like they have a, they had a good time.
Speaker: And it's like this customer's always right mentality to the culture.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But to that, I want to say, bro, you, like I said, you can't buy your way into the experience, get in the room.
Speaker: And then instead of trying to cater the experience, why don't you just stay open?
Speaker: Stay open to what's going to happen.
Speaker: I guarantee you we'd all start having a much better time if musicians could actually get off the way they wanted to get off.
Speaker: We're going to feel inspired by that.
Speaker: Musicians are going to feel appreciated, so they're going to give more.
Speaker: So then we give more and we all have a better time.
Speaker: That was totally worth the money.
Speaker: It's not to say that there won't be some songs that are a relaxed tempo.
Speaker: But man, oh, it's frustrating.
Speaker: And look, if the song is fast, like if it's ripping at like, you know, 320, 360 BPM or something like that, then halftime it.
Speaker: You don't have to dance so hard.
Speaker: You don't have to run around so much.
Speaker: You don't have to be so big.
Speaker: There are ways to engage with the music in order to survive, but we don't get to dictate what the musicians do.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: That being said, I think there's a balance.
Speaker: Because there are some musicians that I've seen and they're more concerned with... It's like the music version of doing too many steps.
Speaker: That's not appropriate for the soundscape or where we're at right now.
Speaker: Why is all that happening?
Speaker: Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker: Everything is in taste.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: One of my friends is a really talented musician.
Speaker: This guy is incredible.
Speaker: Incredible performer.
Speaker: Actually, I have a couple of musician friends that are like this, but they treat it like a concert.
Speaker: And this is the other thing, because jazz music has also been corrupted by capitalism.
Speaker: There's a choreography of sitting down and listening to the music.
Speaker: You listen to Barry Harris talk about where he learned from.
Speaker: He learned from the best musicians.
Speaker: The best musicians were in dance halls.
Speaker: The music and the dance grew up in concert.
Speaker: And then it got divorced because people were getting paid in their niches to be special in their niches.
Speaker: And so now when a dancer dances, people don't dance with them.
Speaker: You sit and you watch.
Speaker: When a musician plays, you don't respond to that with adulation.
Speaker: You sit and you watch.
Speaker: And so I think there is a...
Speaker: a relationship between the musician and the dancer that exists, but neither constricts the other.
Speaker: They grow together.
Speaker: Does it make sense?
Speaker: And they make choices that are considerate of each other.
Speaker: So if I'm a dancer, I'm not going to talk over and not listen to... If this guy is getting off, if he's going crazy on a solo, I might stop and yell.
Speaker: Or clap.
Speaker: Or like, I might get, not get in this phase, but you know, get really close.
Speaker: I'm making it obvious that I see that you're given a lot.
Speaker: I'm here with you.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: But similarly, I think there's that consideration on the side of musicians for like, yeah, I'm also, I'm in my own artistic space, but I'm cultivating an experience as well.
Speaker: There's a balance.
Speaker: And I don't, whenever we try to cater too much to one side, I think we tip over, you know?
Speaker: I feel like, and I don't want to call these, call these problems.
Speaker: This is not, I don't want to sound like that.
Speaker: I mean, obviously like I, I am a participant in, in capitalist, capitalist world, right?
Speaker: Like it, but so many of these, these things that we talk about as challenges and trying to solve,
Speaker: would just be cured if we brought it back to the purpose is not to perform.
Speaker: The purpose is to
Speaker: celebrate life and joy in a community.
Speaker: That means the community, the dancer, the, the people who are dancing, but just want to dance in their seat and the musician who's making the music and the people who, who walk by and watch it's in, in we've created this like us versus them audience versus performer musician versus dancer, this whole thing.
Speaker: And we've, we don't just do it.
Speaker: for fun in community anymore because there's not enough time and we all need to make money and we all need to get another gig.
Speaker: And so we've lost a lot of these connections and relationships that are natural in this authentic jazz circle of life.
Speaker: And I don't know how to...
Speaker: Yeah, I like this idea that you brought up of us versus them.
Speaker: Audience versus performer.
Speaker: One of the one of the projects that I'm involved with, I work a lot with Latasha Barnes.
Speaker: She's a mentor of mine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she has this project, The Jazz Continuum.
Speaker: And it's really interesting.
Speaker: First of all, the language, we're not allowed to call it a show.
Speaker: She says it's an offer.
Speaker: She's never a show.
Speaker: She's quick to correct everybody, including us.
Speaker: If we ever say show, she's like, it's not a show.
Speaker: And we have.
Speaker: Our dramaturg and also a dancer in the project, Melanie George, she comes out at the beginning of the project and she says that they didn't curate a show for the audience.
Speaker: They're inviting the audience into a space of community.
Speaker: And then we kind of go on and show this choreographed.
Speaker: It's improvography is what she says.
Speaker: There's choreographed parts and we also are very willing to roll with each other.
Speaker: It's very fun.
Speaker: But we essentially just have a party on stage.
Speaker: And I feel like that's got to be what it is.
Speaker: And at the end of the, at the end of the show, it culminates in all of the dancers and the musicians kind of having this improvisational cipher together.
Speaker: So we'll all go out, we pick a musician and then the musician will solo and we respond with whatever dance form we have.
Speaker: And there's hip hop, there's house, there's locking, there's Lindy hop, there's tap, footwork and all of it.
Speaker: And it's, it's really fun.
Speaker: It's really beautiful.
Speaker: And then if the vibes are right, normally the audience, um,
Speaker: is they've been yelling, they've also been dancing, they've been pointing or whatever.
Speaker: So if it's a really good audience, we invite them on the stage and then we all party together.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: And that's that doesn't happen every time, but I'd say 60 percent of the time it does.
Speaker: I feel like something like that.
Speaker: Not so formulaic, but I think something like that is representative of
Speaker: of what it has to be, the relationship between dance and musician has to be.
Speaker: Both have a lot to give each other.
Speaker: There's so much inspiration.
Speaker: When you listen to the music, when you just listen, you take time, there's so much inspiration.
Speaker: Musicians put so much time and effort and thought into their approach.
Speaker: And I argue, I tell my students, you're social dancing with the musicians too.
Speaker: You're social dancing with your partner, you're social dancing with the room, and you're social dancing with the musicians.
Speaker: Like you guys give energy to each other.
Speaker: If it's like a conversation, if they don't feel like they're being listened to or responded to, they're not going to give you anything.
Speaker: And so I think when we have that kind of, we're both on the edge or both, both rearing to like meet each other, that's the best.
Speaker: And then we don't need to have rules about how fast or how slow the music is because when everybody is like,
Speaker: Or if it's jazz or if it's swing, if it's bebop, if it's something else.
Speaker: When people are sold, when they feel the soul, when the spirit reaches them, it doesn't matter, bro.
Speaker: You go when you get down, when the spirit reaches you.
Speaker: And that's the thing.
Speaker: We need to make the spirit the goal.
Speaker: I love what you said about that.
Speaker: It's not audience versus the performer at all.
Speaker: We're all in...
Speaker: we work together in concert.
Speaker: We're both having an experience together of each other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: I can't tell you how appreciative we are.
Speaker: This was such a great conversation and it was, it made me think a lot about my approach and, um, and gave me some new ideas, which is cool for, for classes.
Speaker: And, um, I'm really grateful for that.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: You've been listening to our conversation with Tydrick Hill.
Speaker: Make sure you check him out on the socials at Tydrick underscore Hill.
Speaker: If you liked our conversation today, please follow and leave a rating or review wherever you are listening.
Speaker: If you'd like to support our work, you can join us at patreon.com slash relative rhythms, where you can gain access to all of our uncut episodes and extra content.
Speaker: Our theme song is for the love of it by the Adam price group.
Speaker: featuring Emily Jane Acree on foot percussion.
Speaker: Our mid-roll music was Rotten Grapes, and our outro music is Storyville, both off of my House Ghosts album.
Speaker: Don't forget to follow us on all the socials at Relative Rhythms, and feel free to send us a message.
Speaker: Check out our merch on our website, RelativeRhythms.com.
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you next episode.
Speaker: you
Speaker: One.
