It's Easter Sunday and I am on my way home from a field visit to Shiftless Shuffle. This week has been a heavy one with two field visits in a week. In hindsight, it might have been better to space them out a bit more.
I'm writing up my field notes whilst travelling on the tube. It is 5.30pm. A strange time to be heading home from a dance club. Usually I would be heading home in the early hours of the morning, ready for bed. In this instance, I am heading home to an expectant toddler who requires bedtime stories.
Shiftless Shuffle is run every Sunday at a venue called Dukes in East London from 2pm to 8pm. The event is hosted by an organisation called Jazz Cotech who are: a specialised organisation of Dancers, DJs, Promoters and friends who promote and keep alive the UK Underground Jazz Dance and Music scene (taken from the Jazz Cotech website)
The event is broken into a class on jazz fusion technique from 2pm to 3pm followed by a club session from 3pm to 8pm. The class is taught by Perry Louis, Artistic Director of Jazz Cotech. The entry fee is £7 which gives you entry to both the class and club session.
Shiftless Shuffle has been on my radar for a long time. My solo Charleston teacher, Rosaria Sativa had told me about it frequently, saying that it was a great dance event.
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| Flyer promoting Shiftless Shuffle featuring Perry Louis |
My partner in crime today, a.k.a field research participant, is my friend Tracey. Tracey is in her early 40s and is someone who loves to dance. She has a background in burlesque dance but is interested in a range of dance forms and music. So it is that Tracey and I meet at East Aldgate Station on a rainy Sunday afternoon and head down to Dukes on Houndsitch. When we arrive at the venue, I take a photo before we head in:
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| Tracey warming up outside the venue (which was easy to spot) |
We enter and I pay our entry fees. Moving downstairs to the basement club, we find the class about to commence. Perry (the teacher) welcomes us with a smile. We join the class who are assembled in two lines facing Perry. Facing us on a podium is a DJ who goes on to spin music for the class.
The basement club venue is one large space with a bar and seating area on one side, a large dance floor with rigged lighting overhead and two DJ podiums facing one another on either side of the dance floor. On the other far end is what I believe is a cloak room space which is shut during our attendance. Below are some pictures of the space taken from the venue's website. It did not look as snazzy during our visit:
Perry takes us through an extensive fifteen minute warm up. At first glance, I count nine people in attendance, four males and five females. The ages seemed to range from mid-twenties to late forties, with ethnicities including Oriental, Caucasian and Afro Caribbean amongst others. I note the presence of a male photographer who proceeds to take photos of the class from all angles throughout the hour. We are not informed who he is, what the photos are for or whether we allow for any images of ourselves to be used. I find this disconcerting but also helpful as later on in the class, I snap a few photos without asking permission of anyone and feel ok about it.
After the warm up, Perry starts teaching us a basic jazz fusion routine which he teaches in counts of eight. He proceeds to do this over the hour and eventually we learn a 32 count routine. He is a good teacher, breaking the moves down clearly and ensuring consistent repetition until we all have the basics covered. The live music provided by the DJ is also helpful in enlivening the class atmosphere.
Some of the routine is as follows:
Throughout the whole routine. The upper body is held loosely, slightly hunched over with arms following freely. The knees are always slightly bent.
First 8 counts
1& - Jump right foot forward, feet in a parallel vertical, and invert right heel out so foot lies horizontal
2 - Bring right heel back into vertical parallel. Left foot remains still
3& - Repeat on the other side with left foot forward
4 - Bring left heel back into vertical parallel. Right foot remains still
5-6 - Repeat counts 1-2 on right side
7-8 - Repeat counts 3-4 on left side
Second 8 counts
1& - Invert left foot so that heel leads outwards towards the left side of the room in a semi vertical position. Bring left heel back so it is pointing to the right side of the room whist travelling towards the left side of the room still. Right food remains on the floor, being dragged along as left foot travels
2& - Repeat above
3 - Repeat above
& - Take right foot back in to a ball change step
4 - Low jazz turn on left foot toward left side of room, right foot up at left ankle
Third 8 counts
1& - Feet together in parallel. Jump into second parallel, landing with feet inverted in
2 - Turn both feet out
3 - Jump and land with feet crossed over
& - Jump again and land with feet in inverted second parallel again
5-6 - Repeat counts 1-2
7-8 - Repeat counts 3-4
Fourth 8 counts
1 - From feet together in parallel, lift right foot slightly off the ground
& - Bring right foot back down to the ground. At the same time lift left foot off the ground to right knee
2 - Bring left foot back down to the ground. Both feet together in parallel
3 - Jump both feet out together in a wide second, feet in parallel
& - Bend upper body over to touch floor with both hands. Legs remain straight. Feet do not move
4 - Jump both legs together into a crouching position. Hands remain on floor. Legs and knees together bent. Weight of the body is on the balls of the feet. Heels are off the ground
5 - Jump legs back out into wide second position, feet parallel with upper body bent over to touch floor with both hands. Legs remain straight
& -Jump feet back into crouch position as in Count 4
6 - Jump body upright landing with straying position as in Count 1
7 - Jump feet out into wide second, feet parallel
& -Jump and land with feet crossed over one another so lower body is twisted
8 - Single turn using momentum of twist for propulsion and use arms as necessary
The class pace is fast and constant. Halfway through, I am hot and sweaty from the exertion. I take a water break and also take a few surreptitious photos with my Blackberry. They don't turn out very well:
People have been drifting in throughout the hour so towards the end of the class, I count a total of nineteen people; nine men and ten women. I am impressed by the almost equal representation of sexes in the class, as it is not something I experience often in a dance class. I wonder if this trend will carry over to the club session.
Enjoyable as the class was, Tracey and I are hot and sweaty afterwards so we get drinks and sit down. I'm mindful of the fact that the class was just something to be enjoyed whereas the club session would be the focus (or not) of my fieldwork research. I want to observe the dancing that goes on.
The dance floor remains mostly empty for the first half hour of the session. People who had taken part in the class are mostly still here, hovering around the edges. Occasionally a few men enter the dance space, execute a few complicated looking foot moves and then retreat off the floor. Below are some pictures taken during the early stages of the event:
As we gaze at the mostly empty dance floor, I mention to Tracey that, 'it feels like we are waiting for something to happen. It feels like everyone is waiting.' Over the next half hour, more men in their early twenties to late forties move onto the dance floor. They dance around the edges of the space, executing moves that look like they are derived from the jazz fusion technique that Perry taught us, fused with elements of hip-hop, break dance and other styles I cannot distinguish. There is a lot of emphasis on footwork above all else, with the upper body mostly being held loosely.
There is also a performative sense with what I am seeing. The dance floor so far does not look like a social dance situation where people are on a dance floor improvising to the music. A lot of the moves I am seeing look polished and worked on. At this point, there is no chance in hell I am going onto the dance floor as it does not feel like a democratic space. I do not know any of the moves that are being executed and quite frankly there is only one other female on the dance floor at this point and I feel a bit intimidated. I also do not feel the desire to dance as I am not being driven to it by the music that is playing which is entirely instrumental and in the jazz funk vein.
Tracey and I discuss what is happening on the floor. She feels similarly to the way I do. She also has a cold so she is happy to sit and watch. In response to my comments about the majority of men taking over the floor, she confirms that this is something that happened regularly at jazz funk clubs she visited in her twenties. She referred to the performative display being put on by the men as 'peacocking.'
The men on the dance floor have now formed a rough circle. One man enters the circle, does a few moves and then moves back to the perimeter. Alongside performative, the dance floor now also feels tribal as this circle formation and the entry into the middle and exit feels timeless. Although I cannot verify personally if this true, I have seen enough dance performances, social dance scenarios, historical clips and so forth to believe that this circle formation in dance is intrinsic somehow in the relationship between humans and dance. This is why I put the question about people dancing in circles in my survey. The sole female is still on the dance floor but she has not joined in the male circle.
Below is some footage I recorded. This first clip was recorded about forty-five minutes into the event:
Ninety minutes into the club session and more have punters are arrived, the crowd estimate being sixty to seventy people, with what looks like a 50/50 gender split. Oddly, this is not represented on the dance floor which is still predominantly male. The sole female is still there on the edges but not part of the circle formation which is dominating the dance floor. The men in this formation look like they have warmed up. Their dancing has started to loosen and take on a feral energy. It is still has all the elements of the technical dance footwork of before. I start to wonder that if you have had training, what exactly is spontaneous on a dance floor?
This clip was recorded about ninety minutes into the event:
Even though I am seated a fair way off from the dance floor, I can feel the energy start to build in the dancing and the club. Many of the new punters entering seem to know one another as there are many waves, handshakes and hugs. Whilst the vibe of the club is welcoming, the intimacy between the majority of punters makes me feel like I am in someone's lounge room watching a dance off. At this point, Tracey and I still have no compulsion to dance. We feel tired, we can no longer see the dance floor clearly due to the arrival of more punters and so I make the decision to leave so that I can also interview Tracey before we both head home.
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| Tracey and I, looking ghoulish at Shiftless Shuffle |
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