That swing!

So I have a “dance” Google alert. Yep, simply “dance.” Every morning my inbox is filled with (granted English-language) news about dancing in the most remotest corners of the world (come to think of it, I should probably set up alerts in “my” other languages – “ples, plesanje”, “Tanz, tanzen”, “baile, bailar”). The other day, for example,  I learned about China’s attempt to reign in the rowdy “dancing grannies” by standardizing “dance fitness” routines that can be performed in public areas; about  dancing inmates of the high-security Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Philippines, who garnered world-wide fame with videos such as this one and who welcomed Pope on his recent visit to the country with this solemn choreography;  about very expensive pole dancing classes in China; and about Maui Dance Advocates plight to lift the ban on dancing in some bars (the group’s president, the fittingly named Jiva Jive, summed up the severity of the current state of affairs with this quote: “If you’re tapping your toe, or bobbing your head, or just shaking your hips a little bit by the bar waiting for your drink, the bartender or the waitress is supposed to come up to you and tell you ‘I’m sorry, there’s no dancing.”) I love reading such articles.

But my absolutely favourite entry on today’s list of dance-related alerts is the following story of a 102-year-old former dancer Alice Barker, who accompanied some of the Harlem Renaissance’s great musicians in the heyday of jazz in New York. Thanks to two men who tracked down these recordings, Mrs. Barker was able to, for the first time, see herself performing. “I used to often say to myself, I am being paid to do something, that I enjoy doing and I would do it for free,” she says in this wonderful video.

BTW, Mrs. Barker is receiving fan mail at the following address (and is soon getting a note from Vienna, Austria :)):
Alice Barker
c/o Bishop Henry B. Hucles Episcopal Nursing Home
835 Herkimer Street
Brooklyn, NY11233