Seattle Vintage Jazz Dance Society

We have updated the contest information on the Video Contest Website. We are also working on bringing out Chester Whitmore to Emcee the Music-Video Screening and Awards Ceremony, so stay tuned!

Follow us on Twitter (@Seattle_VJD) for updates on events, dance news, etc.

SVJD is collaborating with HepCat Swing to bring you another fantastic day of costumes and mayhem! This year’s Halloween Dance will be on October 29th at the Russian Community Center, and this time, we’ll be featuring Glenn Crytzer and His Syncopators on stage! Once again, there will be food and treats and performances and a costume contest, so come on out for a great time!

Check it out on Facebook!

This morning, King5 aired a segment on Hallie and the Century Ballroom as part of their Home Team Heroes series:

http://www.king5.com/video/home-team-heroes-index.html?nvid=388059

Of course, Hallie made sure to mention the Century Masters. Check it out! Congrats, Hallie!

Congrats to the organizers of the Seattle Lindy Exchange for putting together an amazing weekend of great, great music for everyone to dance to. This year’s live music choices were fantastic, especially the great local musicians from Seattle and Vancouver. Let’s do it again next year! Woohoo!

We are looking for volunteers to help us prepare to celebrate Count Basie’s 105th birthday on Thursday, August 20th (which is actually the night before his birthday). If you can help out, please contact us here. Thanks for your help!

This August is going to be a busy month in the swing dancing community here in Seattle. There will be a couple of big events, namely: the Seattle Lindy Exchange and the Masters of Lindy Hop and Tap. Taken together, these two events is being referred to as Lindyhopper’s Delight. Please sign up early for the two events to help the organizers in their planning!

Congratulations to Hotsy Totsy (Celeste Olds and Madeline Hopkins) who debuted at the HepCat Swing Dance on June 11th at the Russian Community Center. Check out their routine on facebook here.

A heart-felt thank-you to the wonderful Frankie Manning, who taught the Lindy Hop to the world, and gave us the inspiration to dance from our hearts. You will be missed.

While he lived a long life and was surrounded by loving friends, we know that it is with sadness that the world says farewell to Frankie. Our hearts go out to Chazz and Judy and those that were closest to him.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a video to the contest, or who participated in one of the videos! The winning video of the 2009 SVJD Jazz Dance Music-Video Contest is “Spread the Rhythm” by ABC (Aaron Anderson, Bobby Bonsey, and Celeste Olds).

The videos are posted here at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8D5348749223C869. You can also search for “vintage jazz dance” on YouTube to see them.

We are presenting the entries to the Jazz Dancing Music-Video Contest on Thursday, April 23rd at the HepCat Dance. Please see www.SeattleSwing.com for directions.

The dance will be DJ’d by Travis Whetman, and we’ll start showing the videos around 9:30 or 10pm. We’ll probably sprinkle the entries throughout the night, rather than view them all in a block, so please plan on attending the entire night if you want to see the videos. The prize will be awarded that night as well.

Thanks to all who participated, and remember that the deadline for entries is this Thursday, April 16th!

There is a flyer now available for download, if you want to print it out and distribute it to help promote the Music-Video Contest. It’s a PDF file, and you can download it by clicking here. Thanks for helping out!

We are proud to present the 2009 Jazz Dance Music Video Contest! We encourage all swing dancers, Charleston babies, tap dancing hoofers, and other vintage jazz dance aficionados to create your own music video and enter this contest! Contest videos will be used to help promote swing and jazz dancing. The winning team will receive a $700 cash prize!

Details are available here. Be sure to check out the music section for streaming audio of the songs you can use!

Glenn Crytzer & His Syncopators will be performing at the HepCat Dance on Thursday, February 26th. We will be providing free snacks and decorating, as well as engaging a dance performance by Gabriella Cook and Dan Newsome. If you would like to help decorate and/or bake, please contact us. Thanks!

We’re helping run the HepCat Valentines Dance at the Russian Center, on Thursday, February 12th. We’ll be decorating and there’ll be a performance by Chris Lee and Friends. If you feel like helping us decorate, please contact us. Any help would be greatly appreciated!