International Lindy Hop Championships

What to say about ILHC...

If I had to describe it in one word:

I couldn't.

My name is Sarah. I'm from the junior performance team Bam! Dynamite, and I attended the international Lindy Hop championships this August. All in all, probably one the most overwhelming, intense, fun, wacky, crazy, humbling yet confidence boosting, educational (could I be more full of cheese) experiences of my life.

Watching -and participating in- a lot of the competitions was... well, it was terrifying. I know that sounds bad but it was terrifying in the best way possible. The competition level was, too say the least, high. Every routine pristine. My favorite part of the competitions would have to have been either the Cabaret, held at night, with everything from dancing puppets to a rousing performance of "Singing in the Rain", or the absolutely mind-blowing oh-my-god-did-that-actually-just-happen-are-you-serious performance of the Champion's Strictly Finals. THAT I can describe in one word:

WHAT!?

Are you kidding me? It made me realize that someday we juniors could be doing that, or even something CLOSE to that. Which was a pretty awesome realization.

Comparing it to other dance events I've been to is practically impossible because um... I haven't exactly been to many. I have no job or car and I live with my parents, so traveling around the country for a weekend at a time isn't exactly up there with "Sarah, for the love of god, get your permit already" on my parents' to-do lists. But they try as hard as they can to make it happen and to be supportive, even if being supportive is paying for a trip to New Orleans. I guess in my own terms I'd say Lindyfest (one of the few dance events I've been too besides ILHC) was like "Class class class! Fun fun fun!" and ILHC was more "Compete! Perform! Go go go!" Class in the morning, rehearsal in the afternoon, social dance, get dressed, competitions, and then dance until 5:00am.

I loved it.

I loved everything but the elevators (glaciervators) that went about negative 20 miles an hours. But even those were fun when they took you to the supposedly unoccupied 16th floor at 3 in the morning. Fun and scary. And though there were a lot of humbling moments throughout the weekend, and a lot of sore muscles and basically no sleep, it was worth all of the fundraising, and all of the money, and the plane rides, and the asthma (Ok that part was pre-existing...) and I'm lucky to have been involved. Oh, and our performance was AWESOME!! Check it!

Here's a few competitions I saw at the event. Hope you enjoy!:

Champion's Lindy Strictly Finals part one:



Part two:



Ben and Laura's Pro/Am!:



Joe and Delilah's Pro/Am (from the side... sorry):



This is a video from Lindy Focus because as of now there is no video of them doing this routine up from ILHC. Mike and Laura performed this in the Cabaret competition and places 2nd!:



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(addition from Scott)

Here is a video of the juniors team performing their routine at ILHC!: