The information on this page was kindly provided by Beverley Markle
Strictly Not Ballroom
Information and Registration: (613)241-0741 dgood@cyberus.ca
Six-week Harlem Lindy Hop course for beginners. Phone or e-mail now for September/October 1999 course.
Instructors Beverley and David learned to Lindy from Frankie Manning and trained with American Lindy Champions Bixby & Sykes. Check them out at Savoy Style They are well-known dancers at Babylon's swing night and have been featured in Ottawa City Magazine (April/May, 1999), as well as in a swing revival video. Catch their style - pure and joyful in the unique tradition of America's greatest social dance. Six-week session of six 90-minute classes, combining group instruction and individual coaching. $90 per person, $160 per couple for the full session. Maximum class size 24 people.
BABYLON (317 Bank Street, 594-0003), is Ottawa's main swing venue every Tuesday night and has been going for a year. Its manager, Adam Kronick, has worked hard to create an ambience that transports you to the swing era - a long curved bar, padded banquettes, star-studded walls, and the biggest comfortable (linoleum) dance floor in town. I rubbed my eyes the first time I walked in: it isn't like the '40's - this IS the '40's! I almost lost my cool! Can this be real? I mean, a resident 18-piece swing orchestra playing many of the original arrangements of classic swing numbers, just right for Lindy Hop and East Coast Swing. This is all the encouragement you need to put on that matt red lipstick, your Bleyer two-tone shoes and those vintage clothes you found on holiday. The band is the Brian Downey Big Band. Brian, himself, lays down the beat from behind the drum kit and his jazz musicians really swing. Their singer, Francis Gould, matches her repertoire to her big, bluesy voice. The club has hosted a swing dance contest and may do so again. Members of the Montreal swing scene show up here from time to time and Ottawa dancers go to Montreal to meet up again. This exchange is a lot of fun.
MAXWELL'S, upstairs, (340 Elgin Street, 232-5771) offers Lounge Night every Wednesday. The main attraction is Johnny Vegas, a singer whose band spans R&B (for West Coast Swing) and late '50's crooning. Johnny Favourite played with this band at Maxwell's until three years ago. Like Favourite, Johnny Vegas brings a martini onto the stage at the beginning of each of his three sets. We have no idea who copied who. Whenever Vegas says he's going to do a Frank Sinatra number, he has the clientele primed to automatically holler "Frank lights Johnny!", triggering a halo of lights around a picture of Sinatra. The dance floor is smooth wood, a little small. The dance crowd is wonderfully eccentric. There's a man aged 72 who has no trouble finding partners a third his age. There's the guy who has photographed every dance night for 2 years as "a project". By midnight, certain dancers slip from swing to 'beach movie' moves, calypso and ska.
BARRYMORE'S (323 Bank Street, 233-0307) has just started offering a swing evening on Sundays, from 5:00 to 8:00 pm. There is a DJ and possibly free swing classes. This converted movie house has great ambience and a good wooden floor. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performed there last fall.
The following clubs have stopped their swing nights: THE CAVE, ZAPHOD and
the VOX LOUNGE. It seems that swing dancers don't drink enough and the
ballroom schools have stopped providing free 'ballroom swing' lessons at
these clubs.