Andy Reid & Nina Gilkenson

If you’ve ever been in one of our classes, you’d know that while we take our classes very seriously, we also take them lightly.

Interspersed with the material we are trying to convey, we also take the time to have a good time.  Time to time, that good time is at Nina’s expense.  Nina’s quite gullible, but also is a great sport, so over the years, we’ve pulled a few pranks on Nina.  Being the good sport she is, I’d like to think she enjoys these pranks as much as we do.

I’d like to chronicle those pranks here.

Herrang Dance Camp / Summer 2008

2008 in Herrang was a spectacular year, like all years in Herrang.  However during this particular year we began to spend a lot of time with a group of Lithuanian dances who have since come quite near to our heart.  This crew has this very nice balance of passion, creativity, drive, with the ability to have a good time doing it.  Values I really appreciate in a person.

Together, we devised a plan, which cut my teeth messing with Nina in class.  We decided the goal: random confusion for Nina.

About 3/4 of the way through the class, nearing the end of a week, suddenly about 5 guys ran into our class and started dancing suggestively on and around Nina.  It caught her nicely off guard so I could deliver my carefully rehearsed joke punchline to the class.  ”Ir tada priejo Kindzioulous ir pasaki ‘Grazious twiste’”, which from Lithuanian, roughly translates to “… and then Kinzulios walked by and said ‘Nice Twists.”  Apparently, this Kinzioulous character is some joke hero in Lithuania.  It was what I was told to say when I asked to know a punch line to a very bad joke in Lithuanian.  By the way, I did not spell a word of that correctly.

Apparently, my delivery was perfect.  It was so perfect that even the Lithuanians didn’t know what the heck I was saying.  One Russian girl thought I was speaking Russian though.  That’s good.

Nina just stared and spun her head around the room like she was lost in some Mad Hatter lair watching gnomes smoke Opium.  It was delightful.  Simple and low brow, but successful.

The prank, you could say, would be a childish blast of random confusion.  Our techniques has since become more sophisticated and complex.  Stay tuned.

A few weeks ago, we had the amazing privilege and honor of performing a tribute to the Savoy Ballroom & it’s attendees at the 80th Anniversary Celebration of the Savoy Ballroom in New York City.

It was both inspiring and humbling to be both amongst and interacting with our elders that both created, shaped, and kept alive the dance that has take over nearly 10 years of our lives.

If you are interested, there is a video of our performance on our videos page. The performers are Todd Yannacone, Naomi Uyama, Skye Humphries, Frida Segerdahl, Peter Strom, Caitlin George, Nina and I.

Many thanks to those who put on the event, and especially to those who gave us this dance in the first place.

Andy