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What was the Beach Boogie?
by the inestimably talented Andy Lewis
This writeup from 1999 couldn't be bettered ... unless you know better! [Ed]
Preamble
Why am I writing this article? It's quite simple: the official description of the Beach Boogie, as lifted from the Jump 'n' Jive web site goes as follows:
"Beach Boogie is a dance camp for modern jivers run by Jump 'n' Jive and held annually in August on the Isle of Wight."
This is a little like saying that chocolate bars are brown and lumpy. It's true, but it really doesn't tell you very much. At the opposite extreme, on this site, and others, you will find many other descriptions of the Beach Boogie. These are all written from the opposite viewpoint - they're great for the people that were there, but if I hadn't been, I'd have read them in a state of bewilderment, as references to fish, chickens, stocks and other oddments flew straight over my head.
So I'm writing this article for the benefit of anyone who really wants to know what the Beach Boogie is about, and isn't omniscient or telepathic. I felt that with all the rumours, gossip, half-truths and outright
fabrications on the Stories page, a solid, completely factual and unbiased account of the whole event was in order.
Boring Background Stuff
First: how it was meant to be...
The Location
It is held in a holiday camp situated near Sandown, on a beautiful part of the Isle of Wight's south coast.
The Classes
The days are divided up into sets of main classes, with some other light options in the gaps. The emphasis has always been on modern jive, but there's enough variety to keep just about anyone
happy. Classes this year included:
- Breaks and Hesitations - how to take those annoying pauses in the music which most people try to ignore, and to turn them into something wonderful.
- Blues - how to take those slow sexy numbers which are so hard to jive to, and turn them into something steamy and scandalous.
- Musical Interpretation - when the music stubbornly refuses to adapt itself to your dancing, learn to adapt your dancing to the music.
- Airsteps - ladies: feeling earthbound? Learn to fly... gents: do your partner's feet stubbornly refuse to leave the floor? Here's how to put her into orbit...
- Latin - for something a little different, a great set of tasters in all the Latin basics.
- Advanced Jive - jive, but better.
- Lindyhop - where modern jive came from. Challenging & fun.
- West Coast Swing - described as the Cadillac of swing, and hugely (and deservedly) popular in the States.
Other fun tasters included: African dancing (including a rain dance that works), rollerblading, stilt-walking, hip-hop, water-pistol marksmanship (an impromptu but educational workshop) and so on and so forth.
The classes were held anywhere appropriate: in dance halls, on lawns, on beaches (especially the airsteps, where pupils have the added option of dunking their partners) and so on.
The Teachers
The key people who staged the event, and performed the bulk of the teaching were: Nigel Anderson, Nina Daines, Andy Fleming and Rena Higginson-Swanpoel. Others included: Linda, Gillian, Sophie and Derek (Who have I forgotten + surnames please)
So how about the evenings?
Every evening, with the exception of a timeout mid-week, saw social dancing going on into the wee small hours. Some of the evenings had themes (eg gangsters and molls, or circus), some had
competitions (both silly and semi-serious), some had cabarets (more on that later), all had loads of dancing, and all ended up with blues sessions that went on as late as 3am.
Who is it aimed at?
- Anyone who fancies something different from straight jive.
- Anyone who loves having fun.
- Everyone else.
Beach Boogie is a relatively small gathering, with about 120 attendees there at any one time, which makes for a great, fairly intimate group of people - unlike some of the larger events which take
place, you never feel as if you're amongst strangers. The dance experience of those there varies wildly between the relative newcomers to the excellent veterans, which is as it should be, and the
whole combination works wonderfully.
What preparations should the sensible attendee make?
- Bring ample clothes and deodorant. No-one likes a sweaty, smelly dance partner.
- Bring loads of Red Bull A staple diet for many Beach Boogiers - one could buy it onsite, but it proved cheaper to buy it wholesale in advance.
- For those people lucky enough to possess a full set of marbles: - leave some behind. Otherwise you'd only end up losing some (or all) of them. It's always good to have some marbles to come home to.
So what was it like?
It was wonderful. This was the second time I've been, and I'd class it as the best dance event that I've ever been to. The first time round was excellent, but this time I had the advantage of knowing a
lot more people, and knowing what to expect - so it was much easier to get into the spirit of the event (something that always takes me a while) and I had the time of my life.
The Classes
A serious note for a second. Those easily bored should skip on to the next section.
The classes were uniformly excellent. Those wishing to advance their jive skills, no matter what level they're at, could do no better than to immerse themselves in a week of Beach Boogie classes. New
concepts and ideas, new moves, and a great deal of emphasis on developing your own style, and interpreting and using the music.
A small selection of some of those I attended:
Breaks and Hesitations given by Nigel and Nina - the lesson that a year ago opened my eyes to the possibilities of the music, and in the space of an hour, changed the way I dance. Now that I've
done it a couple of times, it has the added advantage that Nigel's long (but informative) preamble acts as a wonderful soporific, so I could catch some kip as I was lacking in sleep from the night
before. Highly recommended on all counts.
Blues - Nigel and Nina again - how to dance closely and sexily to the blues with your partner - not so much a dance in its own right, but a wonderful set of moves that can be interleaved at will with
anything else you know. Utterly brilliant.
Lindy Hop - Andy and Rena giving a great introduction to this challenging but compelling dance
Latin - Given by Gillian, a Beach Boogie newcomer, these whirlwind classes gave us a basic introduction to all the popular Latin dances. More than enough to enjoy yourself to Latin numbers
on the dance floor afterwards, and just enough to make us all want more, so we hope she'll be back next year.
Bored with writing this now, and my brain hurts, so I'll move on to:
What everyone got up to in the evening
Every evening, except for the "rest period" in the middle of the week, there was social dancing starting at about 8pm, and finishing up between 2am and 3am. The music was generally excellent,
although I have to say it was better during the first half of the week than the second. The last couple of hours were invariably blues-oriented, providing a great way to mellow out before bed-time
(unless you were an occupant of Chalets 75 or 76, in which case the end of the dancing was when the night began to get going, or in extreme cases, when they woke up after the previous night's excesses)
Saturday Night
was the "easing-in" night, with a Guaglione break, and a couple of other strolls etc.
Sunday Night
involved a short drive to Newport for a wonderful Gangsters and Molls evening with great music, a lot of threatening-looking characters sporting guns and lots and lots of dancing. Back to the main
site afterwards for more blues into the wee small hours...
Monday Night
This began with the first competition of the week, followed by the first cabaret.
The competition was the Funny Feet competition, which proved to be one of the highlights of the week. A daft idea, with simple rules:
- Wear something stupid on your feet
- Find partner
- Dance
It was judged on quality of footwear, and quality of dance, but the event became what it was because of the addition of a final rule:
- Extra marks are gained for stealing other contestants' footwear.
The more boring (or is that sensible?) of us watched in mild amusement as a great range of high-fashion footwear paraded itself in front of us: including an assortment of fluffy animal slippers,
oven gloves, unidentifiable bits and bobs, a pair of flower-filled cardboard boxes and two drag artists in heels.
Then the carnage began. We watched in growing disbelief and hysterics as partners were switched around like a wife-swapping party, as dancers were pounced on by five or more rivals, forced to
the floor and the struggles to remove their footwear began, as the cardboard boxes were alternately put to great use as dance shoes, then tripped up their wearer countless times, and were finally
kicked to pieces by jealous rivals, with crushed flowers scattered across the floor.
Cries of "medic!" were to be heard faintly echoing across the battlefield, and when the slaughter
finally ended, I think there were some winners, but by that time I was comatose with laughter, so haven't a clue who they were...
Luckily, no-one was hurt, although the same can't really be said about the footwear.
Then came the: Cabaret
This was a matter of some concern for the organisers, as Andy (in a fit of temper?) had thrown Rena at someone in Sweden the week before (a long long way to throw someone), and she'd
broken her hand. Rena was a key member of the intended cabaret team, which was chiefly intended to be displays by Jump 'n' Jive, so an alternative plan was cooked up, which was to throw the
cabaret open to anyone who wanted to perform (with implied threats that Rena would be thrown at anyone who didn't).
Several of the more intrepid of us made an effort, resulting in a very different kind of cabaret - kicked off by a great hip-hop/body-popping routine, including some great singing & story telling,
other showed off skills they'd picked up, and culminating in a very loud juggling routine with the lights off, and glowing stroboscopic juggling props (courtesy of myself and my sister Bridget - I
don't presume to comment on the quality of that one). [It was so good that my contact lens fell out because I was staring so hard! - Ed.]
We had to go home to work for the rest of the week, but came back on the Friday, where the evenings took a similar turn:
Friday Night
Newport again, this time with a new cabaret with new acts, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed - highlights that I remember were Nina and Linda's wonderful "this ISN'T a tap routine, even if it's
been announced as one" stint, and a great Thunderbirds spoof by the now legendary Chalets 75 and 76.
Saturday Night
Back to the main site, for a circus-theme fancy dress night plus the next competition (airsteps) which was great fun & very ably won by a great routine from Mark and Ellie (although they were pipped
at the post for entertainment value, the award for which deservedly went to Ian and Carol - see the Stories page for more details).
And on Sunday, we all reluctantly and tiredly went home...
Postamble
And finally, a quick guide to the various people and events that are referred to on the Stories page. Memorise before proceeding...
First off:
Key people
By this, I don't necessarily mean the organisers. I mean the people who were released from their respective lunatic asylums and allowed to attend because their doctors thought it might calm them
down. Legal action is now pending...
- Andy Fleming - blamed for initiating much of the mayhem, including but not limited to the fish and chicken episodes. He was credited with inciting the otherwise (nearly) harmless
occupants of Chalet 76 into many acts of wanton criminality. One day he pushed them too far, and they turned on him, chasing him through the camp with carving knives...
- Mark Fleming - the Macavity of the event. Never seen near the scene of a crime. Never seen looking anything but totally serious and innocent. A master deceiver. See the Stories
page for more details. Remains uncaught, unpunished, and is still at large today.
- Chalet 76 - in the interests of everyone's safety, the most dangerous lunatics were gathered into one place where people could keep an eye on them. In hindsight, the wisdom of this was
dubious, as in causing mayhem, they were only rivalled by:
- Chalet 75 - the overflow chalet for the rest of the lunatics.
Key events and concepts
- The Guaglione - This has become the trademark dance for Beach Boogies. A great stroll, choreographed specially for BB by Nina (even though she professes to dislike strolls), and
done to the Guaglione (by Prez Prado and his Orchestra), which came to the public ear a few years ago in a wonderful Guiness advert.
- The Stocks - With so many dangerous lunatics around, the organisers wisely felt that a form of deterrent was needed to guard against bad behaviour, and so the stocks came into being.
Unfortunately, they failed to anticipate the sheer number of criminally-minded people who attended the event, so many escaped unpunished. Next year, I would suggest at least ten sets
of stocks, and this time they should be fully lockable. With spiky bits.
- The Waterfight - I missed this, to my regret, but full-scale war broke out the first weekend, resulting in a lot of wet people, and the instigator being duly punished in the afore-mentioned
stocks. History then repeated itself countless times for the rest of the week.
- The Chicken - Another one that I missed, on account of having to go home to work for part of the week, but the peaceful tranquility that abounded during the Friday classes was rudely
shattered by the arrival of a giant chicken, which ran through the various lessons while being pursued by a bunch of chefs waving kitchen implements. Action was taken, and chicken soup
occupied part of the supper menu for the rest of the week.
- The Fish - Perhaps because of extremely high tides, a skate found its way into Chalet 75 part-way through Beach Boogie, and died an agonising death on a heating element. The
occupants remained blissfully unaware of this tragedy until four days later - it is speculated that the realisation was brought about when they were finally forced into washing. An inquest
is currently underway, and charges of neglect are thought to be pending.
- The Rain Dance - Rena showed her abilities as a master deceiver when she lead a group of innocents in a full-scale rain dance, under the pretext of holding an "African Dance Class" The
downpour began within ten minutes. Most of those involved were chastised for their gullibility, and released. The ringleader herself was placed in the stocks, and forced to do a
sun-dance. Personally, I feel that this punishment should have taken place during the day, as the hapless local residents are still re-adjusting their sleep patterns after the resulting mayhem.
And Finally...
A HUGE vote of thanks to all the organisers, and everyone who helped make this into such a great event.
Disclaimer
Everything in this article is based entirely on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. If you should hear anyone disagreeing with this article, please bear in mind that they are all a) lunatics,
b) truth-haters and c) wrong. I have written this from my mountain retreat out in the Mongolian Steppes, with swarms of killer chickens guarding the secret entrance, so if any lunatics do have any
quarrel with any of this report, please feel free to seek me out there, and I shall listen with great interest.
Andy Lewis
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