June 6 was the kickoff for Toronto's Luminato
Festival, a ten-day celebration of arts and culture from near and far
featuring dance, music, theatre, literature and visual arts. There are
several free performances throughout the festival at Yonge and Dundas
Square, the Distillery District and Harbourfront. I'll be hitting those by
preference.
Opening night had a retro theme, with big band music
and swing lessons in Charleston, capped with a performance by the Count
Basie Orchestra and 14-year-old jazz sensation Nikki Yanofsky.
For
the occasion, Yonge-Dundas Square, a new venue built across the storied
Eaton Centre, was festooned with white beach balls strung into a square
constellation to reflect various coloured lights throughout the evening.
The swing dance lesson brought out both novices and seemingly hardcore
retro enthusiasts, their vintage 40s and 50s clothes immaculate in the
wilting heat. A few hundred feet followed the rhythm with varying degrees
of success, some discovering the dance with delight, others intent in
concentration.
Swing culture enjoyed the biggest wave of its
revival in the 90s. Its main styles are the Lindy hop, a partner style of
jazz dancing and the most popular form, with sometimes acrobatic aerial
moves. Other styles range from the Charleston to Shag and the Boogie
Woogie. The Savoy style of Lindy Hop was named after the Savoy ballroom in
Harlem, which could hold 4,000 people. It actually represented over 500
styles. The word "jitterbug" is more of a generic term for all swing
dances and refers to swing dancer more specifically.
You can't say
swing without thinking big band, and big band is jazz. Nikki Yanofsky's
played the Montreal Jazz Festival twice already and has appeared at
Carnegie Hall. The young singer channels Ella Fitzgerald with
near-perfection and crystal clarity. She came on slightly after 10 p.m.,
probably past her bedtime or close to it, still fresh as a daisy and
modest in her new-found fame.
It was a real treat to get the
chance to see and hear her live for free and probably won't happen too
often.
PhotosLink
to my story, as published on the Luminato website
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