Dance Bio
Hi, My name is Sosh and I'm a Lindy Hopper ("Hi Sosh").I began dancing in Swing in 1999 But I don't think I really successfully swung out until 2000. I started in Asheville, a dance scene that had no Lindy Hop, only six count so my friend Jonas and I would travel out of town to places like Greensboro and Atlanta to take workshops and go back to Asheville and teach other people to dance so that we would have women folk to dance with.
In the summer of 2001 I ventured on my first trip to Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden. I attended four straight weeks of classes starting at intermediate/advanced and ending in advanced plus. I was able to learn from excellent dancers such as Steven and Virginie, the Harlem/Rhythm Hot Shots and my hero the late, great Frankie Manning. On returning to Asheville I began to teach much more and mentor on of our new dance students Michael Gamble.
Over the next few years I got more serious as both an dancer, teacher and organizer. I co-founded with Michael and Jaya the event known as Lindy Focus and began to travel and teach more extensively. I also began to take large number of dance classes such as African, Tap, Jazz, Ballet, Argentine Tango, Modern, and Hip Hop. I also contunued traveling to Europe in the summers and began to teach some evening electives at Herrang Dance Camp, and classes in other places on my trips such as Toulouse and London. In 05 I did most of my teaching and traveling with Gina Helfrich of Atlanta, though our partnership only lasted about a year.
I started to burn out on all this in 06 and began to limit my teaching in primarily Lindy Focus at which I taught 18 classes that year. In 07 I made my last summer trip to Herrang, only a few weeks before moving to Atlanta. Shortly after my move I began working with the newly formed Hot Rhythm Rising dancing with. Though we won 1st place at ULHS the following year, I was pretty much burnt out on dancing and social danced very little. Along with Hot Rhythm, I also began dancing with the Dames Aflame getting involved in some of their shows and corporate gigs as a party starter, swing performer, and burlesque dancer (the shim sham in a hat).
This yaer, 2009, has been a very interesting one. The Lindy Hop community took a great loss with the death of Frankie Manning. His last year at Herrang was also my last, though I had had seven summers of getting to learn from him and learn about him as a person through his stories, roasting hot dogs with him, and getting to ride with him to buy fish or ride to the airport. Though I will miss him greatly I feel exceptionally lucky to have got to spend time with one of my greatest heroes.
During this year, I also got engaged and married which I thought would take me further away from dance since. (Lisa and I prefer not to work on dance together as it can be extremely difficult with someone you're with, so I primarily work with Lindsay.) I began to return to it for the original reasons I began. It is a great stress reliever and the perfect thing after a long day at work. With my return to the scene I also noticed that there was a new group of Lindy Hoppers who seemed hungry for more knowledge and to get better. Lindsay Longstreth and I decided to create a new dance group to fill the void that seemed to be present.
I've only recently begun to stay till the end of dances again. My goals now are simply to enjoy the dance.