Erin Nicole Sample

Sammi: So just tell me your name – full name, and a little about you.

Erin: My name is Erin Nicole Sample. I’m a senior at Purdue, I’ve been dancing for two and a half years.

S: Cool. So what do you mean by “dancing”? What kind of dancing do you do?

Erin: So I started swing dancing two and a half years ago actually. My dance background is Irish dancing. I Irish danced for 10 years.

S: Woah. How’d you get into that?

Erin: I’m super Irish, and so is my grandmother. She got me into it.

S: Just like… suggested it to you?

Erin: The Toledo Zoo does performances in their amphitheater over the summer, and the ones that I ended up going to – she took me, hoping to get at least one of her grandchildren to be an Irish dancer, and it worked.

S: Having that as a dance background, what got you into swing dancing? What about swing dancing enticed you to want to start?

Erin: I had a really bad breakup, actually. I spent all of my time either in my office at work or in my dorm, and my boss is like “You need to go do something. I will pay for your membership fee for whatever, but you NEED to go do something.” And so we sat down and looked at stuff, and I was like “swing dancing sounds cool, maybe I could get back into something physical” and— oh my gosh, it’s been so great. I have a bad memory, and so doing things like ballroom where everything is choreographed and memory actually is important, I wasn’t able to do things like that. But because this is all social and you just need to learn individual pieces and parts and then you put it together as a couple, it’s been really great.

S: What’s your favorite thing about the fact that swing dancing is partner dancing? What’s cool about that?

Erin: Something that I think is interesting about partner dancing is if you mess up, you’re not the only one out there. Which is great, but something that is so unique about swing dancing and Lindy Hop is that it is a real conversation. I have legitimate input. In my dance history, I was told how to dance, told exactly what to do in what order, choreographed. So being able to choose my own story in a way has been incredibly transformative. I have changed SO much since two and a half years ago when I started.

S: Aside from just learning how to dance, do you think there’s been any other positive impacts dancing has had on you since that bad time in your life?

Erin: Yeah. It’s given me friends where I’m not an authority figure. Since I work at a church and I’m also a mentor in a program on campus, I’ve been an authority figure for a lot of people. Having friends in those places is nice, but I can’t form those relationships in the same way that I can here where it’s okay for a teacher to be really close to the students in this very open environment, while still also having people to keep everyone safe. It’s been great.

S: Is community is something you see outside of your own scene as well?

Erin: Oh yeah. I have tons of friends now because I’ve gone to a number of events where I’m like “Oh I remember this person! I don’t remember their name, but they go to IU and we talked about ice cream the last time we talked!” It’s been great to be able to connect to lots of people across the country.

S: Do you have – you mentioned “across the country” – do you travel for dance?

Erin: I haven’t been able to much this year, but last year I traveled a lot. I went to Lindy Focus, which is in North Carolina. And that was, oh my gosh, mind boggling large. It was— I’m a loss for words. It was huge. There were constantly good people to dance with, which is amazing.

S: Do you have a specific memory from traveling that you really hold dear?

Erin: Jamin Jackson’s sossed(?) me at Lindy Focus.

S: …elaborate?

Erin: So “sossed” is a word someone else told me exists, so I like to use it. It’s when you’re dancing with someone and at the end, they ask you to dance again. And you’re like OHHHHH. OKAY. Like you think “Oh! Yeah! Uh, okay!” So that was a lot of fun. Knowing that Jamin Jackson wanted to dance again with me was super dope.

S: Oh yeah. It can be really validating if people who are very good want to dance with you multiple times.

Erin: Yeah yeah yeah!

S: I think personally for me, I think it’s really interesting when talent doesn’t matter in those circumstances. It doesn’t matter that Jamin Jackson is way better than somebody.

Erin: And amazing and did the splits in jeans today!

S: Wow, really?

Erin: Yeah. He was “down, up” in like two counts. It was nuts. And then he just moved on. And I haven’t yet.

S: I find it really quite interesting dancers of that caliber really just don’t care—

Erin: They value other people, regardless.

S: Yeah, they don’t care who they dance with because everybody’s there to dance.

Erin: I think that’s something that’s really unique about our culture. I know in social tango it can be a bit of shame when you get rejected by someone for a dance. In tango you don’t ask, you don’t go up to someone and be like “Hey Sammi, would you like to dance?” You would just look at them from a distance, and if you don’t wanna dance with that person and they’re looking at you, you would look away. It’s just this shame of getting rejected to dance. And here we don’t have that. It’s very nice and as someone who— I recognize I am a woman, that can be a lot of pressure sometimes. I can only imagine if people of different types of oppression could feel similarly.

Chelsea Maupin

Sammi: So, just introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about yourself.

Chelsea: I am Chelsea Maupin, I studied horticulture at Purdue and have since graduated, I taught English in Vietnam for a year and I’m applying for a master’s degree, I work at a farm and a bakery, and I want to do more swing dancing! I’ve done it super sporadically and on and off, but it’s super fun.

S: So amidst all of that insanity, how did you find swing dancing?

Chelsea: From being an undergrad at Purdue, but I did a little bit of ballroom in highschool, and I wanted a really fun dance community – and especially going into a new place and being so overwhelmed with the newness of it all – swing was such an awesome community and stress relief.

S: I definitely agree with that. Aside from the community, what keeps you coming back to dance every week?

Chelsea: I think it’s the community, and it does change really quickly, especially at University scenes just because of people moving on and graduating, but it’s not just a community in one place anymore. It’s also a thing you can take to other places. I’ve danced in several different countries, and it’s also something that I can work on personally. I dance at home in my kitchen, I’m just more – I’m more comfortable. I think it’s kind of a little confidence booster too where it’s just a fun, zany skill.

S: Yeah! You mentioned dancing with other people elsewhere vs. yourself, so what’s your favorite thing about dancing by yourself vs. dancing with a partner?

Chelsea: That’s a good question. I think dancing by myself, I can just focus in and really listen to the music. I think it’s really fun to partner dance and to respond to the energy from a lead, because I usually follow, but dancing by yourself you can just think about the music and do whatever feels good.

S: Cool. You talk about the music and the rhythm – what does that mean to you when you dance?

Chelsea: For the rhythm and the feeling of the music? It kinda depends on my mood, like how I’m feeling coming into dance will then kind of effect how the music influences me – it goes both ways a bit. So a fast song, if I’m high energy, will be the right energy. But if I’m tired, I’ll just sit out. It sort of depends on what’s going on.

S: What’s your favorite thing that you really like to dig into when you’re dancing?

Chelsea: When I’m dancing – just with partner dancing because I mainly do partner dancing – I love it when things just kind of click well. Like the lead and I have the same energy level, we’re both listening, we know where the breaks are gonna be in the song, and if it’s a well-known song then you can definitely get creative with musicality. There’s certain dances where even if it’s a total stranger, you come away and you’re laughing and smiling ‘cause you just clicked really well, and that’s great.

S: I agree. Random last question – if you had to describe what dance is to you in five words or less, how would you do it?

Chelsea: Uhhhh… that’s on the spot!

S: Uh-huh!

Chelsea: Five or less?

S: Yeah! TL;DR!

Chelsea: Well, we did lessons today talking about energy and connection, so it probably would be, lets make it a sentence: Connected energy with friends and fun. Excluding conjunction words, of course.

Meg Perry

Sammi: So, I guess start off by just introducing yourself and talking a little about yourself to get us started?

Meg: I guess I can give you dance background?

S: We can do that, yup!

Meg: My name is Meg Perry, I’ve been dancing since I was three so, wow, that’s… twenty years now? I started in a studio when I was three learning ballet and tap and jazz, and I went through and did hip-hop and funk and all these other styles growing up, until I got to highschool when I quit all that and I just did dance team at school, which is not at all what I loved. Girls are mean, that’s all I have to say. Between highschool and college, I went on a cruise and they had ballroom dance lessons.

S: On a cruise?

Meg: On a cruise, yeah! So, of course I went, because dancing, but everyone there was 80 years old and no one would dance with me, because I didn’t show up with a partner. And it was so disheartening, I couldn’t get any of my cousins to join me. So when I went to college, and I discovered swing dancing, and how anyone would dance with anybody, and you didn’t need to show up with a partner, and you didn’t even need to dance with a partner – you could dance by yourself, it’s like a whole new experience to dance by yourself, even just to the same music and the same bands as the people dancing as a couple – I just love the versatility of swing. We took photos in tap shoes today – I think that tap is just like that forgotten cousin of swing and it just belongs so well, they mesh so well together, and I love that.

S: Awesome! I think that’s pretty… pretty good. So, did you ever imagine that you would have found swing dancing, or would you have just stuck with the ones that you had learned as a kid?

Meg: I definitely did not see swing dance coming. It took me a LOT to get into it. Literally, the swing dance team at my school, I was tutored by the president, I just happened to sit next to a member in a class about jazz music, and just all this other stuff; there were probably about ten people it took to convince me to go even once, but after the first lesson I was hooked. It took a long time to get there, I would have never guessed I would do something like this.

S: Nice! So, you mentioned jazz music. What’s your favorite part about dancing to music like that?

Meg: I think jazz is just… there’s so much of it. I already used the word versatile, but I’m going to again. You can do anything with it, and it’s never the same. You never have to dance it the same. Or you could dance the same way to 18,000 different songs and it won’t look the same, even if your feet do the same things, and your arms do the same things.

S: That is really true. We took pictures of you dancing by yourself in tap, but you also mentioned partner dancing. What’s the difference between dancing by yourself, or, what’s your favorite part of dancing with a partner vs. dancing by yourself?

Meg: I think the communication. You have such an opportunity to share creativity. I love when you have that one hand connection and you’re just solo jamming together, and you can steal each other’s ideas and then throw them into your closed dance and things like that. You’re talking the whole time, just not with your mouths. I love that about partner dancing.

S: In terms of partner dancing, do you lead or follow? Or both?

Meg: I do both. I’ve followed for a little over four years, and I’ve led for a little over three. Just this past year or so, my friend and I have started learning how to switch and do lead steals and things like that, so that’s probably my favorite. ‘Cause you never know what’s gonna happen.

The Start of the Project

Hey there!

I announced this project a while back, and I finally have time to sit down and grind it out. I’ve already collaborated with some amazing dancers with really cool stories, and I’m excited to finally share them all with you. This is only the beginning, and I can’t wait to take you all with me on this exciting dance photography journey.