Cat Tracks No. 3 | Memphis Sign

Cat Tracks is an ongoing (and sporadic) series that features the students of Cat’s Ballroom and Memphis art installations. For Cat Tracks No. 3 we headed to the Memphis Sign on Mud Island. The sign was created for the Memphis River Parks Partnership by Tylur French (owner of Youngblood Studio), and the huge letters are clearly visible to anyone coming across the I-40 bridge into Memphis.

The Cat Tracks Crew

I love my students for a lot of reasons, one of which is that they’re usually up for anything. It came as no surprise then, that when I asked them to meet on Mud Island so we could film them dancing in front of the big Memphis sign, quite a few of them showed up ready to rock (or rumba, as the case may be). I also asked them to wear bright colors, which interestingly resulted in all the ladies wearing pink, and all the men ignoring me and opting for earth tones.

Scott & Nancy

Colleen & John

Brian & Kayla

Brandon & Kareem

Jesse & Cat

Generally, the tourists seemed unfazed by us as we were warming up and waiting for late arrivals, but once we spread out and really got going, everyone stayed clear of us. We weren’t there long though, so hopefully we didn’t ruin anyone’s vacation photo op.

One of our regulars was sick that day (We missed you Lulu!), but her partner brought a friend instead, and together with Jesse, they formed a slightly haphazard salsa line. We also rotated all the partners so that every leader got to dance with every follower at least once. Fun!

Tourists don’t care!

A quick salsa lesson for the guys.

The song we used, Beautiful Day by Jonathan Roy, was pretty open to interpretation. In the videos you’ll see rumba, push-pull swing, west coast swing, samba, Argentine tango (ridiculously difficult on grass), and salsa. You’ll also see me running in and out of frame because I forgot I could use the remote.