Arts For All, Omaha, Nebraska - Dan Wondra

Dan Wondra

 

These days, I have two primary reasons for existing: drawing and dancing. The earliest masterpieces I can recall creating happened when I was about four years old; so that's a good fifteen years ago already. I've been in the graphic arts field for twenty-some odd years, but when I was a kid I'd thought that I'd wanted to be an archaeologist. (That must've come from liking to draw dinosaurs or something.) But once I realized that archaeologists have to spend a lot of time in rock quarries digging and scaping and chiseling and making no money, I decided I'd rather be at a drawing table drawing and scratching and chalking and making no money. Whoever first coined the phrase "starving artist" had to eat those words--because he had nothing else to eat. Anyway, the funny thing about artists, whatever form of art they're practising, is that they have such a love of what they do that the thrill of creativity overrides any impracticalities of making a full-time living at it.

 My other passion in life is dancing--more specifically, swing dancing. I started with ballroom classes way back in 1992, and once I experienced swing I knew that this was my favorite. It wasn't until the summer of 1998 that the original swing dance, the lindy hop, was taught here in Omaha. It's a tough dance to learn, and I struggled to learn it, but now it's my favorite dance. I've always liked swing music, ever since I first watched the Warner Bros. cartoons on t.v. when I was a kid, and they must've made an impression on me. So the combination of the cartoons and the music are what's to blame for my psyche. The lindy hop allows both enough structure and improvisation, while at the same time legally permitting the goofiest moves imaginable. I was fortunate enough to take lindy hop lessons from Frankie Manning six times over the years. He was one of the originators of the lindy hop in the 1930s at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, and he and his friends pretty much developed the dance to its definitive style. All other styles of swing are derivatives of the lindy.

 All right, I've already got enough to read here, so I'll close with the following. I've always had a preference to mix humor within whatever art style I'm involved. This works equally well in cartooning and swing dancing. I'm somewhat qualified to get away with these things because I have a BFA degree. And we all know what that stands for: Bachelor of Funny Arts.