Via the comprehensively excellent “Questionable Advice” Tumblr, questionableadvice.tumblr.com
Apr
18
This is priceless!
Mar
10
Here comes a foxtrot playlist!
For those who have asked, first of all, thanks for asking! Here’s a playlist of some foxtrot music. Foxtrot tunes can be easy to pick out based on instrumentation and even certain singers even more than by rhythm. Michael Bublé has lots of foxtrots, as does Frank Sinatra. A lot of big band-type music is foxtrottable* but there are also some recent ballad singers like Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat who have made songs that work for the foxtrot. Take a listen and take a turn around the dance floor!
*Real word.
Jan
16
New Playlist: Rumba!
Just finished pulling together this rumba playlist. I tried to put some more traditional rumba rhythms that are easier to dance to, but I kept noticing that a lot of the top pros’ exhibition routines are danced to very romantic, slow, minimally rhythmic tunes. So a rumba does not have to have a strong Latin feel. If you can hear “quick-quick-slow” in it, give it a try. Dancing a slow rumba is a good way to work on weight placement and hip motion. I hope you enjoy this playlist!
Jan
12
Dance Music Playlists! Today: Tango
Our new dance friends Steve & Sam were asking us about tango music and I suggested that I could post a playlist for them and anyone else who’s interested. This “Tango Music” playlist is very unscientific; I spent a half-hour or so clicking around on YouTube and just compiling what I liked. Hopefully I can create and post these regularly as the groups learn different dances.
Incidentally, I’ve noticed that ballroom music is often very inexpensive on iTunes. I just found an album called Strictly Tango (from their Strictly Ballroom series) by New 101 Strings Orchestra that is just $3.99 for 14 tracks. That type of music will be very traditional and maybe not the most exciting to listen to, but it is made for ballroom practice and is “strict tempo” (i.e. falls within the tempo range prescribed by syllabus for each dance) so it can be useful. There are lots of other similar groups and albums; let us know if you want a second opinion on any particular album or song.
And . . . enjoy the playlist! I put in some traditional ballroom tango, some Argentine, some neo-tango, and a couple of pop covers in tango style. Let me know what you think!
Dec
11
My mom has great taste in videos
On the rare occasion that my mother sends me a forward or a link, you know it’s gonna be good. Check it:
Click through to the “About” to see a rundown of all the dancers/movie clips. So cool! And I’ll just be over here buying that song from iTunes.
Dec
10
Santa arrives in a Boogie-Woogie Choo-Choo Train!
I am so excited to see this video! Last Thursday we danced at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s “Holidays at the Hall” event alongside our friends David Leathers and Mitzi Matthews. The ending pose of their swing routine is the coolest! Daniel and I have both been so busy with work this fall that we have not had many chances to dance. This event was really lovely and we had a great time. Joey Stuckey, a great jazz musician, played live (we were just the intermission act, and happy to have the honor) so we also got to meet him. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we met Em Fergusson, Joey’s publicist, whom I just missed knowing when she was a student at Macon State College. Plus it turns out she is French-Canadian. Such a small world. Okay, here comes the video. Our part starts at around 1:20 with Mitzi and David, then we come in at 3:20. But you should definitely watch the whole thing.
Oct
27
Dresses in; dresses out
“Laura,” I hear readers asking, “how can I be more like you? I’ve already signed up for dance lessons and gotten a rockin’ haircut, but how do I take it to the next level?”
Well, young padawan, for the next 7 days you have a rare opportunity to own a piece of DLDancers history. I am selling two of my performance/competition dresses on Ye Olde Ebay. Check ‘em out!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that you have to sell the old dresses before buying new ones. (Circle of life?) So please take a look and enable my shopping habits as well as your own!
Sep
06
How cool is this?
Video for the band OK Go’s song “Skyscrapers”:
Also, so many good dresses & shoes!
Sep
05
cha cha cha PENNY cha cha cha PENNY cha cha cha PENNY
I happened to have The Big Bang Theory on TV this evening and caught this scene (embedding disabled, so you’ll have to click through).
Things I love:
- Sheldon’s takedown of cotillion.
- And his forced acknowledgement that cotillion training prevents him from saying no to three ladies who want to dance.
- Amy and Sheldon’s cha-cha, which is so terrible it curves around into being awesome.
- Penny getting groped by her dance partner–but that has never happened to me and I would not want anyone to think it’s a frequent part of social dancing!
- The dancers in the background, who probably got the thrill of their lives being recruited onto the show out of the nearest Fred Astaire studio.
Also, I’ve been repeating this article‘s argument for years. Dancing makes great couples’ therapy! Maybe not for Sheldon and Amy, though.
Aug
22
Dudes on the Dancefloor!
Michael Kaiser of the Huffington Post makes a sweet and compelling argument for men’s involvement in dance just in time for WRWR’s coverage of Academy of Dance’s new All Guys Hip-Hop class (that’s the studio where Daniel works! woohoo!). And really, who wouldn’t want to follow in the dancing footsteps of the late, great Patrick Swayze? 25 years since the premiere of Dirty Dancing and after a quarter-century and countless viewings I will still stop down my entire day to watch if it comes on cable. Jennifer Grey is so spot-on in her description of Swayze (and Derek Hough for that matter) in her interview. Has there been a better time since the Astaire/Gene Kelly era for male role models in dance?