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behind the curtain in other news

How to Buckle Ballroom Shoes

Last night at our dance a young lady asked me how to buckle ballroom shoes.  “I Googled it,” said the young lady, “and I couldn’t find anything!”  She had a pair of shoes that had been sitting in her closet for at least a year, unworn, because she wasn’t sure how to operate the buckle.  A lot of ballroom shoes come with this nifty (but not self-evident) quick-release buckle mechanism.  If you know how to use it, you will become resentful of ballroom shoes with regular buckles.  If you don’t know how to use it, your shoes will languish in neglect and you will be sad.  To address these problems (baffling buckles and their apparent absence from The Google), I have made my first-ever instructional video, How to Buckle Ballroom Shoes.  Its subtitle is “How to Look Washed-Out in a Webcam Video.” Enjoy! And please send blush & eyeliner.

 

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Dancing Stars of Central Georgia Friday Night Dance Parties

Win tickets to Dancing Stars of Central Georgia!

Great news, everybody: at our dance this coming Friday we’ll be raffling off a pair of tickets to Dancing Stars of Central Georgia.  Buy a raffle ticket for $1 and be entered to win!  The face value of these tickets is $75 each; your ticket admits you to the cocktail hour (open bar), dinner, the dance competition, and open dancing afterward.

We will donate all the raffle proceeds to the Alzheimer’s Association and each ticket you buy is an additional chance to be the winner!  Details for our dance and the Dancing Stars event are below:

  • Daniel’s Friday Night Dance Party
  • 8:00-10:30 p.m.
  • Howard Community Club, 5645 Forsyth Rd.
  • $5 admission, soft drinks & water available
  • Casual dress
  • Raffle tickets $1 each

 

  • Dancing Stars of Central Georgia
  • Saturday, May 12
  • Macon City Auditorium
  • Cocktail hour (open bar) at 6:00, doors open for dinner at 7:00, dance competition starts at 8:00
  • Cocktail attire

If you don’t win the drawing you can still buy tickets and make donations via www.dancingstarsofcentralgeorgia.com, but don’t wait.  The event organizers are predicting a sell-out by the end of next week!

See you soon on the dance floor!

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dancing in the media Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame!

We haz famus partners!

Check out NewsCentral’s profile of Ashley Copelan (1/2 of our own Team Dashley) and a member of the competition, Steve Welsh and Pilar Wilder:

Also, in an awesome coincidence, this afternoon we got an email from the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame soliciting extras for a movie about Jackie Robinson that will be shooting in Macon this summer.  It’s called 42, it stars Harrison Ford, and Jackson Walker (1/2 of our own Team LaJack) appears as a reporter named “Jimmy Powers.”  Daniel is already signed up to be an extra!

All this fame comes at a good time; there are only 3 weeks left till the event.  Just enough time to polish our routines, get our costumes together, and most importantly max out the fundraising and awareness.  As Ashley said in our profile, if we sell out the City Auditorium we will beat all the other Georgia Dancing Stars events at fundraising AND be the first event to sell out in its inaugural year.    We are already so close to that sellout that if you still need a ticket, now is the time!  If you can’t attend but you still want to support the cause, kick in with a donation in any amount!

Click here to purchase a ticket and support the star of your choiceClick here to donate to Ashley CopelanClick here to donate to Jackson Walker

Thanks, everybody!

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faaaaaaaame! in other news

WE R FAMUS SHAG DNCRS

Say it with me: Not really! But last night Daniel and I went to the Macon Shag Club (motto: “It’s Not What It Sounds Like”) for the first time and were very warmly welcomed.  Shag is a much-loved dance in the Carolinas and the South more generally; we have not yet begun to learn it so we really went just to check out the scene.  One of the club members, Andy, also comes to a lot of other local dance events and was very excited to see us.  He said he couldn’t stand the fact that we weren’t dancing and I had to tell him that we don’t know how to shag at all.  Half-seriously I said “If you can get the DJ to play a tango, we’ll dance to it.”  I thought he’d demur because the tango is about as far from the shag as you can get, but he led me up to the DJ, introduced us, and had me pick out a tango from the DJ’s song list.  And that’s how we ended up doing an impromptu tango demonstration at Jock & Jill’s sports bar, being videoed by the club’s leader, and appearing on the Macon Shag Club’s page on Facebook.  Do we get extra glamour points for my socks and Daniel’s Wake Forest t-shirt?

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dancing in the media Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame!

I R FAMUS PROF

Not really.  Because there is no such thing as a famous English professor.

But the External Affairs department at Macon State was kind enough to put a story about my participation in Dancing Stars of Central Georgia on the College’s homepage today.  Now, in addition to “I saw you on TV!” I am hearing “I saw you on the website!”  My 15 minutes should be over by sunset tonight.

I’m going to ballet tonight, helping Team Dashley in rehearsal tomorrow afternoon (without giving away any Team LaJack trade secrets, of course), and rehearsing with Jack on Saturday.  So goes the life of not-a-professional-dancer.

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behind the curtain Dancing Stars of Central Georgia in other news

One month till showtime

Well, sports fans, it’s spring break at the Madison Studio and my parents are in town this week (Hi, Mom & Dad! See you again in June!), so not much dancing going on here at DLDancers HQ.  Nevertheless, because I am just that kind of hard-working bloggiste, I am bringing you some updates.  With Dancing Stars of Central Georgia just under a month away, preparations are going forward even when rehearsals are not.

First, can I show you Jack’s and my Dancing Stars rehearsal video?

. . . Also starring my Lauren-Bacall-style laryngitis voice.  Until I saw it, I’d forgotten that I was sick the day they recorded it.  The show must go on!

On Wednesday we had a production meeting for Dancing Stars at the show venue, Macon’s City Auditorium.  The City Auditorium is the same lovely neoclassical edifice that hosts the Cherry Blossom Gala each year.  We dancers found out that if we sell it out, we’ll have an audience of about 700.  Glory hounds that we are, we immediately set our sights on a sellout–if we can pull it off we’ll be the first Dancing Stars show to sell out the first year’s event.  This is the part where you go visit Jack’s page on the site and buy your ticket.  It’s okay, I’ll wait.

I took some pics at the City Auditorium during the production meeting:

The organizers are still working on getting the stage floor in dance-worthy condition but I’m sure it will be perfect on May 12.  The more Daniel and I see of the stars and pros in action, the more we realize this is going to be an incredibly exciting show.  Click through from Jack’s video and watch some of the other couples: Karla Redding-Andrews, Portia Lake, Mary Perdue, Steve Welsh, Jim Elliot, Elbert McQueen, Terrell Sandefur, Courtney Swift.  Everyone is pulling out these dynamic, high-level, polished routines.  I can’t wait to see them all on the stage!

I also did the only thing a dancer really can do on days off: stretching & flexibility cardio strength training buying shoes.  Got a new pair of pointe shoes, which are still waiting to be sewn (see 1:50) and my shoes for Dancing Stars which are these.  They look amazing.  Now I am just waiting for my dress to arrive. *taps nails*

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dancing in the media Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame! Uncategorized

I R FAMUS BALLROOM DANCER

Not really. (Do you see a pattern developing here?)  But it turns out that Team LaJack is prominently (albeit facelessly) featured in the TV ad for Dancing Stars of Central Georgia!  Finally I understand why the DWTS pros go to the trouble of dressing cute and putting makeup on for rehearsals.  Our friend Sheree’ saw the ad Sunday afternoon on Fox during the NASCAR race; then I saw it last night while watching Castle on the DVR.  Then in class today one of my students said “Dr. Thomason, I think I saw you on TV!”  I definitely feel famous . . .

 

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behind the curtain in other news

How the other half lives

Dear readers, I have a secret.

I am not a professional dancer.

In fact, because of USA Dance’s rules about amateur competitions, I am explicitly, stridently, and vocally Not A Professional Dancer. But lately I’ve been impersonating one for a couple of days each week and here’s what I’ve learned: being a professional dancer is HARD.

Today I got to the studio at 2:15 and left early, i.e., about 7:15.  That’s an hour and a half of tango rehearsal with Jack, a 45-minute break, an hour of modern, and what would have been an hour and a half of ballet if I’d stayed till the end.  Same thing last Tuesday.  Same thing on Thursday minus the modern class.  It’s awesome, but boy,  I can tell I’ve been working.  Real pros are my new personal heroes.  I’m having tons of fun, just need to build my stamina a little more. And adjust my diet.  Today I ran out of gas because I had virtually no protein.  I can run for a long time on pure carbs but apparently not at this level of activity.  Duly noted, metabolism.  Here, have these mixed nuts and this yogurt.

It’s amazing how dance has taken over my life lately, and I don’t mind at all.