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Ballerina Corner behind the curtain exhibitions & performances Uncategorized

Madison Studio recital day!

MSDE’s annual recital, “Ballet, Boogie, & Broadway,” kicks off in just under 5 hours. We had an excellent dress rehearsal last night, I got to leave my costumes on the premises so I don’t have to carry them over there again today, I have all the correct shoes in my bag, and (hopefully) the things I wore and then washed last night are dry now. Daniel’s stuff is packed and ready to go and the video camera is charging.  Here is what I learned at dress rehearsal:

  • It’s great to NOT be in 12 different numbers (as one of my young fellow dancers is) because that’s exhausting and you sweat a lot.  But being in only 3, widely spaced apart, as I am, is slightly too few.  You get all cold and stiff in between.  I’m going to feel silly carrying in legwarmers and a shrug when it’s 90 degrees out, but I’ll be doing it and wearing them anyway!
  • If you have my haircut (razor-cut pixie, no 2 strands the same length) and have to slick it back to look like a ballerina, the secret is to wet it and then slather on gel like there’s no tomorrow.  When your ballet number is over and you have to unslick to look like a modern or ballroom dancer, re-wet it from another dancer’s spray bottle (bless you, E. J.) and rearrange with a comb.  Be prepared for Horror Hair when you brush it all out later.  Shampoo twice the next morning (buy one of these in advance to use when it’s all over).
  • Draw your eyeliner wings on carefully lest your husband/dance partner point out to you–after it’s too late, of course–that they are incongruent.
  • Something’s wrong when you regret things that haven’t happened yet.
  • If you are planning to wear a wig, bring it with you!
  • There’s no crying at recital.  Mostly.
  • He may not agree, but it was worth it for our Widow Simone to shave his goatee.
  • The big kids are so talented, the little kids are so adorable, and we’re just lucky to be up there with ’em.

Recap/photos/video coming soon!

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behind the curtain in other news

The effect of a dance studio on a Regular Person

Since working on Dancing Stars I’ve started to notice something interesting about the way “regular people” (non-dancers or non-habitual dancers) react to being in a dance studio space.  For as long as I can remember, I have regarded a dance studio as one tiny step–at most–below a sacred space.  In fact, in the Afro-Haitian dance classes I took in college we actually had a little ritual to do with a bowl of water when entering and leaving the studio.  But until just recently I thought I was the only one who slightly fetishized the studio experience: all that open space, all that potential, all that blankness somehow serving as a  frame for the concentration and repetition and work and progress of dance.

Then I noticed that Daniel’s partner Kathryn (substituting in recital for Ashley, who is on injured reserve) stuck around for an extra 20 minutes or so after she was finished rehearsing.  She didn’t really need to be there; in fact, she had a date with her husband.  But she stayed to watch us run through La Fille Mal Gardée.  And then I remembered the time when Jack just randomly started doing cartwheels in the studio.  He said that ever since the first time he’d been there, he had wanted to do cartwheels.

Dance studios are special.  It’s pretty cool.

ETA: What if there are no non-dancers?  Just former dancers, dancers, and future dancers?

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Linktastic

Good Stuff

Guys, there has been so much good dance stuff online lately that I can hardly believe it.  Hat tips to Joyce Newman, Carson Flournoy, Sheri Leblanc, and Arthur Murray of Danvers, Mass. (seven convenient locations)!

This tongue-in-cheek yet totally true and hilarious appeal to men: Dance–The Man’s Choice  (from Arthur Murray of Silicon Valley)

Tango Evolution Radio, a casualty of some lost bookmarks, now happily rediscovered.

Sheri’s Dance pinboard and, purely in the interest of full disclosure, my Dance pinboard.

On our best days we are maybe half as glamorous as Iveta & Gherman (behind-the-scenes video of their Dancebeatworld photo shoot).

Saving the best for last: from Ontario Arts Council (yaaaay Canada), “Why I dance”

 

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dancing in the media in other news MSDC

“Translocal”?

Jonathan Marion, whom I can pretend to know because he is a frequent flyer on Dance Forums, published this interesting article about “the translocal culture of competitive ballroom dance” in Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement.  The article does a nice job explaining that competitive dancers not only take the extensive travel associated with training and competition in stride but actually expect it and rely on it as part of the overall dance experience.  Travel, Marion argues, is a sign of belonging to the competitive dance culture for dancers, instructors, judges, and the retailers who serve all of them.  The article is easy to follow, not too long, usefully illustrated with graphs and diagrams, and includes a great picture of Iveta Lukosiute with a huge pile of suitcases.  Good stuff.

While you’re up, this is also a fun read.  Makes me wonder if the Macon State dance club knows what they’d be getting into by entering the world of collegiate competitions!

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exhibitions & performances

And the beat goes on

We had to go over to the Alzheimer’s Association office this afternoon to return some stuff.  Once we finished walking right into the middle of a committee meeting because someone (DANIEL J. BOUDREAULT) did not heed the “Please use front door” sign, we had a nice chat with the staff.  Karen K. asked “Are you still reeling from the event or have you recovered?”  I told her we’d had to jump right in to rehearsing for the Madison Studio annual recital, which will be Thursday, May 31, 6:30 p.m. at Porter Auditorium on the Wesleyan College campus (details here).  Our Stars were supposed to dance with us in the recital but both of them are out of commission–Jack is off being a movie star and Ashley tore 3 ligaments in her ankle playing tennis!  We had to scratch Jack’s and my number but Ashley has provided us with a stand-in, her friend Kathryn, who is a former dancer and a very quick study.  She and Daniel practiced for the first time today and she learned almost the whole routine in under an hour.  Not bad, huh?  Plus Daniel and I have been freshening up the rumba routine we’ll be performing and adding a couple of new tricks.  We are dancing to Enrique Iglesias’s “Ring My Bells.”  Woo!  I think it’s gonna be HOT.

Sunday is the last studio recital before rehearsal and is also group photo day for each recital number.  We’ll have time for 1-2 run-throughs in costume for each routine, then into the small studio where Mr. Haley will be taking pictures.  I have to go over there with 3 outfits including the one I’m taking for Kathryn to try, plus I’m picking up a dress I’m borrowing from a fellow dancer once I get there.  Multiply that times all the dancers in the studio and it could become a major troop movement but I know Ms. Madison will make it work.  Then we have dress rehearsal on the 30th and the recital on the 31st.  Exciting!

If you couldn’t make it to Dancing Stars, you can attend the recital and see us in action. Tickets are $10 in advance (let us know if you want ’em) or $12 at the door on the day of the show.  It would be great to have a cheering section on hand.

Hey, it’s time to get ready and go dancing!  What am I doing sitting here?

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Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame!

The gift that keeps on giving

Dancing Stars of Central Georgia is the gift that keeps on giving! Yesterday evening we all got emailed a YouTube link for this “Thank You” ad that WGXA created:

The little clips in the ad look so good that we can’t wait to see the DVDs with the complete video of our performances. We’re supposed to receive those at the cast party the first week of June, so stay tuned!

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dancing in the media in other news

Who takes the lead?

My Twitter-mate Caitlin Doran posted a link earlier today to this article in Canada’s National Post.  The article reports an incident in which a woman was asked to leave a jive class after trying to switch to the leader’s role and “lead her male partner.”  The instructor contends that the student was asked to leave because “she disrupted the class” and that changing roles would “complicate things” for her fellow dancers.

As presented, this story is confusing to me.  The instructor quoted in the article is not incorrect when she talks about the traditionally gendered roles in ballroom dancing.  As everyone knows, men lead and women follow.  Daniel and I have a lot of riffs on this convention, most of which serve the purpose (I’m pretty sure) of adapting it to our more egalitarian age.  How do we square this highly conventional practice rooted in centuries-old norms with the fact that most of us no longer live by those norms when we’re not on the dance floor? I genuinely believe it’s difficult for independent career women of the 21st century to relinquish control, even on the dance floor.  And although men are the traditional leaders in the ballroom, dancing has been so thoroughly skewered as “effeminate” that most men arrive at the dance studio reluctant and uncertain about being there, much less taking charge.  The instructor may have been correct in saying that everyone should stick to and reinforce those conventional positions, since both learning to follow and learning to lead are special skills that don’t come naturally to many of us these days.

At the same time, it’s good for dancers of both genders to learn both roles at some point.  I’ve been working on and off on learning to lead, and it is HARD.  Not only do I have to do all the steps in reverse, I have to reset my brain to “Plan Ahead” instead of “Wait and Pay Attention” (hey, new “Keep Calm” poster idea: “Keep Calm and Wait for the Lead”).  And Daniel has learned to lead a lot of steps better by having Eddie lead him through them while he does the follower’s/woman’s part.  (Eddie: “Here, see what it feels like to dance with a real woman”).  So I’m more than a little surprised that the instructor made such a big deal out of the matter.  If it were a group class with a diversity of levels and this couple felt like they’d thoroughly mastered their own usual parts, why not switch it up and see what else they could learn?

The article also addresses the traditional heteronormativity of ballroom dancing and the ways in which various organizations and governing bodies deal with that fact–broadly, by either enforcing it or throwing it out the window.  It’s an interesting window into the possible future(s) of our art/sport.

Categories
Dancing Stars of Central Georgia

Videos of Team Dashley and Team LaJack

Our friend Jamie Wyatt of Dancing on the Journey took videos of our performances on Saturday night.  Hooray!  I think our performances look great (if I do say so myself)–check ’em out, and please visit Jamie’s blog and Pinterest boards.

Ashley & Daniel:

Jack & Laura:

Jamie also got video of our fellow USA Dance members Dianne Kent and Carl Candiano dancing with their “stars” that night.  Thanks, Jamie!

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competitions Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame!

Dancing Stars of Central Georgia wrapup/recap/victory lap

The first Dancing Stars of Central Georgia was a huge success for the DLDancers team!  We didn’t bring home all the trophies but Team Dashley crushed their fundraising goal and thereby won the People’s Choice award–Ashley raised over $100,000 all by herself, making a huge contribution to the overall total of $205,962!  Everybody was amazed when that final number came up on the screens last night.  The total is incredible in itself, but even more so considering that this is the first time Alzheimer’s Association of Georgia has done a Dancing Stars event in this region.  We are the first in the state to sell out the inaugural event and to exceed our fundraising goal the first year.  Now my only thought is “How are we going to top it next year?”

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Dancing Stars of Central Georgia faaaaaaaame!

I haz famus partner!

Fox24, presenting sponsor for Dancing Stars of Central Georgia, has been doing profiles of the “stars” in Dancing Stars for the past several Fridays. Jack’s turn came yesterday:

We also got this incredibly moving video emailed to us as an important reminder of what this event is really all about:

No matter who wins the trophies tonight, we will all go home knowing we made a difference! The event is sold out and we’ve already raised over $148,000 but it’s not too late to donate. Every dollar is needed and every dollar helps! You can still vote for Jackson and me (support the underdog) or vote for Daniel and Ashley (back a winner)!

Last-minute prep is under way here at DLDancers HQ.  Daniel has gone out to buy a belt; I’m about to fix some loose stitching on my costume and then paint my nails.  We are heading to the City Auditorium at 4:00 for a final practice, then hair & makeup, a quick appearance at the cocktail hour, and SHOWTIME!  Everybody wish us merde!