Hello dancers! Just updated the Dance Events page with the dates for our casual/practice dance in 2016.
AND we are counting the days to our next competition: the Royal Palm Dancesport Winter Frolic in Florida. We had so much fun at this comp last year and we are excited to dance there again!
Finally, we are scheduling our 2016 group classes and will put out an email soon with dates and times for January.
Here we go, sports fans: a little footage of Daniel & Laura in action on the dance floor at the Carolina Fall Classic:
Bronze waltz:
Bronze foxtrot:
Bronze rhythm (cha-cha & rumba):
Major thanks to our friends & dance role models John & Penny DeFino for taking these videos for us.
Here are the video clips I took at James’s workshop last weekend. I have these set as “unlisted” on YouTube so please save the link to this post if you’d like to view the videos again. Thanks!
Rumba open breaks:
Rumba underarm turn:
Waltz left box, change step, right box:
Oh MAN, October is flying by. It’s already been 2 weeks since we got back from the Carolina Fall Classic (I’m about to update our Competitive Highlights page; stand by) and a week since I got to take a workshop and private lesson with a new instructor for us, James. Can’t wait to work with him again tomorrow. We’re also rehearsing with Denise Froemeke for the Kay Center’s Dancing for the Stars event in November. She and Daniel have come up with a really cute routine and I have the perfect dress for her to wear! Oh–AND–we are teaching for Mercer University’s ballroom club this coming Monday as well. Busy Busy Dancers and we love it!
Okay–going to post this update now and get some other photos, videos, and posts up later today and tomorrow. Stay tuned and check back soon. Thanks!
The schedule for next weekend’s Carolina Fall Classic was posted last night and I have printed out our heat lists. SO EXCITED. It’s the first time in a few years that we’ve been able to attend this competition. It has gone from fairly humble beginnings to a record number of entries this year largely through the good offices of the organizers, Wayne and Marie Crowder (who also founded the awesome Triangle Open where we got to dance several years ago–college students now run that comp themselves, which gladdens this dancing professor’s heart!). We are going to be dancing a lot next weekend, especially if we make it into some semi-finals and finals. Cross your fingers for us and watch @dldancers on Twitter for updates. Special thanks to USA Dance Greater Macon Chapter 6059 for their generous support of our entries and hotel for this competition.
We’ve also been practicing with the lovely Denise Froemke for the Kay Community Service Center’s “Dancing for the Stars” event in Fort Valley on November 15. Daniel will be Denise’s partner for this event and they are getting ready to dance a cha-cha that you will not want to miss! Lots of the performers are contemporary/urban style ballroom dancers–if you don’t know this style of dance, it is definitely worth checking out. You could be seeing the next evolution of ballroom!
Finally, we are hosting our 4th Friday dance tonight and expecting a great turnout. Daniel has been scoping out new music again. Have you ever danced a cha-cha to a song in Turkish? Tonight, you will get your chance. Join us at the Howard Community Club at 8 p.m. for just $5 per person.
See you on the dance floor!
On September 12 we got to dance a little exhibition at USA Dance Greater Macon’s monthly dance in honor of National Ballroom Month. Here’s a link to the video–from Facebook but it is public so hopefully it will work for everyone.
Posted by Bob Morgan on Sunday, September 13, 2015
Our thanks to Bob for shooting and posting the video!
We had a great time dancing yesterday at the Tubman African-American Museum’s International Taste of Soul alongside Azmi & Isabel Kabbani, Hayiya Dance Theatre, Khicks Contemporary Ballroom, and a LOT of delicious food. The biggest challenge was waiting till after we performed to eat our way through the venue! Paul Karpinecz took video for us (thanks, Paul!). Check it out:
Counting the days till our performance at the Tubman Museum’s International Taste of Soul on August 30! We have our dances and our music picked out, and my new Latin costume has come from Latino Dancewears. I promise they are not compensating me to say this (yet!) but I have been impressed with the quick and responsive service that this company provides. They do custom made-to-measure dresses with high quality stones but they also have more economical options including a great sale section.
This week ends our Tuesday night waltz class at Madison Studio. Starting September 8 we’ll be teaching bronze level cha-cha on Tuesday nights; we are also featuring silver level cha-cha and tango workshops on Sunday, September 20. You can email if you’d like more information or to sign up for any of our classes and workshops.
And, of course, Friday is our monthly dance at Howard Community Club! 8:00-10:30 p.m., $5 admission, casual dress, bring your song requests. Daniel has been picking out new songs from Postmodern Jukebox and I’m trying to do my part finding cool things on the radio like this or this.
Finally, I’d like to give a shout-out to my dear colleague Sydney Chalfa, whose son Matthew is getting married next weekend. Sydney and Matthew took a lesson from us last week and they are dancing the rumba for their mother-son dance! Congratulations to the happy couple and a very proud mother of the groom!
We’ll be attending the Summer’s Night Picnic & Dance at Macon City Auditorium tomorrow night. This event is a fundraiser for Pine Pointe Hospice and thus an heir (so to speak) to the Stars Over Macon Ball for which USA Dance Greater Macon was a co-sponsor. I’ve heard that the event is sold out, but they are still advertising, so tickets may still be available.
On August 30 we will be performing at the Tubman African-American Museum’s International Taste of Soul event. The only question here is whether we’ll be able to stop eating long enough to dance! Seriously though, this will be our first time performing at the Tubman so we are very excited and honored.
Next month (September 12) we’ll be dancing an exhibition at USA Dance Greater Macon’s monthly dance in honor of National Ballroom Month. We are choreographing a new rumba routine for the occasion. This is the music we are using–we love it!
We are also back to teaching group classes on Tuesday nights as well as private lessons. Tuesday night group class will continue in September and a silver level class may be added on Thursdays at 8 p.m. Would you like a silver level class? Leave a comment and let us know!
We’re back from the Royal Palm Dancesport “Winter Frolic” competition as of yesterday evening. It was a great return to the world of competitive dance after an absence that was much too long! From the beginning we decided that we just wanted to have fun and get back into competition without putting too much pressure about ourselves about results. We totally succeeded at that goal and we got some good placements to boot.
Days in the ballroom are fast-paced and exciting but long: the American Rhythm heats started at 9:30 in the morning and the last of the American Smooth heats didn’t end till 6:30 p.m., with the International events in the middle. We danced in bronze and silver level in Smooth and Rhythm in both the Senior 1 and Senior 2 age categories, plus in a “Challenge” event in both Smooth and Rhythm that was open to all ages and levels. The Challenge events were the only ones where we weren’t competitive, but that was not too surprising since we were dancing syllabus material alongside open-level dancers. I think we still did well being out on a crowded floor; the Challenge quarterfinals had 10-12 couples on the floor at the same time. Daniel did great with the floorcraft.
We ended up with 2 third places, 3 second places, and 3 first places, including–to our surprise–a $50 scholarship heat! We also met some nice new people and got reacquainted with some competitors we had met before. It was a fantastic experience and we are so happy and proud to be back in competition at last. The walk out on to the floor for the first heat always whets the appetite for more. Now we’re just asking ourselves: when can we do it again?
Until then, who would like to see some pictures?
