Okay, fans, click through for video of our Smooth heats at this past Saturday’s Garden City Dance Challenge in Augusta. Tomorrow I’ll post the Rhythm heats and our solo showcase!
Huge thanks to my mom for being our videographer. Next time we will teach you how to use the zoom and maybe even give you a tripod!
We got back yesterday afternoon from Augusta, GA and the Garden City Dance Challenge, where we had a lot of fun. My lack of self-tanner skills apparently wasn’t obvious, Daniel did not get busted for having gum in his mouth on the dance floor, we danced 15 heats (including our first-ever solo showcase) and I didn’t die even though I had a cold, and–best of all–my parents had a really good time. Dad is old enough to remember when social dancing was actually social in the sense that everyone learned how to do it, so he was quite intrigued by the difference between that and competitive dancesport. And my mom is–well, she’s a girl, so she took an avid interest in everyone’s costumes and hairstyles as well as the dancing itself. I was glad they could come just to see what a competition is like. Now, when we talk about it, they will have some context. When my dad asked me over dinner Friday night “What typically happens during a ‘heat’?” I realized that a ballroom competition is much easier to observe than it is to explain. So they had fun and got to meet some of the people we’re always talking about. The atmosphere in the ballroom was very energetic all day, which is helpful because competition days are so long. I had my false eyelashes on for something like 15 hours! All honor and glory to the organizers at Ballroom in Motion for making that magic happen.
The showcase performance went well, I think. I say “I think” because I haven’t quite dared to look at the video yet. Daniel said he could feel in my body how nervous I was. While I’m never conscious of being nervous, I do get a big hit of adrenaline when I perform, and I haven’t quite mastered how to use that to make me both aggressive and controlled. Clearly I was in a bit of a fugue state: after it was over I had to ask Daniel if he’d had his fedora on through the entire performance, because I couldn’t remember.
Our results were good, if not spectacular: this was a pro-am competition so only a few of our heats were contested and even those were only 2-3 couples. Nevertheless, we got a 1st for the very last heat of the day, Closed Silver American Rhythm. The couple we were up against had been beating us all day and I totally biffed the choreography in our new rumba routine, so I don’t set much store by that placement, but it was gratifying anyway. Mom & Dad left after we danced that last heat so we got to brag about our 1st place over breakfast with them the next morning. Since we were staying for the awards we also got to see the pro heats–only one round each of Smooth and Rhythm but they were so exciting to watch. I don’t actually want to be a professional but I’d like to dance like one!
Who’s ready for pictures?
Speaking of pictures, I have to give props to Stephen Marino, or “The Silent Photographer,” as he is known in my head. This man tirelessly took photos on Saturday for as many hours as I wore eyelashes (maybe more), and the pictures are GORGEOUS. I spoke to him in the evening and soon recognized that he was not responding verbally. At first I thought it was some artsy shtick but then he whispered that he had lost his voice on a trip to Bermuda. (Bermuda: poor guy!) It turns out that a photographer doesn’t have to talk very much. In this case, at least, his pictures speak for him very well.
And for those of you who like your pictures to move around, videos will be up soon. Special thanks to my mom for serving as videographer all day!
As we prepare for the Garden City Dance Challenge this coming weekend, it’s time once again for Exhaustive Pre-Comp To-Do List and its little buddy, Exhaustive Pre-Comp Packing List! And away we go…
To do before Friday morning
To pack before Friday morning
*Did I tell you my parents are coming out to see us compete? SO EXCITED. Probably will not manage a Comp Diary this time around but will post after we get back for sure, hopefully with pics and video. The Web site does not mention professional video, which means personal video should be allowed. Stay tuned! We leave Friday, compete Saturday, and return Sunday. Woohoo!
Today’s post comes to you courtesy of a student of mine who photographed 2 dance lessons in Chattanooga, TN during our recent Spring Break:
Don’tcha just love it?
Driving back from Saturday’s lesson we passed a tow truck with the company name “Got’Cha Towing & Vehicle Recovery.”
I couldn’t help myself–read it as an interrogative: Got Cha?
Just don’t ask me if I’ve got mambo, Viennese, or quickstep.
Our own Eddie Ares had a bee in his bonnet about the movie Black Swan on Saturday. He saw it as a metaphor for different types of people and how easy or difficult it is for a particular type to inhabit the character of a particular dance. As he explained it, a black swan is a fearless and aggressive performer who will perform any kind of character with no hesitation. A white swan might be very proficient at technique but is always holding back or maintaining boundaries. As a result, something might be missing from the character of a dance. The audience might be able to perceive a whiff of self-restraint on the part of the dancer that reads as anxiety. I remembered an offhand comment from one of Eddie’s dancers when I’d told her about a tough heat that we’d danced in competition. I’d said that we struggled because Daniel forgot the steps but she said I was the one who looked worried. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were true, because I’m a white swan all the way. Daniel is a total black swan: no boundaries, never gets embarrassed, puts it all out there dialed up to 11.
In Eddie’s philosophy (and I think this is true), black swans can easily pretend to be white swans but white swans have a hard time going over to the dark side. Some dances are easy for white swans like me to characterize because they come from a “happy” or “graceful” or “pretty” place: waltz, foxtrot, swing. Tango and rumba are hard for white swans because they are more “dark” or “sexy.” The only one I’m not sure about is cha-cha. Maybe that’s part of the reason I never feel really proficient at cha-cha: I don’t entirely understand the character of that dance. People define the cha-cha as “flirty” but I have little notion of how to express that quality. I also haven’t sussed out why white swans can’t fake the black-swan qualities with 100% success. It could be different for every swan. The good news is that in ballroom, you always have two swans together who can balance each other’s shortcomings. The raw energy of the black swan probably needs some reining in from the boundary-loving white.
…Right?
Confession: I have not yet seen Black Swan despite its being a ballet movie. Normally I never miss a dance movie and especially not a ballet movie, but I have resisted Black Swan because I am hypersensitive to the type of visually freaky psychological horror that the movie involves. That is, I have not seen Black Swan because I’m too much of a white swan. I will probably cowboy-up and see it soon. But maybe I’ll wait till it comes on pay-per-view and watch it in the daytime with the lights on.
From Wikipedia: “The Peter Principle is a special case of a ubiquitous observation: anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails.”
See also: my ability to dance the rumba. I fear that up until recently I may have been coasting on my previous dance experience plus Daniel’s savant-like ability to remember choreography. But today we started a new rumba routine, having been competing with the same one for probably a couple of years. The new routine is gorgeous but it’s a huge jump up in difficulty. In particular, it contains a lot of turns. Turns are my nemesis but Eddie is big on rotation as a way of creating impact on the floor, so I will have to get on board. The new routine contains: one underarm turn, one spiral, one 3-step turn, one telemark, and two or three chainés–and we’re not even finished with it. Until today, I did not know what a telemark was nor that they were used in the rumba. Eddie also put in an alemana originally, and then took it out for now because I could not get my head around it. It’s definitely a more challenging application.
I would by no means say that I have failed but since I’m accustomed to things coming somewhat easy, I did get a little impatient. I know it’ll come; I just wish it would come a little FASTER. Eddie & Daniel insist on laughing at me when I get impatient, which is (believe it or not) helpful. Daniel is a big believer in learning the steps and then polishing the technique (sensible!), whereas I want to learn everything at once and do it well right away. Cases in point:
So today’s lesson was ostensibly about the rumba but really about not taking myself too seriously. And maybe about wearing safety equipment when learning new choreography.
I would never accuse our dancers of doing anything as crazy as reading this website, but this week they did seem a lot more keen on the prospect of dressing up and looking flashy for their performance. One woman brought a selection of sparkly club-wear for me to adjudicate and the other said, unprompted, that she plans to put on eyelashes. Yes! Come to the dark side, my pretties. It’s…actually not all that dark over here, on account of all the glitter and rhinestones.
The next topic of discussion to arise was that of legwear. The ladies will be wearing black shoes, black practice skirts, and solid-colored tops with some kind of sparkly embellishment. But what to put on our legs? I ran down the options:
Then I remembered that Capezio makes black fishnets with rhinestones up the back seam. There was definitely an air of excitement in the room when I brought up that possibility. Unfortunately, the excitement was dampened (at least for me) when I checked online and found that they cost more than $40! Another brand is available for much less, but there’s an obvious difference in quality.
Now I am thinking we can buy plain fishnets and do the stoning ourselves. This idea is a very “ballroom” idea. I’ve come to believe that left to her own devices, a ballroom dancer will glue rhinestones to anything that sits still long enough. 10 gross of Swarovski is around $40 depending on the exact size of the stones. That’s more than enough to do 3 pairs of fishnets with extra stones left over to glue to our outfits, shoes, hair, faces…Wonder if I can get WordPress’s snow plugin to rain rhinestones on DLDancers.com instead?
Our ballroom class is learning a rumba routine for performance in the Madison Studio’s recital at the beginning of June. These four dancers are superstars: all adults with little or no dance or performing experience but they have agreed to get on stage just a few months from now. So we’ve gone from learning basic steps to mixing in a few more showy, exhibition-type moves. Nothing complex, but stuff that requires commitment on the dancer’s part: arm styling, hip motion, flared fingers–in short, all the gateway drugs that lead straight to shimmying and butt-drumming. Last night they learned a few new moves (breaking it down) and then we did some work on making those moves look good (sleazing it up!). We came up with some useful mnemonics including “hot steering wheel” (for flared fingers), “I’m a bird!” (for raising arms elbows-first), and “My hair is pretty! My dress is pretty!” (arm motion that sweeps around head and down one side). Ridonkulous, but it makes it fun and (I hope) less scary.
When you’re used to moseying through life in khakis and a sweater, trying not to make waves, it’s challenging to suddenly be asked to show off. But showing off is part of what makes ballroom dancing look exciting for other people to watch. I mentioned offhandedly (and partly in jest) to the two ladies in the class that we’d all be putting on false eyelashes for the recital. They reacted with a mixture of amusement, amazement, and shock. Of course, nobody has to wear any eyelashes, but for me, putting on the costumes and shoes and makeup and spray tan and all that stuff that I don’t touch in my day-to-day life makes it more exciting and makes it easier to do the showing off. Your “ballroom self” is related to your “real self,” of course, but they don’t have to be exactly the same person. Just don’t be surprised when you start standing up straighter, dressing brighter, and putting on a little more eyeshadow for an average Tuesday at the office. Ballroom Self is tenacious and contagious.
In other news, our ballroom selves will be put to the test again soon. We are planning on competing at the Garden City Dance Challenge at the end of March and my parents are coming out to watch us compete! How exciting is that? They have seen us dance, of course, but never in competition. I’m looking forward to having them there and showing them the ropes. It’s always such a fun atmosphere. Here’s hoping we get at least one first place so they will be really impressed. A scholarship would be even better… Hmm…
The walls of my childhood ballet studio were decorated with several posters by Harvey Edwards, including one close-up of a man doing a détiré en avant, sweat beaded on his face and hair. The caption: “Dance is work.” Eddie Ares’s studio offers this quotation on its website: “Dancers are the athletes of God.” Even for casual social dancers, ballroom dancing is widely touted as an enjoyable way to get some exercise.
On the other hand, a fair amount of current dance marketing emphasizes the beauty and glamour of dance over its atheticism. Ballet studios offer “princess camp” or “a visit to Fairyland” summer programs for little girls. A ballroom studio in Laguna Hills, CA offers “personal instruction and an elegant air. There are fresh roses on the tables and sliced strawberries in the water” (full article here). The studio hopes to distinguish itself and succeed in a difficult economy by presenting itself as a luxury service provider.
Reading the article, I immediately wondered if the strategy would work. I also wondered if it should work. The athleticism of dance is, for me, one of its signal attributes and one of the main things that draws me to it. Will the little girls who sign up for the visit to Fairyland be disillusioned when they are expected to stand quietly at the barre and follow instructions? Could new dancers be surprised when they discover that the roses on the tables might be flecked with beads of their sweat at the end of an hour-long lesson?
I love a good workout and I’m always proud to be sweating and sore when my lesson is over. Do dancers respond more to a physical challenge or to the promise of grace and elegance? What about people who don’t know yet that they are dancers? It’s by no means an either/or question; the two qualities reinforce one another. But I wonder how other dancers see their dancing. I appreciate the aesthetic aspect but I think I am really addicted to the physical demands and challenges. Of course, those demands and challenges exist in the service of creating a certain look, and I know I’ve met the challenge when I have the look.
I am going in circles here. Which reminds me that I need to practice my spiral turns for cha-cha during tonight’s break between classes.