With less than a week to go (eeeeee!), it seems like a good time for Exhaustive Pre-Dancing Stars To-Do List and its little buddy, Exhaustive Pre-Dancing Stars Packing list. Here goes! To do before Friday dress rehearsal Book spray-tan Get hair cut & colored Get spray-tanned Do nails Test makeup Rehearse Replace Velcro on dress …
Category Archive: behind the curtain
May
06
Apr
28
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. …
Apr
13
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 …
Apr
03
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 …
Jun
04
The “Merde” Thing, or Why Dancers are Full of S***
This question has come up 3-4 times in the past 24 hours or less, so I figure it needs its own post. [Warning: contains a Rude Word!] Dancers–specifically those who come out of a performing tradition such as ballet, jazz, tap, etc.–are a subset of theatre people. And theatre people are very superstitious, right up …
Apr
07
Kirstie falls, Daniel snorts, I elbow Daniel in the face
First of all, let me say thank you once again to everybody who came out to our monthly-dance-turned-Daniel’s-birthday-party last night. It was a ton of fun, Daniel was delighted, and we will be eating the leftover snacks for days! Extra shout-outs to one couple (you know who you are) for bravely attending your first social …
Feb
23
It’s all about the sparkle
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 …
Feb
07
Beauty vs. Athleticism
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 …
Dec
22
Gratuitous post featuring SNO!
It’s snowing over at Slim Paley’s site today; turns out that the snow is a WordPress feature so I had to put up a post here just to make it snow on DLDancers as well! WordPress-hosted blogs can turn on the snow by going to Appearance –> Extras and clicking “Show snow” or some such; …
Oct
11
Er, who?
As you all know, Daniel has numerous outstanding qualities: twinkly blue eyes, charming accent, uncanny ability to fix anything–and that’s not even to mention his dance skills. However, he is terrible with names. We have a grand total of TWO couples in our group class right now and he can never remember anyone’s name other …