Category: competitions

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competitions dance events Dancing Stars of Central Georgia exhibitions & performances

Dueling Dancing Stars

Big news from DLDancers HQ: Daniel and I found out on Friday that we have been chosen as “pros” for the Alzheimer’s Association “Dancing Stars of Central Georgia” event.  Just like on Dancing with the Stars we will each be paired with a local “star” to prepare a dance routine that will be performed at the event on May 12 at the Macon City Auditorium.  Since we will each have our own star, we will be competing against each other.  Let the games begin!  According to the information we got from the Alzheimer’s Association, there will be 2 winning couples: the Judges’ Choice (decided on the night of the event, of course) and the People’s Choice (which is the pair that raises the most money).  Can DLDancers take home ALL the trophies?

We are so excited and honored to have been chosen and now are waiting impatiently to find out the identities of our stars.  I have an idea of who mine might be but it’s a long shot.  No matter what, we can’t wait to dive in and get involved with this excellent event.  The Alzheimer’s Association has put on these events in other parts of the state (and nationally, I think) and they are the real pros.  They have already organized a web site (http://dancingstarsofcentralgeorgia2012.kintera.org), a cast party for March 1, plans to video our rehearsals, local TV appearances, and some other good stuff that we’re not even allowed to talk about yet.  And all of this for an excellent cause.  The statistics on Alzheimer’s disease are alarming; it is such a difficult and heartbreaking disease for sufferers and caregivers.  In every possible way we are thrilled to be involved with such a prominent and well-run humanitarian event.

Stay tuned for lots of updates including: Who are our stars? What are we dancing? What music have we chosen? How can you donate? How can you get tickets to the event? WHO WILL WIN???

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competitions

America’s Funniest Comp Videos

Okay, maybe not America’s Funniest but I enjoyed watching this: the clip starts with one of our cha-cha heats. As it turned out, we were not entered for the rumba heat that followed it, but we needed a minute, and a consultation with Vince The Voice, to figure that out.

We reappear around 21:15–go ahead and jump forward because a big part of the clip consists of a long social-dance break to accommodate a judging panel change or some such.

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competitions exhibitions & performances

MOAR VIDEOS PLZ

I’m hoping to post several recent videos over the next few days; here’s the first.  These are the exhibition performances from last Friday at the Atlanta Dance Classic.  We appear at the 12-minute mark but the whole show is worth watching.  Great dancing all over the place!

The Atlanta Classic was a lot of fun; we have to give particular props to our instructor Eddie Ares for stepping in to partner me for a few heats because Daniel wasn’t feeling well.  Tune in again soon for more video from this and other recent events!

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Ballerina Corner competitions exhibitions & performances social dancing

Back to school/Back to getting schooled

Well, sports fans, it’s been a long, hot summer.  Not much to report…or is there?

At the end of July I went to Austria for an academic conference and also found out about the Vienna ball season.  The Viennese waltz is called that for a reason, y’know!  My dream is to attend the New Year’s Eve Kaiserball at Hofburg Palace, but I would also settle for a lesser ball such as the Coffeehouse Owners’ Ball.  The challenges are considerable (airfare, ball ticket prices, transcontinental ballgown transport), but wouldn’t it be an amazing experience?

A week after my return from Austria, we performed our rumba exhibition at the third annual Dancing for our Heroes charity ball at the Museum of Aviation.  It went REALLY well, probably the best we’ve ever danced it even though we had to put water on our shoes because the floor was so slick.  Somehow (absent-mindedness) we did not get any video of our routine, but I think I have video of Jim and JoyDawn’s gorgeous waltz as well as Derrek and Wendy’s très avant-garde cha-cha to Rammstein’s “Du Hast” on my phone.  It was a great night for everybody!

That was the last time Daniel and I danced before he went to Canada for two weeks to see his family.  He returns early next week and we are going to jump into preparation for Carolina Fall Classic, Atlanta Dance Classic, and maybe Christmas in Dixie if we have any money left.

We are also starting to work with a new wedding couple (Hi Tiffany & Tyler!), looking forward to seeing Stacey & JT dance at their wedding over Labor Day weekend (thanks for the invite, guys!), and getting excited about jumping back into ballroom class on Wednesday nights.  I am practically counting the HOURS until my first ballet class–either Tuesday night or Thursday night depending on exactly when Daniel rolls back into town (relevant because he went to Canada in MY car).

Meanwhile, I went to Academy Ballroom last weekend with JoyDawn and Beth for their monthly party and the next installment of the Jack & Jill competition (read up on the J&J here and here).  This month’s dance was the cha-cha.  My standard line re: the cha-cha is that I love it, but it doesn’t love me back.  I am slowly getting better at it, but doing that characteristic Latin hip motion at cha-cha tempo continues to be a challenge.  Plus, I am really out of shape right now and the cha-cha requires some stamina.  I had NO expectations whatsoever.  Well, check that: I expected to make it through the first round and into the final, which I duly did, dancing with a cool gentleman named Phil.  For the final I drew another cool gentleman, Martin, who seemed (unlike me) not to be wheezing even though the song went on for a while (it’s possible that I’ve been spoiled by 90-second competition rounds).  When Rachel announced the placements and I was not 5th, 4th, 3rd, or 2nd, I thought “Oh, I didn’t place, minor bummer.”  Then she said that the first-place couple was “possibly the oddest pairing ever in the Jack and Jill” and it turned out that Martin and I had won!  We were an “odd couple” because with dance shoes on, I am a good bit taller than he is.  So now I am tied for the top of the J&J leaderboard.  Can you believe it?

I’ve now ended the majority of the paragraphs in this post with questions.  Can I keep it up?

As soon as I hit “post” I’m going over to the Local Dance Opportunities page to post some updates.  Will you please look at them?

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competitions social dancing

To fetch a mirror-ball trophy

We went up to Atlanta last night to attend a dance at Academy Ballroom (home of our instructor Eddie and many of his talented brethren & sistren).  At the dance, the hosts were putting on a Jack & Jill competition as part of their ongoing project to crown “Atlanta’s Best Social Dancer.”  Jack & Jills are well known to West Coast Swing dancers but little practiced in the ballroom world.  In a Jack & Jill, you dance with a randomly chosen partner rather than with your regular partner.  There’s no choreography and no preparation time.  The pair of you rely on your shared vocabulary of steps, musicality, and respective ability to lead and follow.  The instructors are doing a Jack & Jill at each monthly dance between now and October.  Those who place in the top five accumulate points toward being the overall winner, who gets a mini mirror-ball trophy à la Dancing with the Star. Cue Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction: “I want to dance.  I want to win.  I want that trophy.”  The top three each month also get prizes: last night’s prizes were a free dance admission (3rd), a shoe bag (2nd), and a free private lesson (1st).

Last month, in the first installment of the J&J, the chosen dance was East Coast Swing.  Our friend JoyDawn won the competition!  Not surprising, because she is awesome.  This month, the dance was the foxtrot—our nemesis.  I did not have high hopes for Daniel or myself, especially when I noticed that nearly twice as many women as men had entered.  In the first round, some of the men, including Daniel, danced twice so that all the ladies would have a chance to dance.  Of course, I did not dance with Daniel since he is my regular partner.  I was in the second group to dance and my partner knew a lot of steps that I didn’t know.  I felt like I wasn’t following very well, but I tried to keep up while keeping my posture strong and my frame in position.  Daniel danced with a couple of beginners and said later that he hadn’t felt very confident either.  This is the challenge of Jack & Jill: unless you both happen to know a lot of the same steps, you have to rely on lead and follow.

I knew Daniel would get through to the final but I was surprised when I did, too.  JoyDawn also made the cut and so did her partner Jim. Ten leads and ten follows were chosen and then randomly assigned to NEW partners.  No one danced with the same person in both rounds.  There were 2 or 3 husband-and-wife pairs in the final, which required some maneuvering so that no one got to dance with his or her spouse.  Finally we were all paired up and off we went.  Daniel was with Ann Yearian, an all-around superstar.  She runs the consignment boutique at Academy, dances pro-am with Eddie, and regularly lays beat-downs on Daniel and me when dancing with her husband Thomas.  My partner (whom I didn’t know at all—Hi, “Chad,” if that is your real name…) was really good.  He asked me about what steps I knew and I just said I could fake a lot.  Everyone knows steps by different names, and the truth is that I can follow steps I don’t technically know if I have a strong leader.  He started out just doing basic Bronze steps for a couple of walls but then went into some Silver basics.  We didn’t dance perfectly but we didn’t trip over each other’s feet, either.  I just stayed left, stretched away, and smiled like a maniac till the song was over.  It was fun!

After a few general dances they announced the top 5.  Unlike in the semifinal, where they called back individuals, for the placements they placed couples.  Daniel and Ann came in 5th, hooray!  Jim and his partner came in first, which surprised me not at all because he is such a great technician.  And Chad somehow led me into 2nd, at which I was surprised and quite pleased.  So now I have 5 points toward this mini mirror-ball trophy, and I have a new shoe bag with the Bama Ballroom Classic logo on it.  A triumphant night for team DLDancers.  Next month is the cha-cha.  Can’t wait!

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competitions

Gumbo of Visual Media

I know, I know: I am a fascinating writer, but you really come here for the videos, right?  You can admit it.  My feelings won’t be hurt.

(*snif*)

We seem to have taken video of all of our Rhythm heats and no Smooth heats, but considering our inevitable mistakes in Smooth (I’m looking at you, foxtrot), that may be for the best. Click through to watch!

Continue reading “Gumbo of Visual Media”
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comp diary competitions

Comp Diary: Total Recall

We got back to the ballroom way too early on Saturday for the Open American 6-Dance.  This is becoming a pattern: I am paranoid and I like to be early, plus I tend to round our scheduled time down to the hour in my mind, so if our heat is at 1:40, I remember 1:00.  And then, as the competition program reminds us with its caps-lock on, we are supposed to be in the ballroom 30 minutes before our event.  Thus, 1:00 becomes 12:30 and we are an hour ahead of our scheduled time.  BUT!  Comp organizers have a pathological fear of Running Late (a not-unreasonable fear if you assume you have to build in time for the ambulance to come) and, as a result, comps often run early.  I was still gluing on my eyelashes when Daniel came to the dressing room door to ask if I was ready because our heat was coming up.  Mild panic ensued but we were ready in good time, unlike one couple whose number the announcer was calling when we were already on deck.  The lady rushed in holding the gentleman’s number and shouting “We’re here! We’re here!”  Her partner was still changing his clothes.  (Note to prospective competitors: DON’T BE THAT GUY.)

Continue reading “Comp Diary: Total Recall”
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Ballerina Corner competitions exhibitions & performances in other news lessons teaching

Conservation of Dance Momentum

A body that is dancing tends to continue dancing unless acted on by an outside force.  In the absence of outside forces (spring semester ended on May 6;  congratulations, Class of 2011!), we have been dancing a lot and doing a lot of dance-related stuff in the last several days.  Since I haven’t had to teach I’ve been going to four ballet classes a week at Madison Studio: my usual twice-a-week “Pearls” class (average age: 11, focused on beginning pointe work and trying to remember which is croisé and which is effacé) plus two adult classes which, despite being ostensibly for beginners, serve to demonstrate that one can never spend too much time working on the basics.  All this ballet is having several salubrious effects, including finally loosening up the hamstring I pulled a few months ago and keeping me from going insane as I work on revisions to my book manuscript.

We are still working on our paso doble; on Monday we went over the videos we recorded in our last lesson with Eddie and just repeated, repeated, repeated the steps without even trying to get up to tempo.  This video that a friend sent me earlier today demonstrates just how far up “up to tempo” actually is.

No lesson this past weekend, but on Sunday we had an all-studio blocking rehearsal at Madison Studio for the recital on June 4.  Having the entire population of the studio in one place at one time was an impressive exercise!  It was our dancers’ first time doing their recital piece for any kind of audience and they did great.  We also managed to remember our rumba routine despite not having done it for a while.  The real high point was running the “production finale” in which every class appears, one after the other, and dances a short additional routine.  Lots of us are in more than one class, so there was a lot of dashing from one side of the studio to the other, hurried changing of shoes, and general crowd control.  The ballroom dancers also had a good laugh at the “FootUndeez” I wear for the contemporary ballet number I’m dancing in.  Yes, they look like panties for your feet.  Hence the name.  Can we all just move on now?  (Okay, they are pretty funny, especially the ones I’ve seen that have a little pink net tutu ruffle around the elastic part.)

After regular classes on Monday (Pearls class, paso practice with Daniel, ballroom class) and adult class Tuesday at noon, the ballroom group reconvened at the studio on Tuesday evening to get pictures taken.  The marvelous Keiko Guest (check out the “Fine Art” side of her site for sure, but a couple of those may not be SFW) comes to the studio once a year to take individual pictures of everyone in their recital costumes.  She brings along a staff of 3 or 4 people, a small photography-studio setup (lights, background, even one of those fans to make your hair blow around and look glamorous), and more computer equipment than I ever thought possible.  In less than an hour we had lined up to wait, had a jolly time getting our photos taken, and looked at our proofs to order prints.  The pictures were amazingly good and I can’t wait to get the prints.  Ms. Guest is a former dancer herself, so she understands what good lines look like and how to adjust people’s positions so that on film, we look like better dancers than we probably really are!  Daniel and I had a lot of fun coming up with poses for ourselves and then inflicting them on our other two couples.  The best part was taking some shots of all 6 of us together.  She somehow made us all look attractive and dancerly while crammed into about 4 square feet of space on her backdrop.

So it’s been a great couple of weeks, and the beat goes on.  This evening we’re dancing at Pinegate with the performance ensemble from Madison, then on Saturday we have a lesson from Eddie.  And today we got a call from another retirement community here in town, wanting us to schedule a performance.  AND…according to the counter on their website, Gumbo is just 5 days away.  I’m pleased to report that the counter is not accurate!

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comp diary competitions

Comp Diary: Dancemobile Goes to Gumbo 2011

Gentle readers, this past Thursday was a milestone in my life: I bought a new car. First brand-new car ever for me; first new-to-me car since 2001 when I bought a 1997 Nissan Altima.  We still have the Altima; it’s in front of the house, basking in all the glory of the 183,000 miles on its odometer.  Although I planned to take it to 200,000 miles before replacing it, certain ominous rattles were getting more ominous and I did not want the New Car Fund I was building to become the Fix the Old Car Emergency Fund.  So I started looking last weekend and bought a 2011 Kia Forté Koup.

A small part of my calculus was the knowledge that we were going to the Gumbo Dancesport Championships in Baton Rouge in June.  When we went last year, we flew.  That worked out fine, but it was expensive and promised to be expensive again this year.  We started to think that if I had picked out my new car by then, we could drive it.  While car-shopping, we checked every candidate to make sure it would carry a large suitcase in the trunk (sorry, Beetle convertible) and a couple of hanging bags in the back seat (nice knowin’ ya, Mini Cooper).  I did some math and figured out that at 25 mpg (a very conservative estimate) and $4 per gallon, we would still come out WAY ahead relative to the cost of 2 plane tickets.

On Friday I entered us for the competition: this year we are doing Silver Smooth & Rhythm (Adult and Senior I), Open American 6-Dance, and Open Paso Doble (provided we can learn a routine in the next 6 weeks).  I also entered us for Open Cabaret but I need to ask Eddie if our rumba routine is credible as a cabaret number.  My new comp mantra is “If worse comes to worst, we can always scratch.”

We will leave as soon as I get off work the Thursday before the competition starts, share the driving (9-10 hours), and probably listen to every station on my Sirius trial subscription as we cross the various radio wastelands between here and there.  Then we’ll drive back on Sunday.  As I said to my mom on the phone the night I bought the car, “We might hate it, and we might never do it again, but we’re going to drive this time and see how it goes.” And Jamie contributed “Dancemobile” as the car’s new moniker. Whee!  What do you think: do I need a vanity plate?  DANCMBL?  Or maybe just DLDNCRS?

See the U-S-A / In your Kia Forté!  Hey, that totally works!  No offense, Chevrolet, but I’m going to have to rewrite the entire song.

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comp diary competitions friends & family

Garden City Dance Challenge

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!