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New dance venue! Le Piada

This Friday, ballroom dancing in Macon finds a new home at Le Piada, an elegant and lively event venue located at 4295 Interstate Drive, Suite B.  The dance begins at 8:00 with a complimentary lesson from Paula East.  General dancing continues till 1:00 a.m. with music by DJ Pocholo.  Admission is $10; light snacks are provided and a cash bar is available.  Call 478-474-3566 for more information. We hope everyone will turn out and make this a successful event!

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dance events Friday Night Dance Parties social dancing

It’s never too hot for dancing!

The marvelous Dolan Maples (He’s a Ladies’ Man) just called and reminded me I hadn’t yet put a post on our site about this weekend’s Sunday Night Dance Party. Come join us Sunday, July 25 at 7 p.m. at the Howard Community Club for an evening of casual dancing. Admission is $5 and song requests are welcome.

While we’re on the subject, don’t forget Dance Houston County’s second annual “Dancing for our Heroes” charity ball, Saturday, July 31 at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Aviation’s Century of Flight hangar in Warner Robins. The Georgia Big Band is playing this year and there are some great dance demonstrations planned as well. Tickets are $30; visit www.dancehoustonco.org or call Carl Candiano at 478-919-0624.

See you on the dance floor soon!

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Friday Night Dance Parties social dancing Uncategorized

Sunday Night Dance Party: “Our Triumphant Return” Edition

So it turns out that this month, the 4th Sunday is the same day we will return from the Gumbo Championships in Baton Rouge.  We’ll get off the plane at 1:20 p.m. and head back to Macon just in time to set up for our dance. Since we will have tales to tell and, hopefully, ribbons to show off, we hope everyone can come and help us celebrate a great competition experience.

Join us at the Howard Community Club at 7 p.m. as usual on Sunday, June 27.  Daniel would like me to particularly remind everyone that song requests are welcome, so please bring any CDs with songs you’d like him to play.

See you soon!

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dance events social dancing

Friday: Dance. Saturday: Dance. Sunday: Ice feet.

Friday afternoon is dress rehearsal for the Madison Studio’s recital.  We’ll test-drive our tango on the stage at Zuver Center before rolling it out for an audience on Saturday.  Friday evening is Paula’s First Friday dance at the Sports Hall of Fame downtown.  Paula is giving a complimentary lesson from 7:30 to 8:00, then everyone will dance from 8:00 to 10:00.  Admission is just $5.  First Fridays are always fun and if you’ve never seen the Sports Hall of Fame, this is a great opportunity to check it out.

Saturday at 2:00 is the Madison Studio recital at Zuver Center on the Mt. de Sales campus.  Daniel and I are the 3rd performance in Act I, so come on time if you want to see us and stick around to see all the other great performances.  Tickets are $10.  We are very excited about this performance–it’ll be our first time doing our new tango routine for anyone other than Eddie or Jim & JoyDawn!  Ms. Madison has named our act “Temps d’Amour” in keeping with the recital theme “Times of our Lives.”  If you can’t make it, stay tuned for updates on how it went and, hopefully, video.

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social dancing USA Dance

Who’s filling in for us this weekend?

Daniel and I are heading to Savannah for a wedding this weekend, and we’ll be missing not one but TWO great dance events:

Friday night is the First Friday dance at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame.  The dance starts at 7:30; admission is $5.00 per person.  Paula just sent me a note that there is a special event on Cherry Street that night; the street will be blocked off and the event organizers are charging to attend the party.  She recommends entering Cherry Street from the Music Hall of Fame and Terminal Station and letting the organizers know that you are going to the Sports Hall of Fame.

Saturday night is USA Dance Greater Macon Chapter 6059’s monthly dance.  Admission is $7 for USA Dance members or $10 for non-members.  The evening gets started at 7:30 with a dance lesson–this month, Kim & Vic Oteghem are teaching West Coast Swing!  The lesson will be followed by general dancing from 8:00 to 10:30.  Light snacks are furnished and soft drinks and water are available for a donation.

If you are Daniel & Laura fans (or, better yet, fans of dancing in general), please turn out for these dances and represent on our behalf!  Both are sure to be a lot of fun.

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Friday Night Dance Parties social dancing

Awesome Sunday Night Dance Party!

Not that each month’s SNDP isn’t awesome, but this past Sunday’s was particularly good.  We had a better-than-usual turnout including some new people (yay!), everyone danced nonstop throughout the evening (yay!), and Daniel fired up his karaoke program to serenade us with Charles Aznavour’s “For Me Formidable.” Maybe the new paint job at the Howard Community Club got everyone motivated–I know I feel more like dancing now that the former wall color (I’d call it Mismatched Makeup Base Pink) has been replaced with nice creamy neutrals.  It’s much more elegant.

Wielding the trusty Handycam, Daniel took a little video last night.  This is later in the evening, so the crowd had thinned a bit.

We really appreciate everyone’s ongoing support and the energy you bring to our dances every month.  And if you haven’t come to a Sunday Night Dance Party yet, try it out!  It’s a very casual, unintimidating atmosphere.  Practicing, going over steps with your friends, and stopping mid-dance to debate points of technique with your partner are all encouraged.  You might even get to hear Daniel sing a song!

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dance events social dancing

CGTC Foundation Spring Soirée

What is a “Soirée,” exactly? This past Friday, the new president of Central Georgia Technical College posed that question at the CGTC Foundation’s Spring Soirée. He then explained that a soirée is just like a shindig, except you have to dress up. That’s a good enough answer for me!

This particular soirée was a fundraising event for Central Georgia Technical College’s Foundation, benefiting their scholarships and programs, and it was a lovely evening. Since our USA Dance chapter hasn’t been doing formal dances at the Idle Hour Country Club for the last couple of years, I’d kind of forgotten how nice the Idle Hour is. It’s just the kind of place one can walk into while wearing a ballgown and not feel massively overdressed. I did, however, cause a momentary crisis of confidence in a woman who arrived at the same time we did–she looked at my gown and at her linen pants and blouse and said “I hope we’re not going to the same event!”

Daniel and I sat down with Paula East and several other dancers from our group and enjoyed an elegant meal and a glass of wine, then got up to dance to the band Reflections–they were excellent and a lot of fun. During the band breaks we helped Paula teach some salsa steps to the rest of the guests, and we led some line dances. At the end of the night, Daniel sang with the band while their singer came out from behind the microphone for a rumba lesson from Jim Riley. She is nearly as good a dancer as she is a singer.

It was a great evening. Seeing everyone dressed up, having a nice meal, and enjoying good dancing to live music is always so much fun. These kinds of events make me glad to be a dancer because I know I’ll always be able to participate when a band and a dancefloor are available.

Here are a couple of videos from Friday night–all of us dancing a swing to “In the Mood,” and Jim leading his line dance to “New York, New York.”

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dance events social dancing

Cherry Blossom Ball 2010

Last night’s Cherry Blossom Festival Diamond Ball was even more lovely than expected. I always forget how pretty the Macon City Auditorium is and how nice it is to see everyone in black tie. Of course, the snacks from Satterfield’s, Janeane’s, and Nu-Way don’t hurt, either! Everyone looked gorgeous and the bands–Celebration and the Georgia Big Band–were excellent for dancing. Here are some highlights.  Click the thumbnails to see the full-sized pictures.

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dance events social dancing USA Dance

Backward & Forward

Looking backward, last night’s USA Dance monthly social was big fun.  Excited as always to see some new faces.  Our chapter is hoping to grow to 100 members this year–if last night was any indication, I bet we’ll get there.

Looking forward, next Friday is this year’s Cherry Blossom Ball!  It’s one of my favorite dance events of the year.  First, I love a black-tie do at any time, for any reason.  Second, it’s held at the Macon City Auditorium, which is such a pretty venue.  Third, I found out last night that the Georgia Big Band is playing.  They are always fun to dance to.  As a bonus, this year’s event is being called the “Diamond Ball” because a local jewelry store is donating a one-carat diamond which someone at the ball will win.  I’m not saying I expect to win–in fact, I hadn’t really thought about it–but if I did, I know exactly what I’d do with that diamond…

Flashy prizes aside, the real fun of an event like this is that it feels like a reward for the hard work and discipline of going to lessons and practicing every week.  Elegance, grace, beauty, and romance are the qualities that draw people to ballroom dancing.  Dancing to a live band in a gorgeous auditorium while wearing the perfect dress or tuxedo embodies all those qualities.

Plus there are always a lot of desserts and you might win a diamond! (^_^)  Buy tickets here or call (478) 301-5470.

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social dancing USA Dance

We can also walk and chew gum simultaneously.

How hard is it to count to 4 while walking in a circle?  Just ask everyone who learned a new line dance from Dianne Kent at our USA Dance chapter’s Valentine’s Day dance last month:

A lot of ballroom dancers who consider themselves “serious” won’t go anywhere near a line dance.  We are serious about ballroom but don’t believe in taking dancing, or ourselves, too seriously!