It happens all the time when I meet new people. They find out that we are ballroom dancers, and they say something like this: “I would love to dance, but I’ve got two left feet!” A popular variation is “My wife wants us to learn to dance, but I’ve got two left feet!”
These people seem to think that the ability to dance comes from innate talent rather than from instruction, practice, and experience. Yes, at a more advanced level, or in competitive dancing, talent is a factor. But no one, no matter how talented, walks onto the floor for the first time and walks off the floor a world 10-dance champion. Everyone had to take that first lesson, go to that first social dance, make those embarrassing mistakes.
Brand-new ballroom dancers do have to get over an initial “hump.” To have fun at a ballroom dance one probably needs to know basic steps in at least 3 dances. I think the learning curve is more significant for men, who have to lead and therefore must think one step ahead. Getting familiar with music is necessary too. Daniel used to turn up the car radio and ask, “What can we dance to this?” Soon I could quickly identify the right dance for any song he played. Songs at social dances are often short; if you have to ponder too long, you’ll miss the dance entirely. So it’s true that getting started is the hardest part, because there is a lot to learn.
And yet I don’t want to suggest that learning to dance is hard. It’s challenging, but in a fun way. My point is that you do have to learn to dance–and everyone can. Natural talent helps with, but doesn’t replace, that process. Even the best dancers still make crazy mistakes. The fact that Daniel and I have won a few blue ribbons doesn’t make us immune to stepping on each other, losing the count, giving bad leads, failing to follow, doing foxtrot steps to tango music, or crashing into other couples (and some of those things happened on the comp. floor!).
Our friend & instructor Paula East says that “all you need are two left feet and a good attitude.” That good attitude is the real determining factor–if you have that, the feet will eventually take care of themselves.
2010 has been so busy thus far that I’ve been guilty of tragic website neglect. But luckily for our readers (both of you, ha ha), this coming week is Spring Break at Macon State. I plan to catch up with lots of posts, including
video of Dianne Kent leading our USA Dance chapter in a new line dance. Counting to 4 is harder than we thought.
casualty reports from back-to-back lessons with Eddie next Wednesday and Thursday.
tips for new dancers from Paula East.
a roundup of upcoming events and classes: maybe I’ll even get crazy and update the “Local Dance Opportunities” page!
Yesterday afternoon we met up with our friends Kelly & Steve (known to Kelly’s toddler niece as Kecky and Teeb) to help them work on their wedding dance. They are getting married at the beginning of May. Kelly started ballroom at the same time I did, but didn’t stick with it seriously for want of a steady partner. Maybe this wedding dance will be the gateway drug that turns the newlyweds into dedicated dancers!
They already had a song picked out and we agreed that they should dance a rumba. They are quick studies and worked up a routine in less than an hour. I can’t wait to see them dance it at their wedding.
Surprisingly, they had not had enough dancing in the afternoon and agreed to have dinner with us and then go to the USA Dance chapter’s monthly dance in the evening. Paula taught some waltz basics at the lesson before the dance, which was very well attended. Everyone was decked out in their Valentine’s Day red. Daniel got to be one of several “dance hosts”: women paid $1 for a ticket to dance with a dance host, with the money going to our chapter. He collected ten tickets! He also took a bunch of videos during the evening, including the debut of a new line dance/mixer that Dianne taught us. I’ll post that to our YouTube channel as soon as Daniel figures out how to get the videos off his camera–it’s brand new.
We saw Eddie again last weekend and spent most of our lesson learning a tango routine. Now we have 2 routines to practice while he is traveling for the next few weeks–we won’t get another lesson till early March. So far I have elbowed Daniel in the face twice (once each in waltz and tango) and gotten a hockey-style two-minute holding penalty for leaning on him too much in one section of the tango. I would characterize our routines at this juncture as “not ready for prime time” but we are having a lot of laughs learning them.
In other news, I am branching out my dance experience by going back to ballet classes after several years away. After a couple of weeks of “Teen/Adult Ballet” at the Madison Studio, I was asked to take a small role in the studio’s upcoming production, “Swan Lake Selections.” I am the Queen, which is a pantomime role rather than a dance role–in some of the traditional story ballets there are pantomime parts that serve to advance the plot, using pantomime as a kind of sign language. I went to my first rehearsal today to learn my part in Scene 1. I get to “greet” everyone at my son’s birthday party by walking around in a big circle while they bow to me, then have a conversation in pantomime with my son. My son is turning 21, which means that if you go by my real age, I had him at age 16. The Queen is a teenage mother! You can see the Queen in this video of an American Ballet Theatre production of Swan Lake:
Much like our waltz & tango performances, my Queen performance is not too polished yet. But at least I did not elbow anyone in the face.
Yesterday we had our first private lesson in months–Daniel’s surgery and then the holidays shot the wheels off November and December but we are getting the ball rolling now. We talked to Eddie about moving up from Bronze to Silver level at competition and discussed the possibility of skipping the syllabus levels altogether and starting to compete at Novice, which is the first open level. Neither of us felt quite ready to make that jump but Eddie wanted to start teaching us open choreography anyway. He says it will make us “more rounded dancers.” So we learned a new waltz routine that is so much fun! It is much more complex and strenuous than what we’re used to, but we can already see that once we learn it and polish our technique, it will look fantastic.
Daniel bought a video camera last week so we took it to our lesson. Eddie danced through the routine with me and by himself so that we could review the steps if we needed to when practicing. And boy, did we need to! We practiced a little this afternoon and had to look at the video several times to remember the steps correctly. I am hoping we’ll know them by our next lesson next Saturday.
We are excited. I am not yet sure what level we’ll end up in this year but since we know we want to move up, we are not planning to compete for a while anyway. We want to make sure we go to Gumbo this year and that might be our first competition of the year. If this waltz routine is any indication, we will need every minute of practice between now and then to be ready!
If you are looking to move beyond the basic waltz, tango, & foxtrot (or cha-cha, rumba, and swing), check out this workshop coming up:
This is a workshop for those wanting to learn the basics of West Coast Swing and Hustle. Step patterns will be given.
Instructor: Philip Jones. Philip started dancing in high school as a favor to his sister. She needed a dance partner. He says he didn’t want to but when he danced the waltz he was hooked. Since then he has studied under professionals such as Ashly DelGrosso (Dancing With the Stars) and Min Suyoung and currently studies with Olga Kormanovskaya in Atlanta. He has competed in American Smooth, Rhythm, Standard, and currently competes in International Open Latin.
Assisted by JoyDawn Perry
When: January 16, 2010
Where: Macon Health Club
Time:West Coast Swing1-2:30pm and Hustle 2:45-4pm (15 minute practice following last session)
Cost: $15 per person each class or $25 per person for both classes
To sign up please contact: Paula East at paulaeastdance@yahoo.com or 478-750-0802. Registration begins now and will end on January 10, 2010.
I have met and danced with Philip and can vouch that he is a very nice person as well as an excellent dancer. This is a great opportunity to learn some less common but really fun dances!
Saturday, November 7 was the second annual Stars over Macon Ball. This event is co-sponsored by the Medcen Foundation and USA Dance Greater Macon Chapter #6059 and it benefits Hospice of Central Georgia. For the second year in a row we had a great turnout, fantastic music by the Celebration Band, beautiful décor (put together by volunteers including yours truly!), and some amazing dance exhibitions. The unstoppable Eddie Ares brought two couples to Macon to show us how it’s done: Joe Locurto and his amateur partner Lynne Riddle; and a young professional couple, Jeremy Norris and Emily Loyless. Eddie also agreed–swayed by raucous audience participation–to return to Macon and give us a workshop in 2010. Exciting!
As fantastic as the whole event was, for me the highlight was seeing Fran Kirsh recognized for her hard work on Stars over Macon and her dedication to ballroom dancing. Since her back surgery in August she has not made it onto the dancefloor, but she was at the ball in a well-deserved blaze of glory. Her hard work in 2008 made the first Stars over Macon possible. Now it is on its way to being a gorgeous tradition, and the Hospice House is on its way to completion.
I have to update my WordPress version before I can upload any more photos or videos to the site. Since photos and videos are clearly the best part, I’d better get on it! Stay tuned.
Last weekend, we celebrated Halloween at the Macon Mall with the opening of the mall’s new ArtSpace. Along with dancers from Philips Performing Arts’ studio, USA Dance Greater Macon Chapter 6059 presented a dance exhibition for shoppers and trick-or-treaters at the mall. An enthusiastic crowd was on hand to watch and participate in the dancing. Jim & JoyDawn danced a swing and a tango; Daniel and I danced a cha-cha and a foxtrot; Charles & Leneta danced a samba; and Paula’s entire Thursday night class danced a rumba formation. Chester, our DJ-in-residence, announced the dancers and played the music. Jorge took a video, which I will post here as soon as I get it uploaded. The night was great fun and generated lots of interest in ballroom dancing. Hooray!
[Will "Soviet Russia" in post title attract Russian spambots? We'll see.]
We returned Sunday night from the High Point Classic Dancesport Championships. There are no pictures from this competition, for good reason: we danced very badly! Out of 6 events entered we placed in only one. Sigh.
As Daniel and I discussed on the way home yesterday, everyone is bound to have a bad competition sometimes. We were due: all our experiences so far had been excellent. And, really, even though we didn’t place well, we had a good time and met some great new people. But our heads were not quite in the game. Up until Friday morning we were undecided about whether we’d even attend the competition and that affected our performance. Also, we’ve been dancing a lot of the same steps and routines for about a year and a half now and we think we need some new material. It’s too easy to zone out during a round if you are just auto-piloting through your steps.
So now we have some ideas about what to work on for the rest of this year and early next year. No more competitions in 2009; the calendar for 2010 is to be decided but likely to include the Triangle Open (Raleigh, NC in February) and possibly the Royal Palm Dancesport Extravaganza in Coconut Creek, FL in January. Who doesn’t love Florida in January?