Thank you to reader Jonathan for sending me this. On December 22nd, for one night only, Mary Murphy (of So You Think You Can Dance of course) will dance with the Broadway cast of Jason Gilkison’s Burn the Floor. Very very significantly, she will be partnered by SLSG longtime favorite Vaidotas Skimelis (nicknamed Vaidas), a U.S. National Latin finalist whom I’ve long thought of as the Marcelo of ballroom.

How excellent!

Above, Skimelis dancing with partner Jurga Pupelyte in America’s Ballroom Challenge, photo by Jeffrey Dunn; top photo of Murphy from Broadway World.

Fun seeing Pasha and Anya again, huh!

Janette is really becoming my favorite dancer. I love her because I don’t think there’s really anything she can’t do (except maybe a ballet routine on pointe, assuming she’s never had training in that, and I don’t think she has). She doesn’t seem to have any real training — she’s just Cuban, just born with dance in her blood and is working her butt off and excelling at every blasted thing that gets tossed in her way. I always like rooting for the underdog And we haven’t had a female ballroom winner on the show yet, right? It’s time, it’s time!

Okay, so I obviously loved both of Janette and Brandon’s routines — that kickass Argentine Tango (were those lightening fast, razor sharp kicks and flicks and hooks and gauchos not to die for? Not to mention her gorgeous lines in all the lifts and poses and just the power and passion of it all); and that killer Wade Robson Jazz dance (I love how both were very loose and rubbery but still had very solid form; it was very Rich Man’s Frug and now I see what we missed last week with Evan and Randi’s performance).

My other favorite couple is Melissa and Ade. That disco! Can Ade move or what?

Continue reading ‘SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE WEEK FIVE: GO JANETTE!’

(image borrowed from Ohio Star Ball website).

So, what did you guys think about the show?

I was worried I’d be mad about the new format but I really ended up thinking this one worked better, at least for TV, even if it is fake. For people who’ve never been to a regular ballroom dance competition before, the competition is really the first parts, the group dances (as shown in the picture above) — that they severly truncated here, showing only a small part of one dance for each of the four categories. But I do think the showdances work so much better for TV. On TV the excitement of the group dances is really lost. But it’s so stunning to see, to feel, all these couples whizzing by you, spinning, shaking their hips at lightening speed, to hear the crowds cheer, scream really, while all the couples try to look so glamorous and graceful, the raucous audience making it seem more like a boxing match. I encourage everyone who hasn’t been to go to a real competition.

Anyway, it wasn’t much of a surprise that Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko won — they’re second in the world in Latin, and I’m wondering, after watching them in November (which is when this show was taped), if they could overtake the current champs, Poland’s Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, at some point. I loved their Cha Cha tonight (with her in the sizzling red and him in the open tux jacket), their Samba, and their combo routine to the pure percussion (which I love — I love that they’re not afraid to use that kind of music). I love how they vary the rhythms in an often unpredictable way, I love his speed and how she makes original shapes with her body, especially when she tucks in her stomach, rolls her shoulders, and curls her pelvis, looking almost like a cobra. Or is it a python? The snake that lifts its front part and expands its head, ghost-like, before attacking?… (I don’t really want to do a google image search) Anyway, I really really love them– Yulia and Riccardo.

Since the two top Standard couples — Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova and Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — were at another competition (I think in the U.K.) at the same time as the Ohio Star Ball and didn’t compete, it was really a toss up who would win. I thought Linas Koreiva and Liene Apale would win — I thought they danced the best — though I loved the balletic look to Mikhail Avdeev and Anastasia’s beautiful waltz. I love how in all their routines

— oooh, Oscar Hijuelos (one of my favorite writers, author of Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love) is on Larry King, PBS! He is WAY the hell younger than I thought… –

sorry,  just had to say that. Anyway, I love how Mikhail and Anastasia’s dances were all basic, yet so well done, so beautifully executed. Shows how dance is more about excellent technique and lush, expansive movement than tricks. And I love that they used classical music instead of going for the modern and poppy.

Totally predictable of course that Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps would win Rhythm — and how much do I love that there are Joses in the world — how hot was that mambo! And that John Travolta! He is truly one of the most charismatic dancers in all of ballroom.

And Jonathan Roberts and Valentina were lovely. I do believe she is the powerhouse of that partnership. She really shines and her form is so splendid. His is less so (and I caught him pigeon-toed a few times), though he is a solid support for her, which is mainly what the man is supposed to be. I liked J.T. Thomas and Tomasz Mielnicki’s snazzy Foxtrot, though I’ve seen both couples in competition before and can see how Jonathan and Valentina took the whole without winning the showdance portion.

Oh, before I forget, what did you guys think of that Swan Lake dance at the beginning of the program, by Mikhail Zharinov and Galina Detkina in the American Smooth division? It was one of the very first ones, if you can remember. If you didn’t notice — and the announcers didn’t point it out — she was wearing a long white glove on her right arm, with a swan’s face and beak painted on the thumb and fingers. So, the way she was holding that arm up and bending her wrist like she did, when you see it up close (as I did at Champions of the Dance recently here in NY at Town Hall), her whole body really does look like a swan, with her hand the head, her arm the neck, and her skirt — when pulled out and held to the back (either by him or by her) — the body. I couldn’t figure out how I felt about it when I saw it live — whether I thought it was cheesy or pretty, and, after seeing it from further afar, on TV, I choose the latter.

Other things: I love my Vaidotas Skimelis Dressed as Mozart! Or was it Louis the XVI and Jurga Pupelyte Marie Antoinette? What a big fun charming goof. But an excellent dancer. Their dance was rather humorous but they still had very nice form and some creative choreography and he had some jumps and stylized runs that showed he really could be a balletic, graceful dancer, large as he is.

And why do I have no problem envisioning Boriana Deltcheva as a cat! She’s so feline already; I love the way she climbed on Delyan’s back and wrapped her legs around his waist. She’s such a tall, thin thing, she looked just like a sleek black catwoman. She has the ideal body. She put a note up on Facebook a while ago advertising that she was selling some of her costumes and I had to laugh — like everyone the planet over wishes they could fit into them

Another highlight: Gherman Mustuc and Iveta Lukosiute’s Carmen tango in the Standard. They always come up with such creative showdance ideas. Such great music, and her red dress was gorgeous.

Pavlo Barsuk and Anna Trebunskaya: how insanely intense was that Paso! I love intense Pasos! And he is the ultimate in the intensity department, believe me – -if you even see him dance live, he does this thing where his eyes grow really wide; he looks like he could devour you for lunch — or his competition anyway. Such a funny contrast to her sweet face and toothy chipmunk smile.

And of course Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova — sorry, I’m really into the Latins, obviously. They recently danced at the Dance Times Square showcase and I totally fell for them. He is so damn fast and slick and precise. And they ended one of their dances at the DTS show with that ending trick they did tonight in the Cha Cha, if you remember it — where he flips and drops her, catching her right before she’s about to hit the floor, face down. DTS audience went WILD.

Anyway, enough from me. What did you guys think?

(image taken from ABC website)

So psyched! This is my favorite of all the TV shows. And I didn’t make it to the Ohio Star Ball last November, so showcases and results will be a surprise for me too. The four-week show begins this Wednesday, PBS 9pm ET. Go here for more info and for local show-times.

I am really excited about this! It’s for one night only, Friday, January 23 at 8 pm, at Town Hall in midtown, and it’s starring a couple of my favorite pairs: Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva (in the above pic, far left) and Iveta Lukosiute and Gherman Mustuc (far right). Delyan & Boriana are a tall, thin, dramatic Latin couple I really like (she has these really gorgeous spidery limbs); they usually place in the finals in national competitions (and used to be competitive for top awards with Pasha and Anya when they were still competing). Iveta and Gherman are ten-dance champs (meaning, they compete in all ten dances, both Latin and Standard). They also do wonderful ballroom showcases.

Also performing are some dancers who were featured on the PBS show America’s Ballroom Challenge (which should be airing again soon, in early February): Evgeny Dyanchenko and Inna Ivanenko (above pic, in the middle), Tony Scheppler and Erin Bomboy, and Mayo Alanen and Lisa Vogel.

Tix are $45-$50. If you’re in New York, go here for more info. There isn’t a lot of Latin / Ballroom concert dance in New York so I’m very happy about this!

I hate to say it but I was bored. Again. Even for the finale.

Did they honestly waste a half an hour of my time by showing repeats of two earlier-in-the-season dances per couple? Please tell me I was just imagining it, that they really did find something more interesting on which to spend the first third of the show.

And didn’t they rip off Dirty Dancing with that footage of Brooke and Derek learning lifts in water?

And Lance & Lacey’s hip hop was fine I guess if you’re judging it from a ballroom-show perspective, but if you’ve seen America’s Best Dance Crew even once you know how hackneyed and unoriginal most of those moves were.

And how many times have I seen Proud Mary used for a jive?

And those kids’ competitions are getting really yawn-inducing too. The dancers are just so much better in America’s Ballroom Challenge.

It was just a night where I found myself thinking over and over again, how unimaginative, how overused, how boring…

The only thing I can really say I liked (and I know some people — Katrina, my mom — are going to kill me) but I really enjoyed watching Lacey in the group Samba. That girl can move. And I like that she’s not an emaciated waif. And I like that she has a strong personality. She’s been out of line a few times (ie: making references to Cloris in a retirement home), but I think she’s realized the words were distasteful as soon as they came out of her mouth. I think it’s more a case of not thinking before you speak and doing it on national TV than really being an unfeeling person.

Anyway, I hope tomorrow night is better.

I’m so excited. I just received my Blackpool Festival tickets, and, along with them, a schedule of The International Congress, a series of lectures given by accomplished ballroom dancers that takes place on the first two days of the festival. They’re really informative, and they give you a good chance to see some of your favorite dancers up close — not always possible during the actual competition since it gets so crowded, it’s hard to find a spectator spot close to the comp floor. (All pictures shown here, or linked to, I took during Congresses past; above is former longtime Latin champs Donnie Burns and Gaynor Fairweather from two years ago).

Well, I’m particularly thrilled with this year’s lineup: on day one, one of my favorite dancers, Sergey Surkov, is scheduled to give a talk on Paso Doble with his partner, Melia. I’ve only ever seen them demonstrate steps for other lecturers before; have never heard them lecture themselves. I’ve heard he has a really sexy Russian accent and is very personable. Now, apparently, I will find out for myself

On the second day, giving a lecture will be my favorite American dancer, Yulia Zagoruychenko, and her new partner, with whom she’s expected to do very well, Riccardo Cocchi. Their talk is on my favorite dance — Samba of course!

Later that day, Jonathan Wilkins (who’s a baddie for leaving our Katusha!) and his new partner, former champ Hazel Newberry, will talk on Quickstep, my favorite Standard dance.

And later than day Katusha will lecture with her new partner Arunas Bizokas (you’ll remember them from “America’s Ballroom Challenge”), on the Foxtrot.

And then in the afternoon, the Congress will conclude with an all-star lineup, beginning with current Standard champs (my favorites — if you’re not into Standard now you will be once you set eyes on this pair) the Italian couple Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti, who will talk on Tango (maybe now I’ll have more of an appreciation of that dance…)

Following them is current second-place Latin couple, Michael Malitowski and the amazing Joanna Leunis, who will speak about Rumba. That couple is expected to very possibly take the championships this year (although I’m hoping for Slavik Kryklyyvy and Elena Khvorova.) And ending the lectures are longtime Latin champs who retired last year, Bryan Watson and Carmen along with Standard couple William Pino and Alessandra Bucciarelli, whose lecture topic is entitled, “The Instinctive Dancer.”

There’re tons more; those are just the dancers I know well.

I just bought my plane tickets too this weekend and now can’t get that “Manchester England England” song from “Hair” out of my head…

Since my two posts for the weekend were quite sobering (and long — that’s what 8 hours’ worth of testimony looks like, folks), I figured I’d end the Easter weekend with something a bit more upbeat.

So here it is.

Thanks to Sharon for this. It’s former “Dancing With the Stars” pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s thoughts thus far on the show, most of which I agree with:

“Hey ‘KIDS’!

Just wanted to check in and say that I am proud of you watching the show and not doing the whole…..boycote…thing, because I’m not on it.

I will be back to share with you what I thought about the dancers/couples in couple of weeks. Simply because I need more time to evaluate everything and give you my opinion.
To give you a taste:
Kristy was AWESOME!!! (as expected). Let’s see if she would be able to pull off a latin dance with hip-action and everything (after all gliding in Foxtrot and gliding in skating may not be so different)
Jason Taylor was very good. He is the new Emmit Smith, but younger and (in my heterosexual opinion) sexier (sorry Emmit )
Christian DeLa….whatever WILL be better! I think that Cheryl is pacing herself and just letting Christian turn into the dancer that he should be instead of forcing him to become something unnatural.
Mario …..Not enough given his natural talent and ability. Will be the front runner later in the season.
Marlee…..GREAT! Fabian (not because he is my friend) did an amazing job catering to her needs and supporting her in every way while highlighting her strong points.
Marisa….HILARIOUS!!!, but that’s all for now
On the other hand…..
Shannon Elizabeth……… NOT what I expected and I’m hoping that Derek can get her to be what she is looked at as: Stacy Kibler of season 6, because for now she is not!

That’s all for now!

Behave you all,

ME!!!

Also, on a Maks-related note, I ordered my tickets this weekend to the Blackpool Dance Festival, the largest, most prestigious ballroom festival in the world! I’m so excited. This will mark my third year at the festival. And, it’s Maks-related because I always see him there If not in the actual comp, then in the Italian restaurant across the street from the entrance to the Winter Gardens, where the festival is held. Above, in fact, is a surreptitiously-taken paparazzi photo, by moi, of him watching Valentin compete in amateur Latin two years ago. (Thankfully I now have a better camera…)
I’m so excited! Can it be the end of May now please!!

Here are a couple more pics from my first year at the festival:

Down the street from the entrance to the Winter Garden, where the comp is held.

At the lovely boardwalk. Unfortunately late May is still way too cold there to go in the water.

Inside the Garden.

A crowded street near the WG, where my trusty internet cafe is! It was like 40 degrees Fahrenheit outside on that day, by the way. English people are nuts!

Goddess Karina Smirnoff and her old partner Dmitri Tibouken.

Riccardo Cocchi, dancing for his homeland of Italy, with his old partner. This year he’ll be dancing for the U.S. with our wonderful Yulia Zagoruychenko, pictured below with her old partner, Max Kozhevnikov.

They performed this routine at America’s Ballroom Challenge this year as well, if you remember.

T

The brilliant, longtime Latin champs, Bryan Watson and Carmen, retired last year, leaving the Latin championship wide open. So, that’ll mean new champs. Extremely exciting!

As will be … the fact that my good friend, Mika, is finally competing in the amateur championships!

I’m so excited for her. I wish I was competing, but oh well. It’s far less stressful (and expensive) to watch anyway

Well, I had really wanted either Arunas Bizokas and Katusha Demidova or Jose Decamps and Joanna Zacharewicz to win, but I understand why Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuschkova (pictured above, photo by Jeffrey Dunn from America’s Ballroom Challenge site) did. As host Ron Montez said, they are by far the couple with the most experience dancing together. The judges value that longevity and commitment, and they’re the most used to each other. While I thought their Rhumba long program was a perfect representation of that dance, flawlessly executed with a very difficult lift, where he rolled her not only down but up and down again all in the same breath, I still can’t help but be a slight bit bored by them. Still can’t figure out why. On the other hand, I’m not in love with Standard and yet I can’t take my eyes of Katusha.

The minute she and Arunas leave the floor I’m sad and want them back. To me it says something that I’m not in love with their dance style but they still take my breath away. And she looks so much better with him than with her former partner, Jonathan Wilkins. Their long program just blew me away, from their frame, their sweep, their elegance — they’re a world class couple and it shows. Of all competitors in tonight’s championship, Katusha is the highest ranked internationally, placing second with Jonathan last year at Blackpool. Andrei and Elena didn’t even make the semifinals.

(photo above by Jeffrey Dunn) I loved Jose Decamps too — no one does the Mambo like he does. No one! No one does those crazy lightening fast-jumps and has all that liquid upper body action. The Afro-Cuban styling at the beginning with all that back movement and those rib-cage isolations — that was insane! It’s like he’s a rubber band! The man has no vertebra. The problem with them as a couple is that I think he outperforms Joanna by miles. She’s a good dancer, but he’s so much better that there’s a lack of balance. He can’t help it of course. He shouldn’t dance down. Who was his last partner; does anyone know? I know he was once with Cheryl Burke, but that was a while ago, I thought. Well, my advice to the top Rhythm people is: Joanna and Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine should get back together, and Jose needs a new partner.

And J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki: I like them a lot and I know how much she loves Broadway theater-style dance. They constructed a perfect foxtrot / cabaret routine, with each dance shown in equal measure and some nice connections between them. But I just think Broadway dance doesn’t look right unless it’s on a stage. With singing. And a loud, live band. I preferred their short routine, the creative combo of Argentine and Standard tango.

And all those “ballroom cameos” in the exhibitions — how fun! Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko on twice made my night I love that “Rhythm Section” routine. It’s a classic for them and it never loses its charm. I love her razor sharp precision. She just nails every movement, and I love how they play with the rhythms and switch back and forth between them so fluently. I think he’s a wonderful guy, but I do think she outdances him. So, though I’ll miss them as a couple, I think their split was for the best, and I can’t wait to see her with her new partner, Riccardo Cocchi.

And what a treat were Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Valeriya Kozharinova! Ooh, he’s just so sexy! He reminds me a bit of (top pro dancer) Sergey Surkov. Valentin and Valeriya are an amateur couple, as are the last couple to perform, Anna Demidova and Igor Mikushov. Both do well in amateur comps, particularly the latter couple. Couples like these are what I mean by competitive amateur dancers who have sponsors, dance full-time, and are nearly as good as their pro counterparts. You’ll recognize the last names of Valentin and Anna — they both come from big dance families

I really enjoyed Ron Montez. He was very good at explaining what the judges looked for and what was good about each couple. And he taught you some vocabulary as well. I learned a lot from him, particularly in the Standard and Smooth divisions, which I don’t know as well as Latin. I hope he returns next year.

Finally, I have to say, I’m so glad they did that little segment on John DePalma, the announcer. If you ever go to a competition in the U.S. — and everyone should! — his voice will become so familiar to you, you’ll be hearing it in your sleep for days. I always wondered about him, where he came from and how he got this job, so now I know! He’s at practically every comp in this country; those words, “Who’s your favorite couple, ladies and gentlemen?!” — Haha, I haven’t been to a championship in a while now (had to miss the New York Dance Festival this weekend, sadly…) but his voice and his words kind of bring me there anyway.

Uh, I’m sad it’s over for another year… They need to televise far far more of these.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this Ballroom Challenge post up!!! (All pictures by the way, except mine from Blackpool below, by Jeffrey Dunn, taken from America’s Ballroom Challenge website).

I loved Vaidotas Skimelis and Jurga Pupelyte’s retro hustle-y disco-y Cha Cha / Samba! He moved so well; I’ve never seen his hips move like that! The routine had a great sense of humor and charm. I loved his bouncing around on one leg, the other extended out, their excellent lift sequence, the 70s-style costumes, and that great, very disco-y death spiral they ended with. All so Studio 54; all such fun!

Funny because Anna Trebunskaya and Pavlo Barsuk did a retro routine as well; theirs more jive-y and from the 50s-60s, although I felt theirs didn’t have as much spark and fun period flavor as Vaidotas and Jurga’s. At Blackpool last year there was a very popular lecture on the history of Latin dance, where the speaker used several currently competing dancers to demonstrate the looks and moves of the past, tracing them to the present. It was so interesting to see how the dances have changed over the years, becoming faster, the footwork more intricate and the movement much sharper. And with each decade you could see outside popular cultural influences; the 70s period replete with hilarious Saturday Night Fever moves. Of course we laugh now, but back then it was brilliant the way contemporary dance meshed with classical ballroom. It made me wonder what period we’re in right now? Hip hop? The movements are so sharp, so staccato, I wonder if Hip Hop (the club dance of our day) and break dancing have had something to do with it?? Hmm. Anyway, I just thought I’d include a couple of my pictures from that lecture here:

Here is the 50s style. How adorable is that dress! The couples danced so slowly compared to today, they danced much farther apart from each other (it being the 50s and all) and everything was very “cutesy,” meaning, the hips were less connected to the lats (back muscles), so it looked like the butt was kind of shaking cutely on its own instead of the hips being compelled to move by the shoulder blade forcing the lats down and compressing the lower back into the hip socket. (Remember the perfect Rhumba walks exhibited by Yulia Zagoruychenko in the opening exhibition? The hips are more connected to the rest of the body now; whereas back then it was more like the dancers were walking toward their toes, lightly, and, with their hips uncontrolled by the upper body, it made for a rather dainty booty-swaying action).

Here’s the cute 60s style Cha Cha, the couples still barely touching each other to maintain “a safe distance.” See how her entire body sways to one side though?

Here’s the 70s couple with their hilarious costumes and John Travolta arms.

And this couple — my love Sergey Surkov and his Melia — demonstrated the contemporary Rhumba. See how, in contrast to the 60s couple above, her body is straight, only the hip slightly beginning to settle to one side? Now, the active parts of the body move one at a time, first the foot takes a step, then the shoulder pushes down on the lat muscle, pushing down on the lower back, which compels the hip to settle. It’s much more stylized, more controlled, and more subtle than the hip-swaying / entire-body-swaying movement of yore. And much harder!

Anyway, back to America’s Ballroom Challenge.

I loved Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva’s “Money Money Money” routine from Cabaret. And I love that they used the newer, Alan Cumming version of the song! I loved the way Delyan moved his back, the way he curved his shoulders up and over so he was hunching intentionally awkwardly at times. He kind of inhabited the decadence of Weimar, the corruption of money, in his body, the way Cumming’s Emcee did in the play. And her dress and bob were cute and she did the seductive Sally Bowles well too. I thought this was one of their better routines and I was sorry the judges didn’t rank them higher.

I also noticed, both in group and solo routines Andre Paramonov and Natalie like I never have before. Maybe they come across better on camera than in person since they’re a bit smaller than the others?… I don’t know, but he dances with a lot of character and charm, shows a lot of expression on his face, and she has beautiful extensions and ballet-based technique. Some of those lunges and the dip she’s doing in the picture above were breathtaking.

And I just want to say something about Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Golina, who did this robotic thing that reminded me a bit of Gary and Rita Gekhman’s techno Standard showdance from a couple of years ago. It wasn’t my thing as I’m thinking it wasn’t for a lot of people, but the judges placed them first because in the showdances they seem to value creativity and uniqueness over all else. This, I think is where Jonathan Roberts was coming from with that rather odd-looking routine he created for Marie Osmond on Dancing With the Stars last season that he received so much public scrunity over. These competition judges go wild for these kind of odd-looking routines, sometimes the more out of the ordinary the better.

And finally, the winners, Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuchkova. I find their showdances to be rather bland, actually. Andrei used to teach at my old studio, so he’d perform in the showcases first with his students in the student section, then with Elena in the pro portion. Pasha and Anya though were always the main draw, their showdances having loads more flavor, cool tricks, and just overall pizzazz, though they were never ranked as high as Andrei and Elena in the comps. I think Andrei and Elena have excellent Latin technique and a quiet, subtle charm, but, while understated works in group dances, it doesn’t for showdances. I do think they deserved to win the overall.

It’s very weird, but I feel that Andrei on his own is one of the most amazing dancers I’ve ever seen. And on his own he seems to have a decent amount of charisma. But together they’re lacking in that department, and that’s extremely nonsensical given how in love they are and how much attention he showers on her, both during dance and outside the ballroom (I’ve seen them together a lot and they’re always all over each other!) Ballroom dance is all about partnership, though, so they have to learn how to have appeal as a couple. How do you teach that: how to have charisma when dancing together? All I know is, they need to take it up several notches if they ever want to achieve real popularity with the crowd. If that’s what they want.

Going over my notes, as far as the group numbers: I love that the camera guy focused so on Vaidotas and Jurga. Thanks camera guy! I guess others find them charismatic as well… I liked Anna and Pavlo’s close, cheek-to-cheek Argentine tango handhold at the beginning of their Cha Cha. It was different. Anna also had some great moves, some beautiful ronde de jambes en l’air (one leg circling the air), particularly coming out of a deep lunge. I liked Natalie’s beautiful Rhumba splits, which she did several times, making good use of her long legs and flexibility. I loved Delyan and Boriana’s costumes, the cherry red making them stand out brightly. They’ve moved up a notch, by the way, regularly surpassing Ilya and Nadia in the standings now, very unusual in Latin.

That’s another thing: Ron Montez kept saying he had high expectations for Anna and Pavlo, thinking they’d be at the top and possibly even winners, since they’re a new couple who’s shot up the charts recently. He should know though, unless something has changed since his day as a champ, that precisely because they’re a couple new to the finals, they would place at the bottom. Those are the ironclad rules of ballroom dancing that make these competitions so frustrating. Pavlo and Anna placed in the finals because Max and Yulia didn’t compete (Yulia, by the way, is not retired, as Montez said; only Max Kozhevnikov, her old partner with whom she danced in the exhibition, retired. She is now dancing with Italian dancer Riccardo Cocchi, but wasn’t yet ready to compete with him when this competition was filmed); last year Pasha Kovalev and Anya Garnis’s departure from competition allowed Vaidotas and Jurga into the finals. It was a given therefore that Vaidotas and Jurga would place fifth, Pavlo and Anna sixth, being the second-newest and newest respectively. That’s just the way things work. I could have told you the finalist positions before the comp happened, as could anyone who regularly attends these things.

One last thing. For anyone who tuned in a bit early and saw the end of the McNeil Lehrer Newshour where Mr. Lehrer was talking about the New York Times article arguing PBS was no longer necessary, here is that article. Regarding this show in particular, the writer, Charles McGrath, argues that PBS is now, in an attempt to get audiences, copying the networks by putting on a dance competition of their own. Mr. McGrath obviously didn’t know that this was a real competition, not a reality show of the kind seen on the networks. He also wasn’t aware that these PBS ballroom competitions have been around now for well over a decade. It’s true that they went off the air for a couple of years due to lack of funding. But they have long been a mainstay of public television. Dancing With the Stars has been around for, what, two years now? I don’t think America’s Ballroom Challenge is doing any “copying.”

Yes, my favorite! Tonight’s American Ballroom Challenge competition is the Latin event, the most popular in the U.S. (Standard is more popular in England). Look for:

Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kryuchkova, several times U.S. national champs. Andrei is tall and thin and he just flies across the floor. He’s one of my favorite Latin men.

A new favorite man of mine, Vaidotas Skimelis, whose large size both slows him down a bit in terms of sheer speed, but also gives him a kind of Maks Chmerkovskiy / Marcelo Gomes virile appeal. This is the couple for whom Pasha and Anya’s departure from competition last year kind of allowed in the door for finals — so one not completely horrible aspect of P & A’s absconding for Hollywood Last year he and partner Jurga Pupelyte did a gorgeous showdance that had everyone talking.

A couple I’ve admired for a while, Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva. I’m not always in love with the themes they choose for their exhibition showdances, but on the floor, during the group numbers, I think they have really beautiful, unique artistry.

If you’re a “Dancing With the Stars” fan, watch for Anna Trebunskaya and her newish partner Pavlo Barsuk. About a year or two ago she and Jonathan Roberts broke up (as dance partners) and she’s been doing very well with Pavlo.

And finally, they’re not competing, as he’s now retired and she has a very new partner, but watch in exhibitions for current U.S. national champs and longtime beloved couple, Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko. Above is a picture of them from Blackpool last year, where they always give a lecture demo.

That’s tonight 8p.m. on PBS!

Although I really don’t like this picture of them (taken from America’s Ballroom Challenge website — it was the only one they had of them; copyright of Jeffrey Dunn); the only thing I didn’t like about their showdance was that ending pose. Kind of a fish dive but not a real one or her arm wouldn’t be wrapped around his neck like that, and her bottom foot should be touching her top knee and it’s nowhere near it. Lifts actually always look a little weird in Standard because the shoes aren’t flexible and you can’t point your toes, so the line is off. Anyway, aside from the ending pose, I loved them — both their showdance and their group dancing. In particular I love him — better than her old partner Jonathan Wilkins even. He’s faster, swifter, and sharper — especially his Tango. That really blew me away. I’m happy for her that she ended up with someone like him. I had thought Jonathan retired from competition and that’s why they broke up, but I was wrong; he’s just moved back to his native England and is now competing for the UK with Hazel Newberry, a former British champion. It’ll be very interesting to see how they place respective to Katusha and Arunas in the world championships this year!

I also really liked the showdance of Igor Litvinov and Yulia Ivleva.

This is a photo from their group dance number (all photos by Jeffrey Dunn), not their showdance — they were the ones dressed in the Mod Squad / Elvis outfits who danced to the James Brown medley. Normally I prefer traditional ballroom dance to the more “creative” caricatures, but this one I liked because their use of the music wasn’t at all what you expected. Who would have ever thought of putting a Viennese Waltz to Brown, a Tango to “I Feel Good”! And it all worked — the rhythm as well as, unbelievably, the style. It was fun and their transitions between styles were excellent.

And I liked Urs Geisenhainer and Agnes Kazmierczak for almost the opposite reason.

They performed only to one song, but put several dance styles to it, including some Latin, and at the end even some breaking isolations. At points, such as the beginning, they uniquely combined Tango, a Standard dance with Cha Cha, a Latin. I’ve seen Latin dances combined with each other and Latin and Ballroom in one routine but with transitions between them. But I haven’t often seen Standard and Latin steps actually combined into one like that — it was like a Tango promenade / cha cha chas. Very cooly unique. And all of the dances looked equally good on them. Talk about versatility!

For exhibitions, as I said earlier, I love Austin Joson and Elizabeth Lakovitsky.

He keeps growing and growing; he’s starting to look like a little man. And only two years ago Elizabeth was a little girl. I know they’ve worked hard on their Paso Doble and it shows. They have a really cute jive and a sweet rumba too, but I think Paso is their favorite. That routine, with that kind of foreboding music, was rather mature, as cohost Ron Montez said! They have some polishing to do (and he has some more growing to do so he’ll catch up with her ) but I think they’re going to be really great someday.

I liked this couple too, Anton Belyayev and Karolina Paliwoda, who recently turned pro.

Sometimes the best dancers are just coming from the amateur ranks. I thought her form was fantastic, and I love the simplicity both of their routine and costumes. As Montez pointed out, she had no rhinestones on that dress and I love that somone has the courage to do something different. There’s too much glitter in some of these ballroom comps and sometimes it’s meant to compensate for lack of quality in the dancing. And they performed basic steps with such clarity, Montez was even able to use them as a model for pointing out to the audience the elements of a proper rumba. Montez is a good host: he notices small details and he’s interested in imparting the mysteries of technique to the audience.

The only thing, Standard in general is just kind of boring on TV; it doesn’t come across the same as in a live comp — somehow part of the magic is lost, kind of like with some of the filmed ballet (particularly ensemble work). I don’t know why that is exactly. I guess it’s the weightlessness factor: dances that are more grounded, like Latin and Tap have more weight and don’t lose much resonance when reduced to two dimensions. More light, feathery, weightless dances like ballet and Standard Ballroom just lose impact when not three-dimensional. That’s Paul Parish’s theory anyway. Hmmmm.

Also, extremely annoyingly, the ABC website no longer contains an email address where you can email questions, and ABC isn’t a part of the Great Performances series, so I don’t know how to get a hold of them. A couple of people asked me about songs they used in the group dances. I’ll try to find out how to contact them, but often, the event organizers don’t even remember which songs they used. They usually have a bunch of songs suitable for each dance style already downloaded into the computer, so that someone just hits “Cha Cha” for a cha cha heat, or “Rumba” for that dance. I was so disappointed when I’d hear a song I loved and would ask around and no one had a clue what I was talking about. If you ever go to competitions, though, visit the shopping pavilion (where they have all the costumes). There’s usually a music vendor there and they have TONS of ballroom CDs for both Latin and Standard. They have tables and tables of headphones and walkmans and you can sit there for hours and listen. If you’re in NY, Worldtone has a decent selection. If you’re neither in NY nor have any comps near you, you can visit DanceVision website. A lot of the songs are repeated on numerous tapes, but even if you don’t find the particular song you heard that way, you’ll definitely find a million others. I’ll let you know, though, if can find ABC people! Annoying that they took the email address down!

In case you didn’t hear yet, on next week’s “Dance War,” the new season of “Dancing With the Stars” contestants will officially be announced. Also, next week will be that show’s finale?! It seemed to go so fast; I was kind of shocked when they announced that last night.

Anyway, this week was “Latin Week,” which I felt pretty eh about — nothing new for me with this show. At least dance-wise I felt eh. Tango hooks in the opening number were sloppy — Kelsey had to re-adjust her position with her partner to get her foot wrapped around his leg. If she was as close to him as she should have been that wouldn’t have happened. But who am I to criticize someone for not maintaining the proper Argentine Tango frame — I was NEVER able to feel comfortable that close to the guy — at least not random guys in class I didn’t know…

And is Bruno the king of hysteria-drenched, goofy similes or what? “I’ve taken more punches than Rocky!!!” he wailed with wild gesticulations, over losing twice in a row. I hate to admit it, but at some points, his nuttiness actually kind of grows on me… I’m glad he finally praised Carrie Ann’s team. He needed to do that to show he was a sport. It just really bothers me how he practically equates dance with sex. Those guys’ open-shirts in his second number — oh please! Same thing with the way he had Kelsey last week vamping it up Jessica Simpson-like in “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.” Dance can be sexy, but when it’s so overt like that it just becomes silly and crass.

I did feel like the singing was a bit better this time — particulary from Zack on the Bruno team and Chris on the Carrie Ann team. When Chris “sang for his life” I have to say I was actually quite blown away. He’s had so many microphone malfunctions, I don’t think I’ve really heard him sing, but he has a pretty nice voice.

I think what annoys me most about this show is its general air of unreality. It was sweet when Phillip’s mom showed up to watch her son, but do the show’s producers really expect us to believe she couldn’t afford to travel from Virginina to California but lo and behold thanks to her church she was finally able to see her son fulfill his dream? Thanks to the show’s producers is more like it, if the whole thing wasn’t phony to begin with. And it was nice that team Bruno did some outreach at the Community Center for people with Downs Syndrome, but if they really were invited because Zack’s brother has Downs, it would’ve been nice if they showed some footage of the two of them together. And even team Bruno’s ultimately winning this time around … if they didn’t win would anyone really tune in next week; what fun is a shoe-in finale? And when Carrie Ann started crying when she lost — and the tears were really there; her face was all wet– I wondered which acting method she studied. There was so much fakery, when that Orville Redenbocher commercial came on — the one about the guy and his wife whose marriage was in serious trouble because she liked natural snacks and he didn’t, and he collapsed on the kitchen floor and started throwing food about madly — did you guys see it? I seriously thought it was a trailer for a new reality show.

Which brings me to MTV’s new show, “America’s Best Dance Crew.” I wrote about it for Huffington and will link as soon as it’s posted, but for now I just want to say, I really kinda like it. It has more authenticity: the competitors seem like real people; they’re kids you like and want to root for, and the judges take them seriously, and seem more interested in imparting constructive criticism than hogging the spotlight and playing “characters” themselves. It’s pretty good. MTV Thursday nights at 10 p.m.

Finally, don’t forget to watch PBS tomorrow night, Wednesday, for “America’s Ballroom Challenge.” It’s Standard, where lovely ladies in beautiful, flowing, bejeweled ballgowns are swept around the floor by their dapper tux ‘n tailed gents. I initially fell in love with ballroom through this dance style, although I’m afraid it looks very different on TV than live and some of the magic is taken away. Anyway, I will be very excited to see US National champ and second in the world, Katusha Demidova, with her new partner, Arunas Bizokas. Also, in the exhibitions, watch for the pro/am couple Max Kozhevnikov and his student Yuk Chun (for people who follow ballroom, Max is the former partner of popular Latin dancer, Yulia Zagorouychenko), and in the junior division Austin Joson and Elizabeth Lakovitsky. These kids train at my old studio and I’ve written about them previously here and here. Austin in particular is a little cutie, and he ROCKS! Okay PBS at 8 pm EST!

(photo by Jeffrey Dunn, from America’s Ballroom Challenge website, of Jose Decamps and Joanna Zacharewicz)

Since I’m late in posting again (sorry, was a bit depressed about something last night), most of the conversation has taken place on comments on the last post, so I’ll be brief here.

I loved Jose and Joanna’s West Side Story-ish showdance and I’m really happy to see ballroom combined with these classics (last week was the Fred and Ginger-esque routine by the Smooth showdance winners, Steven Doughtery and Eulia Baranovsky). I thought Jose was just so good; the way he moves his whole body — his upper body just as active as his legs, it’s like he’s a snake with no vertebra. He really got into the fun, fifties-ish theme and he looked to me like a character right out of Jerome Robbins’s dance-movie masterpiece. But he made it a rhythm showdance just the same including all the major rhythm dances, most prominently Swing and Mambo, and even a little Paso Doble thrown in at the end — all of which jibe really well with the Robbins. I’m not sure who choreographed it, but if he did, I think he may have a future as a dance-maker after he retires from competition. I like Joanna too, but to me Jose is the powerhouse of that partnership. He has so much charisma, and actor-ly ability, though I’m not sure if it comes across the same on TV as live.

I was sorry to see Bree Watson and Decho Kraev (below in photo by Jeffrey Dunn) place so poorly. I thought her leg extensions and her stretches were gorgeously balletic, especially in the slower dances, and I was kind of sorry they performed a Swing rather than a Bolero or Rumba for their showdance. But they seemed to know what the judges preferred, since they placed higher in the showdance than in the group dances.

And I always love watching Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine, although I liked him a lot better dancing with Joanna (Zacharewicz, who is now dancing with Jose) than with his new partner, Julia Gorchakova. His routines with Joanna were really cute without being crass and I could have done without all the Robin Byrd-esque booty-in-the-face of their showdance. And watching her, it seems more to me that she is trying to be what he wants, to please him, than being her own person, although Joanna sometimes loses connection with her partner doing too much of her own thing… Still, this is a new partnership and I’m sure they’ll improve. And Emmanuel: he just has such a hunger for dance, and his wild abandon makes him such a compelling showman; I can’t help but root for him

I loved just-turned-pro couple Pasha Pashkov and Inna Brayer (who performed in the exhibitions; photo below by Jeffrey Dunn). What a lovely combination Latin routine — I love how they softened the Samba and blended it with Paso Doble. And what lovely flowing costumes!

And I just have to give a big huge shout-out to pro / am couple Scott Lazarov and Christine Stanko (Christine is the amateur student; Scott the pro teacher — also performers in the exhibitions; photo above again by Jeffrey Dunn). I’ve met Christine before at Nationals, when she became the national amateur Mambo champion, and learned that she is a full-time dermatologist, and only took up dancing when she was in medical school — so, as an adult — both of which just blow me away. Many amateurs don’t have day jobs; they practice all day long and have a sponsor to pay the bills. And most start as young children. It’s very hard ever to get really good (I mean at the competition level) when you’ve started in adulthood, and more so when you have a demanding full-time job. So big huge kudos to her!

Finally, I have to give the cameraman a whopping D-! Half the time — more than half the time, he completely cut off the dancers’ legs, sometimes everything below the ribcage. What am I supposed to get from seeing a dancer’s shoulders and face? It was like a sea of legless torsos moving across the stage somehow on their own. And I couldn’t believe all the focus on the women’s pelvises — especially with Carolina and Felipe Telona! And sometimes the camera was way too far away. I think cameraguy needs some lessons from the primetime people.

Anyway, I’m glad you guys had fun watching! Next week is beautiful Standard — more on that later.

I got so carried away with politics, I almost forgot to post about tonight! It should be a most fun evening on America’s Ballroom Challenge (PBS, 8pm EST), as this event — American Rhythm — is always a crowd favorite. Keep your eyes open for the always entertaining and hungry-for-a-win Emmanuel-Pierre Antoine and Julia Gorchakova,

their main competitors (and current US champs), Jose Decamps and Joanna Zacharewicz,

and the quieter, but lovely couple who always seem to get overlooked by spectators caught up in the relentless Pierre-Antoine / Decamps battle: Felipe Telona and Carolina Orlovsky-Telona.

Have fun!

Sorry it took me so long to get this post up — last two days were stupidly busy, partly because of my ridiculous obsession with my face — but more about that in a minute…

Anyway, so Wednesday night was American Smooth, which I have to confess is my least favorite competition event, at least until J.T. Thomas and Tomas Mielnicki began dancing about a year ago. So, I’m obviously very happy they won. And I thought their showcase routine was lovely — actually, I recognized it from the RHYTHM OF LOVE show that I saw in Connecticut; it was the “At the Ballet” number where they feigned performing on a stage for the show’s main characters, their dancing leading to the boy’s obsession with learning to dance himself. It reminded me of something one of my favorite Standard couples — Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — would do; a traditional ballroom dance but with some lovely lifts and a little storyline to elevate it to something more than just a group routine. I loved it.

This, to me, is in contrast to Eddie Stutts and Valentina, whom co-host Ron Montez was going nuts over. I didn’t think much of their showcase though. Their routine was just basic ballroom, something they could have done during the group dances, albeit without the very few lifts they threw in; a showdance needs to be more than that — that’s why it’s called a showdance. JT and Tomas’s had character, passion — they acted.

Oh and I loved Steven Doughtery and Eulia Baranovky’s tribute to Fred and Ginger (pictured above, image taken from ABC website). I’ve liked this couple, who unfortunately are retiring this year, for a while now, and am sorry the judges haven’t. They never seem to place them very high. That’s how it goes with ballroom though … sometimes you just can’t make sense of the judges. So I was beyond thrilled to see them win the showdance. That routine was full of class and sass and loads of character; I loved everything from how they held their arms, to their little tap-dancing hops (reminding me of Rita Hayworth when she would dance with Astaire), to her gorgeous dress. They really were like Fred and Ginger brought back to life. I’ll miss them, but what a perfect showdance to end your competitive career on.

The rest of the showdances I wasn’t tremendously impressed with. I thought Tony Scheppler and Tonja Martin’s hip hop routine was interesting, combining as it did two starkly different dances (Latin and hip hop wouldn’t have been such a contrast). I thought the judges should have scored them higher, both for the originality and for doing pretty well with both styles. I don’t understand why the judges liked Mazen Hamza and Irina Sarukhanyan. Their routines are often odd, but unlike last year’s martial arts-inspired number, this leopard-clad animalistic thing didn’t make much sense nor did it involve anything very difficult.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see much of the group heats. The camera caught the dancers from very odd angles, often getting way too much of the audience in the shot, cutting off our view of the dancers’ legs — kind of important in dance… The group comps never come across that well on film; you kind of need to be there to experience its unique thrill. But I still think the camera person could do better. There’s nothing like sitting near the dance floor and watching the dancers twirl by you. I would like to see what that would look like on film: just having the camera person sitting at the edge of the floor and capturing whatever happens to fly by.

Next week is a most raucous event: American Rhythm. Showdown time!! (I’ll post more when it gets nearer)

Okay, on to other dance-TV matters. Well, I am extremely excited to announce that I will be writing about the thriving TV dance scene for The Huffington Post! As soon as my blog is up in their Entertainment Section, I’ll be posting about the TV shows there, and of course everytime I post there, I’ll put a link to it here.

Which brings me to my face obsession. My future editor needed a little picture to accompany the column, and not being a pro dancer or actor or anything, I don’t have a real head shot. So I had to do the homemade version, which I’m more comfortable with than having them professionally done anyway — I can be in control of myself. Of course it took me all night Wednesday night, trying to attain: the perfect background, the perfect camera angle, the perfect distance of the lens from my face, the perfect tilt of the head, the perfect smile (not too much so as to look like a goof but not too little so as to look like I have a rod up my backside), the perfect degree of widened eyes — seriously, I either looked like I was on some serious Speed or had just smoked a load of Pot. I would finally get a decent shot only to discover my bra strap was clearly visible. I guess these would be the reasons for having a professional… Yesterday, I forced myself to decide on a few. I downloaded them to the computer, obsessed over which one looked the best both in large and small (the headshots on the site are TINY, but still, I needed to send the picture in its original size so they could downsize it and crop it up however they liked and couldn’t bear to send regular-sized photo in which I looked hideous). I finally chose one and was about to send it off when I did a test run first and sent it to myself. I clicked on the attachment, hit open, and was faced with the biggest flipping representation of my face I’d ever come into contact with. I scrolled this way and that, viewing my face in all its various parts. When I scrolled down to my mouth area, I was shocked to find: MOUSTACHE!!!! Plain as day, there it was. I honestly never knew I had it. And it was dark — jet black. I sprinted to the bathroom, searched the cabinet for tweezers and began plucking around, feeling nothing, seeing nothing.

Later I met Ariel for a celebratory pig-fest at Magnolia Bakery (she just landed a most excellent gig covering the upcoming Fashion Week for an online magazine — go Ariel!). But we had to find another place in the area since blasted Magnolia STILL doesn’t have their sit-down area ready! What is up with them?! Who gets take-out cupcakes??? The whole point of having a dining establishment in NY is for people to dine there! It’s the dead of winter; who can take their cupcake outside and eat it on the bench or at the Lincoln Center fountain?! Have the owners no sense????? Anyway, we found a nice cozy little cafe called The Muffins Cafe just down the street, and substituted our cupcakes for chocolate croissants.

As soon as she got herself situated at the table, I spit out, “Okay, be honest. Am I in denial? Do I have a moustache? Be honest!”

“What? No,” she giggled.

“I can’t see it at all; can’t even feel it, but according to my camera it’s there!”

“Oh you mean when you downloaded and viewed it full-size on the screen,” she laughed. “Yeah, that magnifies everything. Don’t do that, especially with a portrait!”

Oh.

“Everyone has weird flaws!” she laughed shaking her head like I was a goof for not knowing this, which I guess I did; I just don’t obsess over anyone else’s. She told just to downsize it before sending it, at least a little.

“But then, can’t the editor blow it back to its original? I blabbered.

“Er, I don’t think he has time for that,” she said.

True.

Anyway, I am really excited to write about dance for such a large audience, most of which may not have much exposure. As I said, I’ll link to the blog column when it’s up and running! For now, here’s an article I wrote for Explore Dance about the various TV shows (at least the ones on network TV).

Tonight, Wednesday the 30th, America’s Ballroom Challenge begins. PBS 8 p.m.! Check here for local listings.

(image from ABC website)

For America’s Ballroom Challenge 2008! The show will air five Wednesdays in a row from January 30th through February 27th, 8-9 EST on PBS. This year there are two new hosts: replacing Marilu Henner and Tony Meredith are Jasmine Guy (remember her from The Cosby Show?) and many-times champ Ron Montez. If you’ve missed the past two years, each night of this show (filmed live at the Ohio Star Ball held in Columbus in November — probably the largest and most popular ballroom competition in the country) will consist of a different ballroom style danced at the American comps: American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin (woo hoo), and the final night will be a “best of the best” competition among the four winners of each style, dancing two unique solos.

To me, highlights this year will be Katusha Demidova in Standard dancing with her new partner, Arunas Bizokas, as well as the newly-crowned U.S. National champs in Smooth (the smashing JT Thomas & Tomasz Mielnicki) and Rhythm (Jose DeCamps & Joanna Zacharewicz; this category is always a huge show-down though thanks to DeCamps & Zacharewicz, and the wild and spectacular Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine & Julia Gortchakova). Unfortunately, we’re not going to get a shot of my favorite Yulia Zagoruychenko in Latin, since she was, at the time of that competition, just beginning a new partnership. Still, watch Latin for longtime champs Andrei Gavriline & Elena Kruychkova and two couples who are solidly on the way up: Delyan Terziev & Boriana Deltcheva, and new favorites of mine: Vaidotas Skimelis & Jurga Pupelyte. I’ll post again closer to January 30th in reminder, but for now, go here for deets. (It doesn’t look the PBS channel is updated yet for this year’s show, but once it is, it should be here).

Over the weekend, I watched Mark Morris’s Mozart Dances, filmed for TV and shown as part of PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center. I actually watched the tape I made of it three times, plus I’d also seen it live last year. Doug Fox was very disappointed with the televised filming; visit his blog for some interesting commentary. Also, as I’d linked to earlier, read Apollinaire’s article for more on the filming aspect of the program, and an interview with the filmmaker.

Before turning to the filming, I briefly want to give my two cents on the dance itself. I’m not a huge fan of contemporary Mark Morris. I’ve skimmed Joan Acocella’s book on him and wish like anything I would have been able to see Strip Tease and some of his earlier, more iconoclastic work from the 80s when he was a young upstart. Now, it seems like he’s toning it down. My first thought on seeing the program was that it was too slow and repetitive, making it long-winded and a bit tedious. But each time I watched, I liked it more and more and saw more of the things Acocella had written about, just in subtler form. (Go here for her current New Yorker article on this piece). One of the ways in which the dance is broken down is by gender, as Alastair Macaulay noted in the Times. The first movement is danced almost entirely by women, the second by men, the third by both together. In the first, the women, as Macaulay also noted, look very weighted and “flat footed.” The men in the second act (my favorite), in contrast, look light and feathery. This is the opposite of course of classical ballet, where the ballerina on pointe looks poetic floating about in the air and the grounded man is her support, her connection to the earth. So to an extent this is the usual Morris turning those gender assumptions on their heads.

And he does it well: during the part of the first act’s piano concerto where the music sounds like a lullaby, the women, wearing these almost dominatrix-looking black costumes — black bra and underwear with diaphonous black chiffon gown hanging from the bottom of the bra to the knee — do not tiptoe around in a circle all willowy and delicate, but brashly stomp forward, arms swinging front to back as if in a march. Hardly the maternal ideal. During the men’s portion, at one point, the men, wearing blousy, billowing white shirts, dance in a circle as well. But their dance is quite different; it’s light and lyrical, poetic, like a Balanchine ballet. But where Balanchine would have pretty ballerinas with long flowing blonde hair bouncing around, playfully holding hands with each other, raising arms, and inviting a dancer through their arc, Morris’s dancers do the same but the whole look is altered because they are men. Or is it? What is femininity and why does gender matter in dance? Maybe it doesn’t. And I love Joe Bowie, the main soloist in the men’s section. I love that the man who, at least to me, represents Mozart himself is an urbane black guy dressed in hipply ripped black conductor’s jacket and black spandex bike shorts. Morris definitely challenges gender and race assumptions, though it’s rather pathetic that they still need to be challenged. And the costumes were simply superb.

Also, Morris is known for being a very “musical” choreographer, meaning what exactly? He works with the music well? To me, his dance is almost a contradiction of the music. His dancers’ movement is very modern, yet the music is obviously classical. Also as Macaulay notes, Mozart has a lot of beautiful lyrical flourishes in his compositions. Morris doesn’t seem to follow those by creating his own lyrical poetic flourishes; the dancing instead is rather intentionally mundane, earthy. There’s no virtuosity either (big leaps, multiple pirouettes and fouette turns, etc.) Which is part of why Morris doesn’t thrill me. Cool costumes, evocativeness and assumption-questioning aside, to me the whole thing generally dragged and there didn’t seem to be any climactic arcs or discernable overall themes.

Interestingly Morris says during his interview segment of the show, that he doesn’t like “poses;” he finds the steps in between poses to be “the dancing.” I guess that’s what I’m missing here. Of course that’s what Ballet and Latin are all about, so call me shallow, or bun-brain or Latin girl or whatever, but I’m for the poses. Of course getting from one pose to another easily is what dancing is all about and it’s necessary to make smooth transitions. [In my own dancing I concentrate so much on the pose -- the arabesque (one leg lifted in back), the develope (slow, unfolding delicate kick), or how my body looks in position in a lift, that I forget to think about getting into the position in the first place. The result: I look like crap on my way into a lift, etc. But I think this is common among students / amateurs, and I'm learning... ] In any event, watching my Morris tape a few times, though, the dance has grown on me a lot, so maybe if I kept watching it would continue to do more for me.

So, the film aspect. Funny but I felt the exact opposite of Doug. I didn’t think the camera did enough, had enough of a point of view. I was glad that, for once during a full-length concert dance performance, someone didn’t simply plop a tripod at the edge of the stage and hit ‘record’; the camera-operator actually had an opinion, told the viewer where to look. The camera would at times home in on one dancer, either his or her entire body or just torso, then would pan out to the ensemble. At times it would follow a dancer or smaller group of dancers, excluding perhaps things happening at the other end of the stage. These were all reasons Doug gave for disliking it; I felt that this was too rarely done, and when done was still too lacking in focus. When the camera homed in on a dancer’s upper body, it did a half-assed job; if you want to humanize the dancer, make people relate to him or her, get a close up of the person’s face. It doesn’t have to stay there long, but a few close-ups go a long way. The eyes are the window to the soul, you know.

And you can’t just focus the camera in and out without playing with angles. Everything here was a straight shot. Forgive me, by the way, for not knowing correct film terminology; I know what I mean, but don’t know if I am expressing it right because I have no film-making (only extensive film-viewing ) background. For example, when some of the dancers were doing pirouettes, do a close-up of that dancer and angle the camera so that it’s focusing on the dancer at a diagonal. It makes the dancer look superhuman, like s/he has miraculous balance and it’s really cool. And, like with those little wrist-flourishes the dancers were doing, home up really closely and find a better shot — maybe of the wrist coming toward the camera — to make it look multi-dimensional or something. And, as I said, unfortunately, there were no big jumps and leaps here, but if there were, have the camera underneath the dancer. This emphasizes the majesty of the height and showcases the dancer’s musculature. Generally, it always heroizes the subject to have the camera focused upward at him / her — so this could have been done at any point, with pirouettes, etc. Conversely, if you want to highlight a dancer’s vulnerability, create poignancy or sympathy, do the opposite and place the camera at a downward angle on top of him or her. Also, it would be cool to have, like in those highly successful Anaheim Ballet videos on YouTube, the camera directly behind or immediately next to the dancer so that the viewer would be given a sense of what the dancer sees, during, for example, fast pirouettes.

Of course none of this could be done with the Morris the way it was constructed. To do any of the above, the choreographer would have to work very closely with the filmmaker discussing the most effective correlation of movement and film angles. It would change the entire choreography. This piece was meant for the stage; Morris meant for the audience to come to its own conclusions about its meaning and evocation. He specifically tells us during the interview segment (which I loved — in a way those interviews were the best part), that he directs his dancers not to make any decisions about the emotion of the movement — if a movement is fast, dance it fast, not happy; if it’s slow, dance it slowly, not sad. So, he certainly wouldn’t want the filmmaker intruding on the audience’s turf either. Which is largely why this didn’t work for me. You can’t effectively film a play made for theater for the same reasons you can’t film a dance made for the stage. You can obviously create a film version of a play, a film version of a dance, but they are versions, not the same exact thing placed on film. Film is a completely different animal than live theater and it must be treated as such for it to be effective, exciting, and garner a good-sized audience.

I mean, I’m glad that this film exists and that I have it taped; I can now watch it repeatedly and gain more appreciation for Morris. I’m just saying that I doubt that anyone new to dance was blown away by it, unlike with SYTYCD. Did anyone else see it?

A few final thoughts. Doug was also annoyed by the film’s flashing to musician Emmanuel Ax, playing piano, or to the conductor. I actually liked this because I felt it gave the viewer an idea of the whole performance with all of its various elements. The conductor and musicians are part and parcel of a live performance. Plus, I loved the music so much, I wanted to see who was responsible for it! I also liked the interviews with Ax and Morris. I like that Ax mentioned that he had a camera on the piano so he could see the dancers as well. Sometimes, when I’m at the ballet and I’m lucky and have a seat up close and central where I get a good view of the conductor, I like watching how he relates to the dancers, if at all. Sometimes it seems that the conductor doesn’t even look up onstage, which can result in music played way too fast, not giving the dancers sufficient time to get where they need to go or to act something out fully in a dramatic ballet. And the interview with Morris: it’s always fun to hear a choreographer talk about his work. Always! I also liked the behind-the-curtain shots, though I don’t know if anyone noticed them but me. I love how some of the dancers just collapsed after that curtain went down! And, when Sam Waterson (did his voice seem shaky and nervous or was it just me?) gave his opening remarks, it was prior to the curtain going up, so we got to see dancers warming up and talking and planning, maybe giving each other little pep talks. That was quite fun too!

I would have liked to have seen some interviews with the dancers as well. One of the reasons these shows — SYTYCD and Dancing With the Stars — are so popular (I know, some of us have had this discussion before with America’s Ballroom Challenge), is that the competitors are portrayed as not ‘just’ dancers, but real people to whom everyone can relate. Little background stories are given — where the dancers are from, how they fell in love with dance, etc., little interviews, little clips of them in rehearsal trying to learn choreography, sometimes struggling with it (again, something we all can relate to), having their own hurdles to overcome — it’s all part of what makes the dancers, and therefore the dance, come alive to us. Mark Morris after all isn’t performing, his dancers are! They could have at least had interviews with Bowie and Lauren Grant, the two main soloists, or we could have heard the dancers talking with Morris during the segment where he is shown instructing them.

Okay, that’s all I can think of, for now…

April had recently asked me where she could get a video of the Dance Times Square showcase I’d blogged about earlier containing Pasha and Anya’s brilliant performances. I directed her to contact the studio itself, as they usually have a professional videographer at the showcase. However, the videos have in prior years included only the student showcases, presumably to prevent choreography-stealing. But, in the last couple of showcases the student performances have been so interspersed with the professionals’ that the videographer has just included them all on the DVD. Anyway, if anyone contacts DTS about the videos, just make sure you ascertain that Pasha and Anya’s pro showcases are on there! Don’t worry; they won’t mind if you ask — they understand!

It occurred to me, though, that there are other places you can find videos of Pasha and Anya dancing, along with other stars of the dancesport world Two years ago, in May 2005, they competed at the Blackpool Dance Festival in England and placed second in the Professional Latin Rising Star category . Quasar Videos makes DVDs of three of the competitions that take place there each year: the Professional, Amateur, and Professional Rising Star. I found the 2005 Pro Rising Star on this website. You can probably order directly from Quasar as well. They’re expensive though (I think they’re around $100). These are live filmed ballroom competitions, so all of the finalists are on the floor at once — they’re not individual showcases like on SYTYCD. But, for people who’ve never seen one, these ballroom competitions are so cool! And Anya had THE most gorgeous costumes that year — one white, one black! It’s too bad that they don’t include all of the competitions on one DVD (meaning Professional and Rising Star Pro) because you’d get to see all of the most awesome dancers (like my loves Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov ). But you will still see some breathtaking ballroom dancing — both Latin and Standard.

They also competed in the Ohio Star Ball two years ago (2005), and that was filmed and shown on PBS as “America’s Ballroom Challenge.” If you missed that earlier competition when it aired on PBS (it was from 2005, not last year — they had to miss last year because of an illness), you may be able to purchase a DVD of it through PBS or ABC. If you’re able to get a hold of that one, you will witness how popular Pasha and Anya are with the dancesport crowd. People were NOT happy when they didn’t take one of the first three spots — even Marilu Henner (host) remarked to Tony Meredith (co-host), “wow, this is the most passionate reaction we’ve seen all night!” Annoyingly (I was obviously there that year), the producers did a bunch of “sound clips” — I don’t know if that’s the proper term, but they had a judge walk around the floor while the audience first was completely silent, then on her second walk we all chattered, then on her third we screamed and cheered like a bunch of lunatics. So, when they edited, they took out the fans wildly screaming, “Pasha” “Anya” “Pasha and Anya,” during the comp and replaced it with the quiet sound clip! Anyway, good thing about that competition is that it includes all of the top Latin dancers in the country, such as Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, and Yulia Zagoruychenko and Max Kozhevnikov.

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hope this helps!

Also, don’t forget about the petition

Very exciting (but very tiring) weekend, nearly all of which was spent at this, the biggest and best of all local (ie: Mid-Atlantic region) competitions! Thanks to the retirements of the two top couples in American Smooth and American Rhythm, we now have two new champions in those divisions. Above are the new champs of Smooth, Eulia Baranovsky and Steven Doughtery. Below are the newly crowned King and Queen of Rhythm, Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps.

So often with Ballroom competitions, the same people win over and over and over again, making the dancing itself always spectacular but the results a complete bore if not outright annoyance (if your favorite happens not to be the one who ad nauseam places first). So this year’s dual retirements (Ben and Shalene Ermis in Smooth, and now permanent DANCING WITH THE STARS fixtures Tony Dovolani and Elena Grinenko in Rhythm), made for a couple of very nail-bitingly intense nights all the way up to the 1:00 a.m. trophy presentations.

Above is, awww, my personal faves for Rhythm, second-place couple Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine and his new partner, Julia Gorchakova. Actually, Rhythm this year was a particularly loony soap opera. Ever since I first began coming to this competition, three years ago now, I’ve noticed the Rhythm championship is by far the most raucous of all four categories. Especially during the last of the Rhythm dances, Mambo, when the crowd is just going wild screaming and cheering on their favorite couples so loudly, you can hardly hear the music.

(If you know nothing of Ballroom, and actually care to know , let me just briefly lay out the blueprint of an American competition: There are four main categories (each of which includes separate competitions for professionals, amateurs, and pro/ams, where students compete with their teachers — the kind I used to do when I still had a bank account ):

1) American Smooth (couples compete in 4 dances: Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, and Viennese Waltz);

2) American Rhythm (5 dances: Cha Cha, Rumba, Swing, Bolero, and Mambo);

3) International Standard (5 dances: Waltz, Slowfox, Viennese Waltz, Tango, and Quickstep); and

4) International Latin (5 dances: Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, and Jive).

So, back to the Rhythm drama. The crowd favorite has been, for a long time, this couple (pictured below in last year’s National competition: Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine and Joanna Zacharewicz):

For whatever reason, and I don’t want to get into gossip over who initiated and why, they broke up. And with that break-up, fan loyalties were torn asunder, oh no! Emmanuel teamed up with former, longtime Rhythm champion Julia Gorchakova, who, with her former partner, retired a couple of years ago but apparently came out of retirement just for him. And Joanna managed to snag the very cute and rather celebrity-esque, Jose DeCamps, who formerly danced with probably the most famous of the DWTS pro dancers, Cheryl Burke. I haven’t seen Jose before and I’m thinking he retired after Cheryl began her TV stint, and likewise emerged from retirement for Joanna, but I’m not completely sure; he may just have been partnerless.

Well, my heart was with Emmanuel, for reasons I’ll get to in a second, but I just have to say I can completely see why Jose has the fan base he does. He just exudes safe, strong, warm Latin guy, kinda like a certain favorite ballet dancer

But my loyalties must remain with Emmanuel! Before he left my old studio, I took a few lessons with him, and he was one of the best, most technique-focused teachers I’ve ever had. I wrote about this before (but it was before anyone ever read my blog ), but he used to do this thing where he’d start us out with a completely boring salsa basic. I guess just having seen so much ballet, I’m always trying to “fly” as he calls it; I have no connection with the floor basically. It looks like ballet dancers are connecting with the air, not the ground, especially the ballerinas, so that was my aim of course. “Woman! The only reason you’re still upright is because you’re so light!” he’d cry out in his Haitian accent when I’d try a double spin and nearly fall. “All dancers know where the floor is at all times; even ballet dancers,” he’d rant on. Then, he’d close his eyes take me into a closed hold (guy’s right hand on girl’s back shoulder blade, girl’s left hand on top of his shoulder and free hands clasped together) and tell me to visualize myself connecting with the floor. And the freaky thing is, he’d have this uncanny way of being able to tell how well I was mentally connecting to the floor just by feeling my frame. He could honestly tell, with his eyes closed, whether my mind as wandering (thinking, for ex., ‘can’t we do something beyond a stupid salsa basic’), or whether I was concentrating on the floor beneath my feet. And he was always right on the mark about where my mind was. Weird. Anyway, in addition to being an excellent teacher, he’s a genuinely nice guy. He always goes out of his way to say hello to me at all the big competitions, even though he is really a kind of “star” in the ballroom world, and he’d always tell me I did well in a showcase (though I knew it wasn’t true!) Oh, and he’s also an amazingly awesome dancer! Focused on technique though he is in his own lessons, he really puts on a show like no one else. His choreography is so mad fun, his style so wild, he and Joanna were often called upon to perform showdances, for example, on last year’s America’s Ballroom Challenge, and last season’s DWTS.

And what a riotious show-down it was Sunday night! Both Jose and Joanna and Emmanuel and Julia really danced their hearts out. As my friend pointed out to me, the judges’ faces kept seesawing between the two, stopping to focus on absolutely no one else on the floor. “How are they going to decide who comes in third, fourth, and fifth?” she said.

The fun / intensity / melodrama — however you prefer to see it — of this competition is that it’s the biggest in the area, and one in which all of the top couples compete. Many see it as a forecast of what’s going to happen — who’s going to take tops — at Nationals in Florida, coming up in September.

No surprises in International-Style.

Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruychkova won in International Latin.

And the always glorious Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova in Standard. My favorite Standard couple has long been Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed, below.

But, actually, the more I see of Jonathan and Katusha, the more I hear Jonathan lecture on the art of Ballroom dance at Blackpool and the way his love of the sport / art really shines through, and the more I really watch them closely and realize their technical brilliance, the more he really is growing on me. I think sometimes, Englishmen can seem distant and aloof at first. But he really does seem to appreciate his fans and the applause they get, weaker than that received by Victor and Anna. And his dimpled Ralph Fiennes smile is starting to be a familiar staple of my whole ballroom experience, an essential part of that world that just whisks me away whenever I go to these big competitions. And the more I see them dance, I do see why, though Victor and Anna are the king and queen of charm, the more I understand why Jonathan and Katusha are number one in the country for several years in a row now and practically number one in the world. Some of the things they do, while not so flashy, are very difficult. I love it when he takes her out to the center of the floor during Waltz and they’ll do reverse turns for over a minute. Those are not only absolutely beautiful, but so hard to sustain that momentum and maintain that precise footwork for so long — far longer than the other couples — without getting dizzy, especially for the woman since you really have no way of spotting, and you’re just turning and turning and turning.

Okay, Latin, the other melodrama, this one never-ending:

Above is the eternally second-place couple, Max Kozhnevnikov and the absolutely divine Yulia Zagorouychenko, by far the crowd favorite, which, believe me, becomes all too obvious with the loud, rather nasty boos of disappointment when Max and Yulia are called runners-up. I always feel sorry for Andrei and Elena when that happens, because the crowd is booing, by extension, their winning. Funny thing is: while the U.S. judges continuously mark Andrei and Elena number one, the World judges repeatedly place Max and Yulia well above Andrei and Elena. In fact, Max and Yulia made finals at Blackpool this year. The U.S. judges insist Andrei and Elena’s technique is perfect and will say no more. But the World judges insist otherwise, showing, excuse me, but how full of absolute dog crap ballroom judges can be.

Anyway, for me, my ideal partership (of the American couples anyway) would actually be Andrei with Yulia. I’ve honestly never seen anyone (of the Americans anyway) move the way Andrei does. He is a tall thin man who just flies across that floor seemingly at lightening speed, light as a feather, and his hips, legs, and feet just a blur. He used to give privates at my studio, and before I knew who he was, I saw him show a student a backwards three Cha chas– a very rudimentary, first-level step. I’d never seen anyone do a basic step like that. My heart dropped. I realized then good dancing is not about fancy steps, but about the way the basics are executed. I remember thinking, wow, this guy should compete. Stupid. Then, I saw him on the cover of Dancesport mag and realized, dur, he’s the national champion. My problem with his partnership with Elena (his wife) is that, a former gynmast, she’s so teeny tiny; he must be nearly a foot taller. Not only do they look a bit odd together, but sometimes it throws them off. Last year at the Ohio Star Ball (aka: “America’s Ballroom Challenge” in its televised incarnation), they lost a normally easily-maintained connection, likely because his arm was just too high to hold her properly.

And Yulia! Yulia Zagorouychenko is probably my favorite of all female Latin dancers, excepting Karina Smirnoff who (also now a mainstay on DWTS), hasn’t competed in a while. Not to sound silly, but to me, Yulia is like the Alessandra Ferri of Latin — she’s a true artist. She moves in wholly unique ways, creating shapes with her body that are completely her own. She’ll go nearly on pointe in those open-toed sandals in Rumba, thrusting her hips foreward and rounding her shoulder blades so that she looks, cooly, like a cobra or something. I worry that she’s going to get serious bone spurs on her toes by the time she’s in her thirties with that on pointe on a hard-wood floor in open-toed shoes, but right now it looks absolutely gorgeous. I feel that sometimes Max, as much of a little cutie as he is, and as creative as he is with their choreography, just doesn’t really share her artistic brilliance.

So, it’s funny because, well, at one point on Saturday night, the two couples were dancing very closely to one another. I think the dance was Rhumba. I was focused on the couple right in front of me, another favorite, the breathtaking Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva, when all of a sudden the crowd began going wild. I looked further out onto the floor to see that Andrei and Max had exchanged partners– particularly cute, and demonstrating very good sportsmanship given the rivalry. Max went to dip Elena and she jumped up and wrapped both legs around his back. Lifts are strictly forbidden in non-showcase competition, but of course it was a moment of goofiness, and therefore, forgiven. Silly as she was trying to be, I was amazed at how good they actually looked together; their small bodies were a perfect match for each other. And then I looked at Andrei and Yulia — he was doing this crazy dip with her and it looked so amazingly stunning. Then she stood up and placed her arms around his neck. She’s a lot taller than Elena and they looked absolutely gorgeous together. Powerhouse couple that would be!

Anyway, here are some more highlights:

Delyan and Boriana, as I mentioned above, one of my favorites artistically. They’re a tall, thin, long-limbed couple and their Rhumba looks almost Balletic. She looks like an inky black spider!

They’re at the same level as my dear beloved Pasha and Anya (who didn’t compete, as they are a little busy with something else at the moment!!!), the two usually duke it out for fourth or fifth place — way too low for both couples. Strange how I always seem to champion the underdogs…

A Smooth couple I like, J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki. They always dance with a lot of pizazz, and always do a very sexy foxtrot. I think they placed third. She makes her own dresses, and she usually comes up with something just bedazzling. How gorgeous is that color!!! (Sorry for all the zombie-looking eyes, by the way. I need a new camera!)

Matt and Karen Hauer, a sweet, newlywed Rhythm couple. They started off their Mambo routine very cutely: he took one look at her and broke into a series of small jumps, as if to say how wowed he was at her. She watched in amusement, then he grabbed her hand and they took off.

Another shot of Jose DeCamps and Joanna Zacharewicz in Rhythm. Jose really is a charmer.

Katusha’s little sister, Anna Demidova and her partner, Igor Mikushov, who placed first in Amateur Standard. They competed in Blackpool as well, and placed very high there too. Promising future those two.

The always lovely (and very photogenic) Anna Trebunskaya (if name sounds familiar, she too has danced with stars; that sports star Jerry Rice, to be exact). She has a new partner, Pasha Barsuk (oh no, another “Pasha and Anna”!!) and they did very well for a new partnership, placing 5th in Latin. Good for her

One last thing: the throng of spectators was absolutely huge, as you can kind of see here with onlookers anxiously awaiting Victor and Anna’s slowfox. Latin was about ten times worse than Standard though; you really could hardly move on Saturday night, and I’m sure the crowd standing, of necessity since there was nowhere else to go, around the exit, was a borderline fire hazzard. Blackpool was crazy packed this year too. Attendees at ballroom competitions used to consist mainly of friends and family (and the few students) of the competitors, a crowd that could easily fit at the several tables encircling the dance floor. But the more popular dancesport is becoming, the more of a spectator sport it really is. I think they’re going to need to find a new venue for some of those more popular competitions and put up some serious risers. At least for Latin…

Anyway, here are more photos in the album. It’s not finished yet, as I have yet to match some names with faces, and some names are horrifically misspelled, so please bear with me until the weekend when I have more time for fix-ups.

Okay Doug Fox came to NYC this weekend and, being the amazingly sweet guy he is, helped me figure out how to embed YouTube videos in my crazy blog. Wordpress is officially a pain in the butt… Anyway, if this works, here are two of my favorite U.S. Latin dancers doing their Samba from last year’s Ohio Star Ball / America’s Ballroom Challenge.

Note: I had to end up deleting this post because it made my blog all crazy-looking. Methinks Wordpress does not take kindly to YouTube…

This evening, after work, I went out to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, to visit Latin / Ballroom costume-maker extraordinare, Valentina.

It’s so far out there for me and always seems like such a long way from Manhattan, but occasionally it’s a fun, sometimes even relaxing ride on the subway, which goes above-ground after Park Slope.

Here’s sweet little house kitty, Tosha, napping on a bed of fabrics.

Saw this hanging on Valentina’s wall: it’s a picture of my very first Latin teacher, Kelvin Roche, and his partner, Lori Ann Greenhouse, world Hustle champs for a few years in a row now. They had their costumes done by Valentina.

So, I gave Valentina this picture to show her what I was thinking of for my foxtrot costume:

She asked what color I was thinking and before I answered, she just started laughing. I’m so predictable… can’t help it; I just always want red. It’s just so happy and cheery and bright and rosy and … red…

Kelvin

So, we chose this fabric (she always gives me a swatch so I can show it to the teacher) for the main bodysuit, and then she’s gonna find matching chiffon for the skirt.

Before we started talking about the actual costume design, though, Valentina took one frowning up and down look at me and said, “Tonya, I think I need to do measurement again.” Geez, is it that frigging obvious??? In addition to the late-night fries and martinis with Alyssa, I think it may be my recent reversion to my childhood comfort food:

Mexican; can’t help it — I grew up on it and just love it, especially when I’m a bit nervous about stuff, which I have been lately… Okay, no more beans, no more tortillas, and no more french fries (don’t think I can say no more martinis and red wine ) until after early May…

Sorry I’m so photo-happy today; I think it’s because my brain hurts from working on a crazy hard brief all day… just don’t have the energy to make lots of words … so am making pictures instead…

Got home just in time for Dancing With the Stars. I was happy they had a re-cap tonight because I had to miss it last night for a late dance lesson. Karina’s Paso cracked me up, in a good way. I feel like she said to herself, “Okay, I’m tired of dancing with amateurs. I’m a pro and am going to dance like one, dammit. If I have to lift myself and carry myself all over the floor, I’m damn well going to do it!” And she did — she just flew; and he wasn’t doing a whole lot to help her! Go Karina! And I LOVE the way she does those upper-body isolations in Paso. She just simply rocks. She MAKES that show if you ask me.

And I was also happy that Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova performed. I was complaining last week that they didn’t have the top couples demonstrating the moves, so am very happy they had the country’s top Latin couple give a sample Samba. Although… I kind of wish they’d have used Andrei and Elena to demonstrate something else, and had Max Kozhnevnikov and Yulia Zagorouitchenko do the sample Samba because those two are really the king and queen of that dance. Until my web guy can set up my blog so it can embed YouTube links, click here for Terpsichore’s posting of Max and Yulia’s butt-kicking Samba, performed at last year’s Ohio Star Ball / America’s Ballroom Challenge. I don’t really know that anyone does ballroom Samba like they do.

Also, while I think Andrei and Elena have near perfect technique, for some reason they just don’t have a lot of showmanship in their routines. I don’t know what it is; can’t put my finger on it, but they’re just not a couple that reaches out and grabs your attention. Andrei is a gorgeous dancer; has a long thin body that can move in Latin like no other, but you don’t really see it unless you see him dance alone, and, perhaps in person. He blew me away the first time I saw him do a very simple basic three chas step in Cha Cha; I couldn’t take my eyes off him dancing alone and in the studio, but I don’t see him so much when he’s out on the floor with all the others and on TV. Still, so bizarre to see someone you kind of know on TV — I mean on a big huge poppy show!

Speaking of which … one of my friends told me at the studio last night that a couple of our good friends there are trying out for the show So You Think You Can Dance. Apparently, they’ve made the first two cuts, which are underway right now. The show premieres at the end of May. I’m so excited! I hope so much they make it — these two are such fascinating, fun, sexy, charismatic dancers with excellent Latin technique; ideal representatives from the world of ballroom And, I just can’t imagine watching my friends on TV like that — so surreal!

Oh one more thing I was thinking about Dancing With the Stars: I also liked how the judges went into a bit of detail on what it is that makes a dancer good, both in terms of overall ballroom technique (and dance technique in general for that matter) and for each individual dance. I think it helps to direct viewers’ attention more toward the actual dancing and away from the popularity contest of it all…

Also, I went to Lincoln Center early this morning to get a few tickets for New York City Ballet’s upcoming season, which begins at the end of this month. It was pretty quiet out on the plaza so early… According to Oberon, yesterday, when the box office first opened for Spring season sales, there was a pretty long line. But today, the only other person there was this Santa Claus-y-looking guy waiting to get a standing-room ticket to tonight’s opera…

Anyway, I got tickets for the opening night on May 1st, when the premier of Peter Martins’ Romeo and Juliet will take place — premieres are ALWAYS exciting! , and one for the farewell performance of retiring ballerina Krya Nichols. I think both are selling out quickly, so if you’re thinking of going, buy now! Visit their website to buy tickets here.

So, Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova are the America’s Ballroom Challenge Champions!! The top photo, by the way, is copyright of Jeffrey Dunn for WGBH, from the America’s Ballroom Challenge website. I couldn’t be happier for them. For the first time, I absolutely fell in love with their dancing, while watching them during this competition. I have always championed the couple I call the underdogs of Standard, Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed, but here I really saw why Jonathan and Katusha are the reigning U.S. Standard champions and third overall in the world. Though I haven’t studied much Standard and don’t know much about technique in that dance style, I could tell what a perfect connection they had, like they were just made to dance with each other. And they exhibited such class and charm. The way Katusha wore her hair, with her curls bouncing around behind her, particularly during their short number — their swift-footed, gleeful, sweetly flirty Quickstep danced to “It’s Too Darn Hot,” she reminded me so much of Rita Hayworth dancing with Fred Astaire. What sophisticated beauty and grace and elegance. It made me wish the Standard competitors wore their hair down all the time, instead of up in the oftentimes rather severe buns.

Though I’ve liked Latin, watching these two made me feel like Astaire and Hayworth, like class itself, had been brought back into American Dance. I wish Standard was more popular here.

Of course I love Latin. I love Latin primarily because I love learning about the cultures from which the different dance styles originate. I love being exposed to, and learning to ‘feel’ different kinds of music, with the beautiful sounds made by foreign instruments, the mellifluous foreign languages… But too often, I feel that people sexualize Latin dance, and it makes me uncomfortable. Latin dancing is really not about sex. One of my friends from my old studio, Juana, once told me that Rhumba, for example, grew out of slave culture. The Rhumba basic — a step, followed by downward motion of the back shoulder muscle toward the hip, followed by the settling of the body weight into that hip, mirrored the way the slave women who had to carry heavy loads on their shoulders would walk. I love that she taught that to me. It made the Cuban motion so fundamental to Rhumba all the more clear to me. And, I felt like I was having a mini history lesson. Funny thing, Juana wasn’t even a dance instructor, just a very knowledgeable and historically-aware fellow student. In any event, this basic movement is not sexual. Latin dancers in part wear “skimpy” costumes because this isolation of movement of a single part of the body is important to the dance, so the judges must see their backs, hips and rib cages in order to determine whether they are exhibiting proper technique. Not that the costumes can’t ever be called “sexy,” but I feel that sometimes people go too far, and reduce Latin dance to that, and thus reduce Latin dancers to sexualized objects. Sometimes other kinds of dancers can be reduced to sexualized objects as well, and I find this very disturbing. I have a lot more to say about dancers and bodies, but will save that for later. For now, I just want to say congratulations to Jonathan and Katusha for some very beautiful, very inspiring dancing

Oh my gosh, I’ve been so busy trying to get a brief out, uploading photos to my photo page from this past weekend, and having my dance lessons, I haven’t had time yet to blog about my insane, raucous, dance-filled weekend, which I spent literally running back and forth like a crazed nutter between the Roseland Ballroom in midtown, where a small ballroom competition known as the New York Dance Festival was taking place, and Lincoln Center, where the New York City Ballet was having its final performances of the winter season! So, sorry for being so late in getting my pictures of the festival up, but here they are, finally.

I’m very excited because my friend, Mika, won the overall pro/am Latin championships!!! Yay, Mika!

Her teacher is the amazing Plamen Danailov, who, with his pro partner, won first place in the pro Latin division! Half Japanese, half Austrian, and raised in Vienna, where ballroom dancing skills are acquired from a very young age, Mika has been dancing ballroom since she was very small, and it really shows. She is such a beautiful dancer, makes long graceful lines, exhibits such elegance in her demeanor and with her costumes, and has a very strong connection with her partner. Watching her really makes me wish dancing was taken more seriously here in the U.S., so that I would have learned from a young age as well.

Placing second in the pro/am Latin was Tessa, with her teacher, Jacob Jason, below. Tessa has only been dancing ballroom for about two years, but she has a ballet background, and in fact was formerly a dancer with the Joffrey Ballet!

Watching Tessa was a real treat too. Oh how I wish I would have taken more ballet as a child…

Elaine!!! Here is one of my friends from my studio, the lovely and talented, Elaine, dancing with her teacher, Jacob, same as Tessa’s. Jacob had about fifty students dancing, I swear! Above she is doing her fun, ‘foxy foxtrot’ showcase, and below, a charming Waltz routine.

Students can compete either in the general group dances, or perform a solo showcase with their teacher. Elaine opted for the showcase, Mika for the general, and Tessa for both. I think if you do the general group dances, you get more time to dance on the floor, especially if you advance to semi-finals and then finals. With a showcase, you’re only on for about two minutes, but you get the whole floor to yourself, and you get to choose your music, and can do more theatrical things, like lifts. In the general group comp, one foot must always be touching the floor, and you share the ballroom with everyone else in your division.

I took several pictures, so you can click here if you want to look at the whole album. Here are some more of my highlights from Sunday though:

Above is another of my friends, Bob, competing in the pro/am with his teacher, Darina, who was wearing just about the sexiest, slinkiest, most gorgeous dress I have ever seen!

Another shot of that dress. And Darina is so beautiful, she can pull it off like no one’s business!

Above is this teacher, whose name I don’t know, but he was very good. He really impressed me, and his student was quite good as well. He reminded me of a young Joaquin Cortes, the famed flamenco dancer.

Some very cute kids competing in the Latin youth.

Ahh! My new Latin crush-object, Nikolai Shpakov! He looked amazing, danced so well and wicked fast with his new partner, who was just lovely. And look at those hot pink shimmies — I so want that costume!!!

Another of Nikolai and THE DRESS!

A competitor in the pro American Smooth Division. Love that arch!

This one’s rather blurry, but it’s the very sweet, always lovely to watch, J.T. Damalas and Tomas Melnicki, who won first place in the pro American Smooth division.

Finally, this pro Latin couple was a lot of fun. I’m not sure who they are, but I think I heard in the introductions that they are from New Jersey. They really knew how to play to a crowd!

So, that was my Sunday. I spent practically all day Saturday with Philip, at the New York City Ballet, watching, amongst other things, Miranda Weese’s last performance with the company before she heads off to Seattle to guest perform with the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Here is an (illegal!) picture I caught of her:

It was so fun, again, to hang out with Philip. He invited me out to dinner with his partner, Wei, and his friend from high school, Deborah. Very nice!

Finally, tonight is the last round of the America’s Ballroom Challenge competition. Since this is not a “real” competition, but is made for TV, I have no idea what to expect. It seems a bit unfair to compare dancers in four completely different dance styles (that’s: American Rhythm, American Smooth, International Latin, and International Standard) with each other, but this show is really promoting ballroom to a larger TV audience, so I am not criticizing one bit! I just don’t know who to predict will win. My favorites are Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruychkova (last year’s champs), but of course they are my faves since I am a Latin girl! Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova (Standard) are the highest-ranked couple in the world of all of the U.S. couples, so they may win. But then Latin seems to be more popular in the U.S., so maybe the Latin couple will win again. Or maybe it’ll be Tony Dovolani and Elena Grinenko, who’ve won audiences over as pro dancers on Dancing With the Stars. Or, maybe it’ll be the underdogs, Ben and Shaleen Ermis in American Smooth. Who knows. We’ll just have to tune in and find out! Check here for local listings, and enjoy!!

Well, tonight is THE night on America’s Ballroom Challenge! It is my personal favorite competition anyway: the highly competitive, raucously fun, always immensely crowd-pleasing International Latin. Last year at the Ohio Star Ball, where America’s Ballroom Challenge is taped, the crowd was just going crazy showing their feelings — screaming the names of their favorites (forget calling out their dancer id numbers — as worn on the man’s back, which the emcee directs them to do, I assume in order to make the dancers feel less like it is personal admiration for one couple, distaste for another), and booing loudly — and angrily– when they don’t place as well as their fans wanted them to.

Tonight will be hotly contested. Above is a picture of Andrei Gavriline, who, with his wife and parter, Elena Kryuchkova, is the current U.S. National Latin Champion, three years in a row now.

BUT, this couple below, the beautiful, petite, Yulia Zagoryuchenko and her playful, entertaining partner, Max Kozhevnikov

may well overtake them. Oddly (some feel anyway), they (Max and Yulia) are currently second in the U.S., yet ranked higher in the World standings than Andrei and Elena. I think Max and Yulia are currently 8 in the world, if I am not mistaken, perhaps 9 after a few notable partner breakups and rearrangements last year altered the world standings a bit, and Andrei and Elena are farther down, past 12th I think. Anyway, it’s interesting that the World judges have consistently felt so differently about these two couples than the U.S. judges, and that has been a source of contention for the past few years amongst the serious fans of Latin, all of whom seem to have a favorite, about whom they are very passionate, to put it mildly! When the winner is announced tonight, there will likely be some kind of outburst, though the sound editor of the show may well cut it out for TV-viewing purposes… We’ll see…

I love both couples, but can’t help be a bit partial to Andrei and Elena. Andrei teaches at my studio, and the first time I ever saw him — when I had no idea who he was — he was teaching Cha Cha to a newish student. He showed her a very simple backward three Chas — three cha chas in a row going backward — a step that is taught in first-level, pre-Bronze classes — a very very simple basic that anyone who has been dancing for a month can do, in other words. But when he did it, he just flew across the floor — and I mean FLEW! It was the most amazing three chas I had ever seen in my life. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him after that. When I later found out he was the national champion, I had to laugh at myself for not knowing. Was kinda proud of myself though for having the sense to recognize flawless technique and star power But, seriously, that experience watching him taught me that it’s not about knowing a bizillion steps that makes you a great dancer; it’s how well you can do the steps. Every teacher worth their salt will tell you that over and over again when you want to advance past the level you’re really ‘at,’ and it sounds like a total cliche, but just watch Andrei do a basic and, believe me, that so-called cliche will really hit home!

Plus, Andrei has such an interesting dancer’s body. He is tall and very thin, and this helps him to move so fast and far,and gives him that light, weightless, “flying across the floor” look. And, not that this has anything to do with being a great dancer, but he is just such a beautiful man: very delicate, Asiatic facial features, very fine-boned — kind of reminds me of Maxim Beloserkovsky, from the American Ballet Theater. And his wife, Elena, has a tiny gymnast body. They are such a contrast, and her smallness makes it look like she is just floating up effortlessly into his arms during their lifts.

On the other hand, Max and Yulia do a fast fast FAST mean-ass Samba that is a real sight to behold!

I have met this couple before at Blackpool and they are the sweetest people. So, I’m rooting for them too! I’m rooting for two couples!

Another favorite couple of mine are Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva.

I think she is such a beautiful dancer, with long limbs and a balletic body that enables her to make gorgeous lines, especially during romantic Rhumba. Sometimes she just looks like a spider! They are a very dramatic couple, putting a lot of character into their dancing, which makes them compelling to watch.

Those are my personal faves anyway. The other couples, whose pictures I’ve taken from ABC’s website, all copyright of Jeffrey Dunn, are:

Ilya Ifraimov and Nadia Goulina

Andre and Natalie Paramonov (whose picture is currently down on the site)

and

Vaidotis Skimelis and Jurga Pupelyte.

Upsettingly, absent, due to Pasha’s illness, are Pavel (Pasha) Kovalev and Anna Garnis, probably the most popular overall with the crowd, judging by all the immensely enthusiastic eardrum-shattering cheers they receive while on the floor. I am still so sad that they had to miss this one. I can’t resist putting up a couple of pictures, taken from the Nationals in Florida last year:

Sorry for the crappy, dark and blurry photos. Hopefully I will get a new camera in time for Blackpool this year!

Tonight on America’s Ballroom Challenge (8 p.m. on Channel 13 in New York, check here for local PBS times) is the Standard competition. In the first part of the competition, the group dance, couples will compete in Waltz, Slowfox, Tango, Viennese Waltz, and (my personal favorite!) — Quickstep. Second half is a showcase in the dance of their choosing. Pictured above are the reigning American champions, Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova. They are also the number three Standard couple in the world, making them the highest-ranked American couple world-wide right now. They are the obvious favorites tonight.

But champion of the underdog am I! So, here is my personal favorite couple, the ever so charming Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed:

I don’t seem to be able to get very good pictures of Standard (the couples fly around the ballroom floor so swiftly!), but here is one from the Manhattan Dancesport Championships last summer. I just adore this couple — they’re so sweet together, so charming, so charismatic. Her dresses are always so classic, so classy — they’re the king and queen of class those two!

And they work so well together, which you have to in Standard. If you aren’t on the very same wavelength as your partner, you’re going to tumble right over each other. If one of you goes down, the partnership goes down. This is one thing I both love and despise about Standard — love to watch it, hate to try it! Your bodies must make a martini-glass shape — which is absolutely beautiful. But so difficult to do. You’re connected from the waist down, and you must maintain that connection at all times, no matter how fast you’re moving, no matter where you go on the floor, through twists and turns and everything; if you lose that hold, it’s all over. And that’s the awesome beauty of Standard to me: the couples really are dancing as one. Nothing tests the strengths of partnership, trust, and lead and follow like Standard. You can’t choreograph your routines for the group dance very well because too many things could happen with all of the couples dancing on the crowded floor — you never know when you’re going to need to change speed or direction because you’re about to slam into another couple (which happens quite often, understandably). So, the man must “drive” (that’s often to me what he looks like he’s doing anyway, judging by facial expressions!) — leading, going forward; the woman reading and following his lead, while going backward, TRUSTING him to watch her back! And it’s so hard to trust — you really want to look behind you, to look out for yourself, but you can’t — you’ll ruin the line, the shape, the look, and of course most importantly the connection.

I just love watching this competition live. The room just becomes a whirl of color with all of the big beautiful ballgowns swirling around the floor. I hope it’ll look comparable on TV.

I don’t know much about the other four couples competing, as I don’t follow Standard all that closely (mainly since I don’t take lessons in it), but, taken from the ABC website, they are:

Giampiero Giannico and Anastasia Murayeva;

Linas Koreiva and Ieva Pauksena;

Igor Litvinov and Julia Ivleva; and

Erminio Stefano and Liene Apale, whom I have seen dance before (and they are a gorgeous couple too) but whom I seem to have no pictures of. All of these photos are copywright of Jeffrey Dunn for WGBH and I’ve linked to them from the ABC website. Anyway, please tune in tonight for the most beautiful of all the ballroom competitions!

Here are some more pictures I’ve taken at various competitions of the two couples who will likely be duking it out for the trophy: Jonathan and Katusha, and Victor and Anna. The ones where the camera is panning down on the dance floor from above were taken at the Blackpool Dance Festival last June — the largest and most prestigious professional ballroom dance competition in the world, held in England yearly in late May / early June. Enjoy!

I love that one of Katusha!

How sweet was Anna’s bluish-green Blackpool dress with the Thirties-style black hat and shawl!

And one last one of Jonathan and Katusha, third overall in Blackpool, top U.S. couple:

  So, tonight is the American Rhythm Championship portion of America’s Ballroom Challenge (for New Yorkers, that’s Channel 13 at 8 p.m.; check here for local PBS times outside of NY).

Although I’m a student of International Latin, this is one of my favorite competitions to watch — at least live. The crowd really goes wild (more so than for the other competitions, for some reason) — there’s so much shouting and cheering for your favorite, and because of that, the dancers really put on quite a show — in addition to exhibiting their brilliant technique to the judges of course!

Above is my own personal favorite, Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine with his partner Joanna Zacharewicz. In addition to their amazing speed and precise footwork, they are great fun to watch because they exude such character in their routines. Before he left my studio to teach elsewhere, I had the very serendipitous opportunity to take a couple of lessons with Emmanuel. I can say, in addition to being a fabulously fun dancer to watch, he is also one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. When I first started, I used to dance primarily on the balls of my feet, rarely putting my heels down. I longed to emulate that light, weightless feathery look of the dancers I so loved. Of course, as a result, I’d frequently lose my balance, especially on turns. Emmanuel taught me really to feel the floor, to connect to the floor more than anything else. I also used to make the stupid mistake of trying to sense the air more than the floor. I know this sounds ridiculous to an experienced dancer, but I think when you’re a beginner, and you go to the ballet (or other dance performances) all the time, it looks like the dancers are just flying through the air, so you tend to want to imitate that in your dancing. But of course they are not connecting to the air since the air can’t support you. “Real dancers ALWAYS knows exactly where the floor is … we need the floor, we are not birds!” he would always say. The bizarre thing is, as a warm up, or sometimes in the middle of the lesson when he could tell I was forgetting to sense the floor, he would stop what we were doing, go into a closely held “closed position” with me, and just make me do salsa basics until he could tell I was back in touch with the floor again. He’d close his eyes, would tell me to feel the floor … not by stomping or dragging my body weight down into it; just by feeling it with my toes. I don’t know how he did it, but whenever I forced myself to feel the floor, simply by focusing my brain down there, he would know it right off. And he’d also know right away if and when I took my mind elsewhere. Weird! Anyway, whenever I see him at competitions, he always goes out of his way to say hello and ask me how I’m doing, how I’m progressing with my dancing. He’s such a great guy! And such an amazing dancer — he totally deserves to win!

However, these two below, are the couple most favored by the powers that be:

They are Tony Dovolani and Elena Grinenko. Tony is probably the most famous ballroom dancer, as he’s been on “Dancing With the Stars” for three seasons now, leading Stacy Keibler to her near victory two seasons ago. He also had a role in the American version of “Shall We Dance,” playing the “mean Latin dancer” who pulls off Stanley Tucci’s wig during the competition. He and Elena are the current reigning American Rhythm champs and will likely win this one as well.

Above is another favorite couple of mine, Felipe Telona and Carolina Orlovsky-Telona. She has an extensive ballet background, and is such a beautiful dancer, making gorgeous lines. And he is a big, handsome guy who just whisks her around the floor. Charming couple!

This is the first year they’ve opened this competition up ‘to the world,’ which means that you don’t have to reside in the U.S. in order to compete. Because of that, and because some couples are no longer competing (sadly, my former teacher, Luis Grijalva and his partner Anya Fuchs), there are some couples who made the finals, whom I haven’t seen much of before. The above photos are ones I’ve taken myself at various competitions, but these below, I’ve taken from the ABC website:

Evgeny Dyachenko and Inna Ivanenko (whose showcase, judging by the above pic, looks fun!)

Decho Kraev and Bree Watson (who apparently are from my hometown — or nearby anyway — Tempe, AZ), and

Michael Neil and Danielle Wilson.

Should be a very fun night — Rhythm always is Here are a few more of my favorite photos of the competitors. Enjoy!

Also, Terpishore Musings has posted a YouTube clip of Emmanuel and Joanna’s showcase exhibition performance from last year. Check it out!

Not that the two have anything to do with each other, well of course other than the fact that they’re both about Dance (and the two styles that I happen to Lurve ) and they both happened today…

First, Oberon just informed me that Craig was promoted from ABT corps dancer to soloist!

(Above with Marian Butler in “Rodeo” — photo is from ABT website, by Gene Schiavone)

Hooray for him! He’s such a fun and charismatic dancer — always puts so much energy, attitude, and character into everything he does. It’s obvious how hard he works and how much he loves what he does, so I think he is extremely deserving. Embarrasingly, I have to admit having mixed up his name before — oops! — but I definitely know him by face! I greatly enjoyed his performances this past season in Rodeo and Fancy Free (one of my favorites, and one in which he really held his own next to the biggies ). He has a very big dance personality, and of course, that’s what I often go for … can’t wait to see more!

Okay, on to America’s Ballroom Challenge, whose second season premiered tonight on PBS.

Above are Ben Ermis and Shaleen Archer-Ermis, American Smooth competitors, who won the first round tonight.

Well, I liked the new breakdown in the way they’re broadcasting it this time around. Last year, they just had two one-hour episodes: the first hour was the regular ballroom competition (where all six finalist couples are dancing together on the floor, competing in technique) for all four dance styles (American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin); and the second day was the showcase competitions (one couple on the floor at a time doing a choreographed free-for-all routine with lifts, competing in showmanship and performance quality) again in all four categories. This time, instead of lumping all of the dance categories together each day, they’re breaking it down and devoting one full hour to each category, and are then spreading the entire show out over 5 hours / days.

So, tonight’s competition was all American Smooth (couples competed in foxtrot, tango, Viennese waltz, and waltz). The first half hour was the regular ballroom comp; the second the six finalist showcase routines. Next week will be devoted entirely to American Rhythm (mambo, cha cha, rhumba, swing, and bolero), the following week to International Standard (slowfox, waltz, Viennese waltz, tango and quickstep), the fourth week to International Latin (! — Int. cha cha, samba, Int. rhumba, paso doble, and jive), and the fifth week is going to be the competition for “best of the best” among all four categories (which of course doesn’t exist in real ballroom competitions, but is their little showy, made-for-TV category).

I’m not entirely sure what the producers were aiming for. I do think breaking it down this way enables audiences to get to know ever so slightly more about the dances, and to see more of the couples competing within each category. Tony Meredith’s off-screen commentating helps to educate the audience on what each couple’s strengths are technique-wise. But, in order for the show to attract a much wider appeal, I think audiences really need to ‘get to know’ much better the individual couples and personalities that dominate these dances. And this new breakdown still doesn’t achieve that. Instead of just showing the couple’s dancing with Tony’s background commentary, they should do a little segment on each couple’s background, allowing the dancers to talk a bit about themselves, where they’re from, what brought them to ballroom dance, what brought them to dance in general, if they’ve had any obstacles to overcome, etc. etc. Kinda like how the Olympic shows are done maybe?… I think audiences connect to personalities, and there isn’t enough time each week to devote to each couple’s dancing for people to connect to them through that alone. Those are my two cents anyway… assuming the show’s intention is to bring recognition to the actual dancers and to increase its popularity rather than to educate audiences on ballroom technique and pique their curiosity.

On a side note: Tony is the owner of my studio, and I just love watching him on the show! He’s such a cutie, and is really such a great guy with a fun personality who really cares about his students… but oooh, he is so not an actor when he’s talking to Marilu and reading from that monitor! Ha ha ha — of course I wouldn’t be either — I’d be far worse, totally flubbing my lines, and making it completely obvious I was reading from a script and was vomitously nervous! He sounded much better though when he relaxed and started talking about the dancing — what he knows after all!

Anyway, the show is on for the next four weeks. Check here for local times!

On Thursday night, I received an invitation from my friend, the illustrious amateur Latin dancer, Mika, to attend the final dress rehearsal of the Viennese Opera Ball, held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Though I had an invitation via her, we weren’t exactly sure I’d be allowed in without being on an actual list, and so were devising ways for me to sneak in through side doors, etc. But, happily, I didn’t have to do any ‘Ball-crashing’ — the place wasn’t that packed and no one seemed to mind one little extra spectator.

It was really sweet. The performance (which was only about 20 minutes long; presumably the rest of the evening consists of the actual social dancing), was cute. First, the “debutantes” were presented (below — sorry pics are a little out of order…)

They did a courtly little dance, then were escorted off the floor by the gentlemen in blue to the spectator stands, to watch the waltzing couples (above two pics). In the second part of the piece — the waltzing couples portion, that is — the ladies scurry down the floor, the gentlemen waltz after them, they perform this charming little flirty number whereby the gentlemen surreptitiously steal the ladies’ bows, the ladies through cunning then pleading, get them back, then the two make nice and waltz away together.

I saw a few familiar faces in the show — one guy, Charlie, who used to take lessons at my studio, and another guy, who I think is another dance blogger. Anyway, Mika had invited me to audition to be in the show, but I had to decline since I know very little Viennese waltz. But the dancing was so lovely, and I really would love to learn it — so perhaps a goal for next year… Or one better, attend the real thing?!

Afterward, I went to my studio’s monthly party, where Pasha made an appearance!!! He looked REALLY good, and said he is slowly but surely getting his strength back, and hopes to be back to competing and teaching very shortly!! Hooray! (Also had a little talk with my other teacher, and things went well — looks like our little foxtrotting Sinatra Suite is back on )

Lastly, I’ve received info that the first of five segments of America’s Ballroom Challenge, which was televised at the famed Ohio Star Ball this past November, is to be broadcast on PBS on January 31st. Check local listings for exact times. I, unfortunately, wasn’t there this year, so can’t give any insight into what all went down, but it is one of the largest national events, and, as an authentic ballroom competition boasting as competitors some of the best dancers in this country, it should be of great interest to anyone who likes the more poppy TV shows. Please tune in and support ballroom dance! (Below is a photo from their website, of my favorite Standard couple — Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed — believe me, the show is worth watching just for them )