Author: Tonya

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Boston Ballet at the Guggenheim

Last night I went to my first Works & Process discussion of the Fall season to investigate the Boston Ballet, who will soon be performing as part of the Fall For Dance Festival at City Center. These Works & Process events held by the Guggenheim Museum, by the way, are really a good value. For only $25 you can see, in a very intimate setting, prestigious dance companies perform new pieces from their upcoming reps, and hear the artistic directors and/or choreographers talk about the works.

Last night’s program featured speakers Mikko Nissinen, Boston Ballet’s artistic director, and choreographers Helen Pickett and Jorma Elo. Elo is the main reason I wanted to attend, as I have loved both of the two very modern ballets I’ve thus far seen of his: “Slice to Sharp” performed by New York City Ballet; and “Glow Stop” by my favorite American Ballet Theater 🙂 This makes me a bad person, as dance critics just lurve to hate Elo 😉 I guess many find him vapid and aerobic. But I think his ballets are fast, fun, sharp and bedazzling, and they both showcase the dancers’ athletic abilities with their numerous mid-air turns, high jumps, and fast precise footwork, and take dancers out of their comfort zone (as this favorite of mine once put it) which, in a weirdly extended way, does the same to us.

Anyway, tonight’s piece of his, an excerpt from “Break the Eyes” was the best thing I’ve seen by him yet. The music alternated between a section consisting of heavy, disconcerting, foreboding sounds (at first sounded almost like something out of “Jaws”), and was accompanied by the voice of a young woman breathing frantically and speaking urgently in Finnish, and a section of sweetly mellifluous Mozart piano music. A solitary ballerina danced to the foreboding soundscape, her movements at the start sharp, jerky, and frazzled, which became less so as the ballet went on. The Mozart pieces were danced by a small ensemble whose dance vocabulary — pretty partnering, lifts, quick-paced but mellifluous allegro steps — mirrored the flowing music, the solitary ballerina’s angular, harried, awkward movements a stark contrast to theirs. As the piece developed, the music was at times played together, the frantic Finnish woman’s voice crying out over, disrupting the Mozart. The ensemble and solitary ballerina seemed to struggle with and react against each other, eventually helping to define each other. The dance was intriguing: though I didn’t “get” everything the first time around, as I never do with abstract ballets, there was a real development there, a kind of story, and I felt Elo was trying to say something, making me curious to see it again. I’ll get that chance with Fall For Dance, as Elo’s is the piece the company will perform.

Boston Ballet, as Nissinen explained, seeks to perform a blend of contemporary and classical ballet. Ballet, he said, is “not just a church or museum, but must pave the way for the future.” I like that, and it’s true. There’s nothing more beautiful and romantic and fairytalish than classical ballet, but for the art to stay alive, there must be new along with old. (What if the only plays performed on all of Broadway were by Shakespeare? Going to theater would be a historical enterprise, like visiting a museum.) In this vein, the company also presented a Swan Lake pas de deux — you realize just how beautiful classical ballet is, what genius possessed Ivanov, and how iconic Tchaikovsky is when you see something like this juxtaposed with the modern — along with an excerpt from the first professional work by new choreographer Helen Pickett. Interestingly, Pickett said her process was to choreograph a dancer’s solo, then allow the five or so others sharing the stage to improvise their own moves, taking cues from the soloist’s movement “reading” her vocabulary and reacting to it. She said it was empowering to the dancer, which I can see. Still think I’d be very nervous making up my own movement right on the spot before an audience though!

Anyway, if you wish to see the Elo piece at Fall For Dance, go here; for Guggenheim’s W&P schedule, go here.

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Watching "window" by bill shannon

Watching “window” by bill shannon

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.


This was so cool! Review to come. Definitely try to go if you can!

Okay, now that I’m back at my desk I can write more. Bill Shannon’s “Window” is the last of the works shown as part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s “Sitelines” series (consisting of site-specific dance performances) in its “River to River Festival” for this year. (“River to River” takes place downtown each summer). The two others I was able to see, I blogged about here and here.

I really really liked “Window.” Bill Shannon is a disabled dance / conceptual artist who uses crutches. (If you’re in L.A. right now, he is one of the performers included in the David Michalek “Slow Dancing films” exhibit.) Here he and three other men — one wearing black pants, top and hood, one wearing all white, and one dressed in a business suit — performed break-dance and hip-hop out on Liberty Park Plaza while Shannon, skateboarding on crutches, zoomed around on the streets surrounding the park. At points Shannon would skate into the park and dance, very well mind you, on the crutches.

There were two sets of audiences: the random passersby in the park and on the street who got caught up in all the commotion; and us, those who RSVP’d to the event through lmcc’s website and were escorted into the 8th floor of the high-rise at 140 Broadway, where, amongst the bemused real-estate brokers who regularly inhabit the office, watched the scene down below through the window. A couple of camera people outside filmed the performances by Shannon and the three others and those films were projected live onto four screens inside, where we stood. One screen was set up in such a way that it would reflect on the ceiling, where you got kind of an upside-down version of what was going on outside. The filmmakers also played with the projections a bit so that the colors of the dancers’ clothing would change, or, at points, the dancers would be projected onto a different background; at times the images looked rather 3D. So, you had your choice of watching what was actually going on outside through the window, or the way it was projected onto the screen, as intermediated by the filmmakers.

They also had speakers set up inside, which played a variety of hip hop, techno and pop music. Shannon had headphones bearing a small microphone so he danced to the music and interacted with us through the mike.

I preferred watching what was actually going on through the window, partly because, Liberty Park being so big and crowded, everytime I took my eyes off of Shannon, I lost him. I also found it more interesting seeing how normal everyday besuited business people and tourists, not expecting to see a show — and a rather odd one at that (I didn’t see any speakers down there so assumed they couldn’t hear the music and only saw a bunch of guys rocking out to silence), interacted with him. Of course this being New York, most pretended not to notice him at all, although you could kind of see them spying him out of the corner of their eyes. They didn’t have the roads blocked off and at one point I thought he may be hit by a large white van barrelling down Liberty Street, but the driver thankfully saw the crazy guy bopping around on crutches whilst skateboarding and slowed to a stop. “Whoaaa” Shannon sang over the speakers.

At the beginning, Shannon looked up at us and called out, “How do you put rhythm into a city? How do you make a city come alive?” while clapping his hands above his head and shaking his hips to the percussion like a rock star. There was something at first eery but eventually comforting about watching him rockingly skateboard around what was once a triage unit, the construction site that was once Ground Zero and before that the World Trade Center diagonally behind him.

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Doh!

Celebrity sighting, celebrity sighting! Of course I would have to be looking like a complete dumbass. I’d just been at the street fair and was making a quick run to the drug store a few blocks away. It was the first coldish day of the not-yet-fall and a bit windy out, so I had a runny nose and hair flying out of my ponytail and scattered haphazardly all over my face and head. Hadn’t washed my hair this morning because wasn’t planning a big day and so make that greasy hair scattered all over face and head… Plus, I’d just finished eating some street food bought at the local Italian restaurant’s stand, so likely had Alfredo sauce somewhere on my cheek, and perhaps a mashed pea too… Thank God it wasn’t Marcelo!!!

And dancers — at least the principals — always know when you recognize them. You look at them and they look right back at you, and you try to look away but you can’t help doing a double-take and they lock eyes with you again on the double! So embarrassing when you’re shy and too timid to say hello, and especially at a time when you look like a total dumbass.

Anyway, he has really beautiful eyes. But really kind of frighteningly intense, but in a beautiful way.

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What What What?

Okay, what bumblehead recommended this movie?! I have got to stop doing this — going to see a movie or play based on the fact that there’s supposed to be some miniscule amount of dancing. (Did the same with Gypsy, knowing only that the production I was to see contained original Jerome Robbins choreography and therefore expecting West Side Story, not realizing “choreography” can sometimes mean simply placement of actors on a stage). Someone — I think it was Dance Magazine in one of their e-newsletters — mentioned that the brilliant Desmond Richardson was to be in this movie (Julie Taymor’s “Across the Universe” — could they have come up with just a slightly more imaginative title??), which, according to the credits, he was, but I have no idea where. Probably in the one scene that looked like it was trying incredibly hard to be something out of The Wall, with cartoonish block-headed military goons doing some kind of group number that looked like it required people slightly more skilled with body movement than actors, but cannot under any circumstances be called dance. Why someone of Desmond’s stature would take on something that amounted to extra work I have no idea.

Anyway, lack of dance and the beautiful Desmond aside, this movie in a word sucked. It was full of cliches, bad acting, an utterly boring and predictable narrative, cheesy cameos (could anyone make Bono look creepier than Taymor), and renditions of the greatest songs of our time that somehow, obscenely sucked the life right out of them (the sole exception to this being “Let it Be” which begins with a young African American boy cowering in the entrails of a burned-out car during a race riot and climaxes with a black choir belting out the lyrics during the slain boy’s funeral).

The only way I made it through the whole thing was this guy. I guess you can’t really blame actors for crappy material; perhaps the fact Joe Anderson gave all the scenes he was in an actual heartbeat attests to his skill. I’ll have to see more of him. Dana Fuchs‘s Janis Joplin-esque diva was fun at the start but somehow began to drain you, likely because of the predictability of her character. I enjoyed her performance far more in the original, off-Broadway play, “Love, Janis.”

Interestingly, there’s a split-second Butoh sequence during one of the Vietnam scenes that failed only semi-miserably because of, once again, the cliched way in which it’s used. Of course, unlike with real Butoh, the dancers here are all women instead of a combo of sexes since male nudity in movies might spook the fifteen-year-old straight boy who it’s assumed is their main patron, or maybe his parents, or whoever … the powers that be who need to maintain for whatever reason the sexist, homophobic status quo. Anyway, I guess kudos to Taymor for even trying to inject a bit of multiculturalism into her film.

The twenty-somethings in my audience cheered wildly at the film’s end, so maybe it’s just that I am just too old for it 🙂 What gets me is, gasp and moan though these young people did during the scenes involving the Vietnam war and the violent police crackdown on campus protesters, do these people see any relevance whatsoever to what is going on in the world today? What’s the difference between the 60s and today? No baby-boom-produced generation gap? Is it because those who are serving in the current war are largely not white and from middle-class families?

So, to the young people who happen to read my blog: perhaps you will really enjoy this movie. If you do see it, though, please please please please please think when you see those aforementioned scenes of all the people coming home in body bags today. Just because they are black and Latino and working-class, unlike the characters in the film, they are still human.

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Martha Graham Review to Come!

My friend Dea and I went to see Martha Graham dance company last night. This was only my second time seeing them live and the first was many years ago and I now can remember nothing but the magnificent costumes. I want to do more research before I write my review. In general, I felt like the dancing was superb, the dancers were excellent actors as well as movers, and they gave everything they had. Miki Orihara (pictured above) in particular was stunning as the woman scorned, the Medea character, in the first of the three pieces I saw, “Cave of the Heart.”

It takes only one viewing to grasp how original Graham’s movement style is, along with the costumes and sets, and the overall themes and storylines of her dances. She was into dramatizing into dance Greek tragedies and Biblical stories. Lots of toga-style costumes; lots of Greek / ‘Egyptian’ movements: palms up, arms out to the sides, elbows bent; lots of flexed feet, large steps, lots of angularity. Her movement style was clearly that of the stories she was enacting through dance. My first impressions of her thematically are that she saw sex and sexual relationships as very destructive and often fatal.

Two of the pieces I saw — as with almost all dances in the company’s rep this season — were from the 40s and 50s; the third was from 1981. “Cave of the Heart” was a re-telling of the Greek tragedy, Medea, and “Embattled Garden” the story of Adam and Eve. Timeless stories for sure. My question is, is a certain movement style equally timeless? Are sets and costumes timeless? I felt like I was getting an important lesson in history, much the way I felt when I investigated that Merce Cunningham exhibit at the NY Public Library. I have a masters degree in History, was once on my way to becoming a professional historian, so obviously I care greatly about the subject. But I kind of think dance companies need to have an equal amount of the new with the old.

The third piece in last night’s program, “Acts of Light,” the one from 1981, was gloriously abstract, movement for movement’s sake, likely the least “Graham-ish” and my favorite, Dea’s least, go figure 🙂 Some toga costumes on the first couple doing a duet, but in the end, the stage was ablaze with the ensemble dressed in very tight-fitting unitards that at first looked nude, but when the lights lit up I realized were radiant gold. So much more sensual than actual nudity.

Dea noticed we appeared to be the only two people under 40 in the audience, an increasingly disconcerting phenomenon at dance performances these days.

Anyway, sorry these thoughts are so disjointed. I want to read over the materials I was given and do a little more research on Graham before writing a longer review, and I’m busy at work today 🙁 I promise to get my write-up posted this weekend though! In the meantime, here are Apollinaire’s blog thoughts (she went opening night and loved it), here’s her Newsday story, and here’s Sir Alastair’s upbeat take.

[One note regarding Apollinaire’s blog review: there are three pieces by contemporary choreographers that were shown on opening night but that aren’t part of the company’s repertory — one, by Larry Keigwin, seems to have been in tribute to 9/11 which was nice. Apollinaire asserts that one of these works each is to be performed each night during the season, which would have been nice, but last night none of those contemporary works were shown).

Martha Graham is showing in NYC from now through September 23rd; tix, which can be purchased here, are $44 for non Joyce members, except on Sunday nights when they’re only $25. It’s most definitely worth seeing whether you end up liking her very specific style or not, or think it’s dated or not. Graham is a seminal figure in dance in this country. So please go if you can (and let me know what you think)!

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I can’t believe it’s already been six years. This anniversary is particularly haunting for me because it’s the first year since that the date has fallen on a Tuesday, as it did in 2001. I’ll never forget that entire week, or even some events the week preceding. I remember on Wednesday the 5th, a friend and I went to hear Salman Rushdie read from his then new novel, Fury, at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. My friend whispered to me that there were likely a bunch of secret agents dressed in plainclothes hovering about, and I laughed and told her not to be ridiculous, the fatwa was over, fundamentalism was totally passe.

I remember taking a four-day end of summer mini jaunt to Nantucket, and just returning to work on Monday, the 10th. It was a completely nothing day as I spent hours just trying to re-orient myself, go through mail and phone messages, and get myself psyched up for an upcoming oral argument, and my entire fall caseload. I kept telling myself I’d get it together the following day. I set my alarm for early Tuesday morning, but, not being a morning person, didn’t get the early start I’d planned. I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey then, just across the Hudson river from lower Manhattan and I remember cursing myself silently as I walked to the WTC-bound PATH train for being a lazy-ass and hitting that snooze button. Of course it was a blessed thing for me that I did since if I’d gotten up at my planned time, I would have been passing through the WTC concourse about the moment the first plane hit. (My mom cried to me on the phone she’s never been so thankful for my habitual morning tardiness.) Instead I watched everything from across that river.

I remember waking up the next few mornings and thinking it was all a horrible nightmare and I was so crazy to have dreamed it up. I only had to open the window and take a breath to realize it wasn’t. My cat even knew something was up; she kept peering out the window all spooked. I watched TV — CBS, the only station not dependent on the radar from the north tower — constantly for the next week. We were forbidden from entering our office for the next month, until the City had time to test our building’s structure and thoroughly HEPA all the floors. When we were finally allowed access, we had go through about a 45-minute National Guard checkpoint, only to be stricken with headaches and sore throats after about three hours inside. At our office meeting on that first day back, my boss went to address us and burst out crying. She supplied us with surgical masks and each room a HEPA cleaner, and arranged for a group therapist to give us a few sessions, but nothing seemed to help all that much. I did a lot of working from home for the next six weeks.

But that week, I remember my friend Judy, who lived on the upper east side, inviting me to come up and hang out. We were both so depressed; it was better to be with a good friend at such a time. I’d stayed briefly with Jude when I first moved to NY before going to law school, so we went out for drinks at our favorite haunt, Martel’s. There were people laughing and screaming and having themselves a blast. I couldn’t believe it; I was mortified. It was as if what had happened downtown had no effect on uptown in the least.

I remember the only place I felt at all better for the next two weeks was at Union Square, amongst the speakers, protesters, and all of that beautiful public art. It was good just to be around people who were talking about the obvious rather than living in ignorance, and to feel a part of something again.

I remember being scared to take the PATH or Lincoln Tunnel bus into Manhattan for weeks. I remember riding the subway or a city bus and being afraid of people because of the way they looked. I hated myself for that.

My friend, Kathy, lost her father that day. She didn’t even know until several days later, as he was a carpenter and had only been assigned a job on a top floor of one of the towers early that very morning. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I didn’t personally know anyone who died. Although, I still after all this time have this feeling of dread that one day I’m going to find out a long lost friend was in one of those buildings.

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Ohhh, Vaidotas Vaidotas Vaidotas!

I know, it doesn’t exactly have the ring of “Oh, Marcelo Marcelo Marcelo!” does it? Hehe, oh we so love our Eastern European dancers and their ever so fun names (and their ingenuousness at not even thinking to Americanize them…)! But, though he looks nothing like him, Vaidotas Skimelis (whom I’ve been on about here and there throughout the comp) actually kind of reminds me of my favorite ballet dancer, mainly because of their large sizes and the kind of virility that almost naturally entails. I mean, large bone structure is difficult with Latin because speed is so important to the style — and certainly Vaidotas’s jive will never look anything like winner Max Kozhevnikov’s. But still, I like his size — as I do Marcelo’s — there’s something so sexy and romantic about a big hunk of a guy, right 🙂 Plus, difference is good! Who wants all the dancers to look the same whether it’s Latin or ballet — boring, I say!

One of the not horrible things about Pasha and Anya leaving (at least for now) the competition world is that it made room for Vaidotas and his lovely plum-haired partner, Jurga Pupelyte, to be seen, to make it to the top ranks, where they most definitely belong. I only wish he didn’t live in California! As one of the only non-tiny Latin dancers, he’d be perfect size-wise for me as a teacher. But of course I shouldn’t even be thinking of private lessons because they are too expensive! So, good rather that he lives all the way out in California…

Anyway, here are a few more pics of my favorite couples and other stuff I did in Florida:

Emmanuel Pierre Antoine and Julia Gorchakova, a super fun couple with creative routines and great show quality whom I wanted to take American Rhythm, but who ended up placing third.

Matt and Karen Hauer, semifinalists in American Rhythm and second-place finishers in the National Mambo championships, who teach at my former studio. He does do a mean Mambo, I think second only to Jose DeCamps’s, and they’re young and in love and cute and their dancing reflects all that 🙂

America’s sweethearts, Anna Mikhed and Victor Fung, second-place, as always, in International Standard. Okay, they may not be as perfect technique-wise as Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, but they’re the king and queen of charm, those two.

The adorable Anna Trebunskaya (from Dancing W/ Stars) and her new partner, Pavlo Barsuk. They placed sixth in the finals, which is excellent for them.

Hehe, am I a paparazzi in the making or what? Here’s her hubby Jonathan Roberts (the brown-haired guy here, also of DWTS) intently watching her. She’d look out in the audience for him and he’d give her a little wave and a wink and she’d smile like she was on cloud nine. So cute!

Very sexy Latin couple that I like a lot, Nikolai Shpakov and Tatiana Banko. Friends keep telling me Nikolai (who resides in NY) would be a good teacher for me … But of course I am not listening since I can’t afford ballroom lessons anymore…

Aw, the just-displaced now former National Latin champs Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruychkova. They are an immensely good couple and no one flies across that dance floor like Andrei. He’s truly beautiful to watch; so slender and light-footed his feet sometimes look inches above the parkay. And I certainly don’t think it’s impossible for them to get their title back at some point in the future; I just think others need to be given a chance as well. And this was simply Max and Yulia’s year.


Speaking of the new champs… look at Yulia’s gorgeous arch! How is she even supporting herself like that?

An American Smooth couple I like, Eulia Baranovsky and Stephen Dougherty. I actually thought they’d win, but they placed fourth or fifth. So, I was off on that! I think that couples like these two and the winners J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki are bringing the life back into what was becoming a rather staid and boring style. The Smooth championships, placed between Latin heats though they were, were actually really exciting to me for once.

Another Latin couple, Andrei Strinedko and Olga Kinnard, who caught my eye big time this comp. A lot of women wearing these shiny gold dresses this year… What I really love about this photo though is that they are doing my very favorite Latin dance step in all of life, a Samba roll in shadow position. From here, they’ll arch far back together in beautiful unison, then they’ll bend way forward from the waist and then back again making a circle with their upper bodies while doing a hip-rolling side step across the dance floor. It’s hard because you have to be in perfect harmony or you’ll step all over each other’s feet or bop him in the crotch with your butt or whack him upside the face with your arm (I know all of this because…) , but gorgeous when done properly 🙂

Another proud paparazzi photo of mine 🙂 This is Nick Kosovich who designs the dresses for Dancing W/ Stars (and he appeared in the show a couple of seasons ago — partnered Tatum O’Neal). When he was on the show I thought he was a bit nerdy-looking, but after seeing him in person at the last few competitions, I realized how good-looking this man actually is. Tall dark and handsome Aussie! He’s retired from competition but at Blackpool did this James Bond-styled showcase with his partner, who I’m pretty sure is his wife 🙁 and they really blew me away, which is highly odd since they’re Standard dancers. Anyway, the fact that he is so gorgeous makes my former stupid “breast” experience with him all the more embarrassing… (he was the “Austrailian guy” / “LeNique guy” — as I later found out — in this post).

More Latin favorites of mine — Delyan Terziev and Boriana Deltcheva, who placed third, moving up a whole three notches from last year! Good for them; they’ve been working very hard and they deserve it. To me, this couple is one of the most artistic. She moves just like a spider and she’s just bewitching. She kind of reminds me of a Latin, raven-haired version of ballerina Janie Taylor, with her kind of ethereal, goddess-like sexiness.

Andrej Skufca and Katarina Venturini from Slovenia who competed in the Open-to-the-World Latin category on Saturday night. This is the competition I was hoping my favorites Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov would participate in, as they did last year, but oh well. Andrej and Katarina (4th in the world in Latin, right behind Slavik & partner Elena) were the only top couple to compete, so it was rather boring; they easily took first. For some reason, Max & Yulia didn’t stay and compete in this category, like they did last year. Not sure what happened. Maybe they were too tired. I hope no one was injured … that’s happened before in competition, couples injured during last-minute practice. Anyway, I loved Katarina’s bright emerald dress. Looked spectacular with her carrotty hair (which I personally love, though I know that opinion is most definitely not shared by all 🙂 )


Look who this is!! They had the hallway leading down to the ballroom lined with blown-up pictures of former champions. This one’s of Tony Meredith and Melanie Lapatin (choreographers from SYTYCD) in their heyday, circa 1995! Look how young he is — such a little cutie!


Ewwwwww!!!! It was some ungodly hour of the morning and comps were still going on (judging by the rows behind us, I think many departed the ballroom already, save us insane diehards) and I, not being a late night owl, am half dead here, no makeup and flat as a pancake hair thanks to the lovely Florida humidity. Plus the angle gives me a quintuple chin. Oh well. Michele, my roommate for the comp, is being herself 🙂

Okay, I am almost done, I swear. I took one day off from comp-spectating and went to Epcot Center. I’ve never been to Disney World though, growing up in Phoenix, went often to nearbyish Disneyland as a child. So, of all of the parks, I chose Epcot because I figured, not to sound like a dork, but I so loved the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disney as a kid, I figured I’d have the most patience and respect for one that introduces children to the world beyond our borders. But I found it disappointing, and this picture epitomized why. It was so Disney-fied — the cartoons completely overtook the exhibits. Everything was so cheesy, not at all educational. “Viva Donald”?? Great way to introduce kids to a foreign language. Maybe I’m misremembering things and my child’s mind over-glorified them, but, a bunch of silly dolls though they were, that Small World ride really made me promise myself that I’d go to Argentina, Holland, Spain, etc. one day. The dolls were so sweet and their costumes so beautiful. And everyone singing that song in their native language sounding so mellifluous — definitely made me so curious to hear more (and I did take a ridiculous amount of foreign language classes in high school and college). And who wouldn’t be enthralled with Africa by that nutty laughing hyena! I don’t know, maybe if I went on that ride again, I’d feel differently, but it definitely gave me an appreciation for foreign culture as a child. I can’t imagine this doing the same at all. Kids are too busy laughing at the stupid cartoon characters, and the adults buying all the horrendously cheesy souvenirs.

A great celebration of Italian culture for sale. It was like you paid $75 just to be able to buy a bunch of souvenirs. I don’t get it…
This guy demonstrating how to extract pearls from oysters in the Japanese souvenir shop was okay. Demo was interesting and the guy pretty flamboyant.

Returning to NY. Could they have blurted over the loudspeaker one more time at the Orlando airport that the alert level had been raised to orange / four, and we were all to exercise great caution in leaving bags unattended, etc. And then there had to be some crazy hurricane off the coast of North Carolina. I’m a nervous flyer man! Fellow fearful flyers have recommended Valium, but I don’t like drugs. I much prefer alcohol. In case of emergency, you can always talk yourself out of being drunk; not the same if knocked out cold by prescription medication! This wine, by Best Cellars, was pretty good.

Anyway, okay I’m done, I’m done! Thanks for humoring me and my ballroom fetish, you guys 🙂

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New Ballroom Champions

I’m really tired and still haven’t unpacked and have to work tomorrow, but really quickly wanted to post a few pics of the new champions! (Well, three new, one same):

J.T. Damalas and Tomasz Mielnicki in American Smooth (new);


Joanna Zacharewicz and Jose DeCamps in American Rhythm (new);


Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova in International Standard (same); and

Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko in International Latin. New!!!
It was such an exciting competition, I’ll be talking about it for a while 🙂 But for now, I must unpack and go to sleep…

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Max & yulia win latin!!!

Max & yulia win latin!!!

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.


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[Edit: Hahaha, how ridiculous is this. I had to send this four times before it finally went through Flickr. Why?! Anyway this post pertains to Friday night, and should have come about six posts ago, but here it is. The finalists are lined up here after competition and waiting for their placements to be called. Andrei & Elena, then current, now former, national champs are on the end closest to the camera. Places number six through three were called, leaving Max & Yulia (in the middle) and Andrei & Elena, as usual, the last two up there (they call sixth position first, working up to number one). When the announcer prefaced the second runners up with “ladies and gentlemen, placing second in all five dances, from New Jersey…” everyone gasped. Max & Yulia usually place first in at least samba, if not samba and jive, and Andrei & Elena place first in the other three (cha cha, rumba, paso doble), making them the overall winners by a slight margin. So when the announcer said the second runners up had placed second in all five dances, everyone immediately thought Max & Yulia were really screwed royally by the judges and didn’t even get number ones in any dance). Max & Yulia thought the same thing apparently. Max looked stunned and Yulia looked like she was going to cry. “No, that can’t be, that can’t be,” the couple next to me moaned. I knew though – I swear, at that point I knew Max & Yulia had won. They don’t ever place second in samba! That is their dance! Then the announcer, after putting the entire audience, not to mention the poor dancers, through absolute hell with a horrendously long drawn-out pause, finally continued, saying, “ladies and gentlemen, second runners up … from New Jersey … … couple … number … … 166 (which was Andrei and Elena’s number). The audience was silent; what the announcer had said had to register. Then, slowly, the crowd came to and began going nuts, as Max and Yulia are the favorite of most spectators. I don’t think it even hit Yulia that she had won until Andrei & Elena (looking horribly crushed – -I felt so badly for them) walked up to the podium, received their medals and took their place on the second-tier winners’ stand, and the announcer then called out, “ladies and gentlemen, the new national champions…” Then she covered her mouth and started to cry. She could hardly dance her “honor jive” she was so emotional. They’ve worked so hard for this for a long time and have wanted it so very badly. Everyone was screaming. It was so fantastic, and that moment alone made my whole trip worth it 🙂 ]