I’m mainly a Latin girl, but these two have really given me an appreciation for standard ballroom as well. I really think they’re the closest thing we have to a contemporary Fred and Ginger. They’re not just technical perfection, they’re fun to watch as well. He’s so charming and she’s so elegant.
Anyway, they’ve just won the pro standard ballroom championship at Blackpool, now for the sixth time. And they’re the first American couple to have done so.
Left is a photo I took of them at the Manhattan Dancesport Championships when they first started dancing together, and below are a couple of more recent videos I love. The first is a quickstep – my favorite of the standard dances. (And I love how they’ve altered Heart of Glass by Blondie!) And the second is a beautiful, romantic waltz. With her in that gorgeous white dress, she kind of looks like a bride. How’d you like that to be your wedding dance! Enjoy 🙂
For all you ballroom and DWTS fans who read this blog, Swarovski Elements (you know, the crystal designers whose stones everyone uses for their dresses) recently teamed with Dance USA to host a little costume competition. At the April 2011 Dance USA Championship, held in Baltimore, several top couples in various divisions – including my personal Latin fave, Valentin Chmerkovskiy and Daria Chesnokova (in video above) – was dressed in a costume designed by one of four leading costume designers (working with Swarovski gems of course). They want your input on which costume (and / or couple) you like best. You can watch videos of all the couples and vote online at Swarovski’s Facebook page.
Here’s a ballroom couple – Daniel Shapiro and Katya Kolvalyova.
The videos made me homesick for a ballroom competition. Blackpool time is just about here and unfortunately I can’t go again this year; I’ll be at Book Expo America instead. But I do hope to go to the Manhattan DanceSport Championships at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott at the beginning of July.
Live-streaming, either over the internet or into movie theaters, seems to be the in thing these days, fortunately, for those of us who can’t travel the world to see top companies perform and / or afford to attend all of these panel discussions and performances.
This Sunday, March 6th, there are two live-streamed ballet events. The first, at 11:00 a.m. ET is the Bolshoi’s production of Don Quixote starring Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, which will be live-streamed from Moscow into theaters all over the world. I wrote a little about that at the bottom of this post.
As I said before, if you haven’t seen Osipova, this is your chance. She’s one of the most athletically astounding ballerinas around right now, she’s a huge star in Europe, and this is THE role that she’s most known for (since it really showcases such athletics). In Manhattan, the performance will be shown at the Big Cinema at 59th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues, and I think it costs $25. Check the Emerging Pictures’ Ballet in Cinema website to search for showplaces and showtimes in your area.
Above image of Osipova and Vasiliev by Genaro Molina from Danza Ballet.
Then, later in the evening, at 7:30 ET, the Guggenheim will live-stream online via their ustream channel their Works & Process program on judging in the important Youth America Grand Prix. This program is free, and, again, you can participate in the live chat online on that channel.
For more info on the Guggenheim’s program and participants, click below to see the full press release:
So, my reading Thursday evening is now archived on the Reading is Sexy Kindle Party ustream; I embedded it here. I’m the sixth reader on the list – out of eight. The readings were so diverse. The only similarity between us is that we all happened to be women (though the event definitely wasn’t excluded to men)! Each of the books seemed to be of very high quality – really the quality of self-published books is not at all what those in traditional publishing seem to want to make it out to be – and the authors were quite adept at reading from their own work, which surprised me – usually authors don’t make such good readers 🙂 Many of the authors have won awards for their writing (either for their books or short stories), some have been published in anthologies, some have MFA degrees, and some are Amazon bestsellers.
I think the event was really a success. The live audience was packed – I’d say there were about 50 seats set up in the reading room, which was completely full. And we had an internet audience as well, actively asking questions of the readers. So a big huge THANK YOU if you were one of the online participants!!!
Someone asked me if my next novel (the legal / urban drama about the group of men who witnessed a shooting) was based on a true story. I’ve been kind of working on two novels simultaneously – that one, which is taking a while because I needed to take a little writing break and do some research, and a sequel to Swallow, that will include dance. I thought the second might have more sales potential, which is why I was working on it as well, trying to get it out as soon as possible. But several people (mostly outside of the dance world 🙂 ) keep telling me they’re eagerly awaiting the legal drama. So the person who asked that question prompted me to work hard on that one, because there is interest, and in my heart that’s what I want to write about. So, thank you person who asked me that question!! The answer to the question is yes, but I’m taking a lot of liberties with the actual event it’s based on, completely creating new characters, etc.
Also, three of the authors happened to be lawyers or former lawyers, and someone asked the third what was up with that! What’s drawing lawyers to a profession that’s so much less lucrative than their original career? Leibow, the last lawyer to read, laughed and said it just so much more creatively rewarding. I’d strongly second that, adding, in my case, that it’s also far more rewarding to write for intelligent, open-minded readers, than for judges, most of whom are conservative, jaded and cynical.
I had such a good time doing this and am so glad I went down to Virginia for the day. I realized though, in doing so, that I’m not as young as I once was. Funny though, because I got carded ordering a rum-based Hurricane with my lunch at the Pizzeria Uno in Union Station. I always seem to get carded when I order alcoholic beverages down South. So, apparently to some I don’t look as old as I feel 🙂 Anyway, such a long one-day trip there and back really kind of took the wind out of me and it took me most of yesterday to recover. I should have stayed overnight in DC and gone to the AWP (Association of Writing Programs) conference yesterday, but for some odd reason I decided to catch the 1:40 a.m. bus back to NY.
I always travel like this and, I know, I’m weird. My third year in law school I had an interview for a federal clerkship, down in Albany. Not Albany, NY, but Albany, GA, about two hours out of Atlanta. I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey at the time. I left my apartment at 6 in the morning, bussed to Newark airport, flew to Atlanta, caught a connecting flight to Albany (one one of those 10-seater planes, which I don’t think I’ll do again…), took a long cab ride to the courthouse, had my interview, then went back all the same way, arriving at my Hoboken apartment nearly 24 hours after I left it.
And, during my first dance competition, which was in Miami, I decided last minute I just had to see Key West. I only had one day until my first day of competition, and then my flight back to NY was the evening of my last comp. So, I took a day trip from Miami to Key West the day before the comp. It’s about 3 1/2 hours each way. I spent about six hours out on the island, and I still managed to get a full night’s sleep (part of it on the bus) and was up early and ready for morning practice the following day. I don’t know how I did that…
Anyway, I had a wonderful time in Vienna, met so many wonderful writers and readers. The Soundry, a multi-room venue kind of like the KGB Bar in NY, was an excellent place to have a reading. Thank you so much to the Soundry’s Jennifer Crawford for including me in the roster at the last minute. Thank you so much to Karen Cantwell for telling me about the event in the first place (on the Kindleboards), and for carting me between the Soundry and the Vienna metro station! So nice to meet several Kindleboards authors I’ve been chatting online with for months now. Can’t wait for the next event!
Holy crap – according to Dance Beat, Riccardo Cocchi and Yulia Zagoruychenko placed first in the worlds in Bonn, Germany a couple days ago. When I first heard, I thought the current world Latin champs, Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis, might not have competed for some reason. But they did. They placed first only in Cha Cha. Riccardo and Yulia placed first in all other dances, making them the first American couple ever to be Latin world champs. I never thought they’d overtake Michael and Joanna – just because of the way ballroom competitions are, with the judges scoring couples the same year after year. I’m in shock!
I’m mainly a Latin girl, but these two have really given me an appreciation for standard ballroom as well. I really think they’re the closest thing we have to a contemporary Fred and Ginger. They’re not just technical perfection, they’re fun to watch as well. He’s so charming and she’s so elegant.
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