Latest News

Posted on

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE WEEK 7

Yay, no injuries tonight!!!

Toni Reopath (is that how her name was spelled?) is a guest judge. Ballroom dancer. I haven’t heard of her but I’m thrilled there’s finally a ballroom judge in the house!

First Kent dances Cha Cha with Anya in a Jean Marc routine. Well, I thought that was very good for someone who isn’t trained in that style. I didn’t think it was anywhere near perfect. It looked way too jazzy, which is how contemporary dancers always look dancing Latin to me. Too loose-kneed, too fluid, and not enough sharpness. I agree with Toni saying it was better and he was more grounded. Very true. He was better but it still wasn’t all there. Haha, I love what he says in response to Mia’s face critique: “I’m sorry, I’m trying not to do anything with my face; it just feels good to express myself and I forget.” (I mean, not word for word but in sum.)

Next Robert dances a Stacey Tookey contemporary with Kathryn. Wow, what a beautiful song (slowed down version of Heaven is a Place on Earth) and gorgeous routine! One of the best contemporary routines I think I’ve seen on the show.

Continue reading “SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE WEEK 7”

Posted on

KINDLE AUTHOR INTERVIEW

I am today’s interviewee on the new blog, Kindle Author, which is for people who are thinking about publishing their books via Kindle. I think it’s my longest interview yet and I blabber on and on about my own writing and publishing journey, the reader outreach I’ve tried to do, and the advantages I’ve found of publishing in e-book form. If you’re an aspiring author, I highly suggest subscribing to that blog; he’s got some really good interviews up.

Posted on

ENTER THE MYMUTATION ONLINE DANCE COMPETITION

 

I received this email yesterday from the marketing department of the Sydney Opera House in Australia announcing a competition they’re having as part of their upcoming Spring 2010 Festival.  They had the same competition last year and it was a huge success. I thought some of you guys might be interested in entering. There’s no geographical limitation; it’s a YouTube contest and anyone can enter.

Here’s the info they sent me:

MyMutation is an online dance competition, where competitors dance their take on a starter solo choreographed by Kate Champion (Director of Force Majeure and Judge of the competition) and then dance a further 20 seconds in their own style. The entries are submitted online through our YouTube competition webpage, the link can be found on the e-card below. Entries close 10 August and the competition is open to dancers of ALL ages and styles. If you get your dance moves on early and upload your entry before August 1 you will also to go in the draw to win a SONY bloggie.

Prizes for the winner include $2000 cash, a wonderful SONY prize pack and also the opportunity to work with Kate and dance on the forecourt of Sydney Opera House on 26 September as part of our Spring Dance Festival (expenses paid trip to Australia!). The festival runs from 31 August until 26 September, and involves some of the world’s leading choreographers. Some of the top names include Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, world’s greatest tap dancer Savion Glover and Gideon Obarzanek (in his first solo performance in 20 years!). There are also some free events, including the MyMutation winning performance, Transports Exceptionnel and Dance on Film.

Click here for more information, demo videos, and instructions on how to submit.

Have fun, good luck, and let me know if any of you submit anything!

Posted on

KINDLE NATION DAILY EDITOR'S NOTE

I’m today’s sponsor of the fabulous website Kindle Nation Daily‘s daily email. Look at what the editor wrote in his note! (I sent him a review copy of Swallow.)

(Editor’s Note: Ordinarily I don’t say much to embellish the material provided by authors and publishers for our sponsorship titles, but it’s not often that — for a mere 99 cents — we get to play a part in discovering a new novelist who is destined for very big things, as you can see from the 5-star reviews from some of the top Amazon reviewers to the great blurbs and book description below. As one of Tonya Plank’s first readers among the citizens of Kindle Nation, I promise that you are in a for a real treat. -S.W.)

How sweet is that! It’s from an email, but I think you can access it online here, or here.

Update: Only minutes after this email went out my book shot up the Kindle bestseller charts, making #307 on the overall Kindle charts, and #3 on the Legal list! 😀

Posted on

FALL FOR DANCE 2010 SCHEDULE

The Fall For Dance 2010 schedule has been announced. It begins on September 28th and runs through October 9. Again, tickets are a mere $10 and they go on sale on City Center’s website on September 12 at 11 a.m. – and you know that means 11 a.m. sharp! Highlights are ABT (performing the gorgeous Thais Pas de Deux again!), Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Corella Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Gallim Dance, San Francisco Ballet, Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence, Bill T. Jones, there’s a Brazilian troupe making its festival debut, and much more. Click on the link below to see the whole schedule.

Continue reading “FALL FOR DANCE 2010 SCHEDULE”

Posted on

DRIVE-THRU INTERVIEW, AND SWALLOW MAKES LEGAL THRILLER BEST-SELLER LIST ON AMAZON

Today I have a short, “drive-thru” interview on fabulously wonderful indie author Jenna Elizabeth Johnson’s blog, Hello Kruel, Kruel World.

I met Ms. Johnson on the Kindleboards, where I’ve connected with a number of really kind and supportive indie authors. I joined Kindleboards after hugely successful indie-turned-traditionally published author, J.A. Konrath, suggested the site as an excellent way to connect with other authors and readers of Kindle books.

It seems to have worked in my favor sales-wise as well because last week, due largely I’m sure to my reducing the price of my Kindle book to 99 cents (for at least the duration of the summer), my Kindle sales skyrocketed, putting Swallow on a couple of Amazon top-seller charts: Anxiety Disorders, and Legal Thrillers. Sales have slipped a bit over the weekend but it spent nearly all of last week in the top 10 of those two lists, which was really surreal.

Funny thing is, strictly speaking of course my novel is not a legal thriller, but the way Amazon categorizes things, since it’s legal fiction and since Amazon reviewers have tagged it with words like “lawyer,” “legal,” and “criminals,” it was categorized as legal, and the only root category for legal fiction it seems is Mysteries & Thrillers. So I guess that’s how that worked. Others have mentioned they had the same thing happen: a legal comedy and a novel whose protagonist was a lawyer but had no other connection to the law were both categorized as a legal thrillers too. Anyway, it’s not like I don’t have a product description and several reviews for people to read before deciding whether or not to purchase.

And, even though my book focuses on the main character’s anxiety disorder, it is largely about her job as a criminal appeals attorney, and representing a certain segment of society. That’s one huge thing I was hoping people would come away knowing more about after reading. So, although I worried at first about it being mis-categorized, I think it’s actually a good thing that it ended up there; it’s a sign to me of what I should be writing anyway. The book I’m working on now is more in that vein – it’s about a shooting witnessed by various people, from different perspectives.

Anyway, I’m just so thrilled some people are reading it. Thank you again to all of my wonderful, wonderful blog readers who have been so supportive! And to my new indie friends 🙂

Posted on

GUEST POST BY BEA LESACA: HOW SALSA MADE ME APPRECIATE HIP HOP MORE

Hey, everyone. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing you to Bea Lesaca, a b-girl and hip hop dancer who writes for HardKnockRadio. Her guest post is about how salsa made her appreciate her own dance style more. Here’s Bea:

How Salsa Made me Appreciate Hip Hop More

Having been break dancing for a good chunk of my adult life, I couldn’t help but actually take it for granted. It was probably due to years of doing the same thing over and over again, making it as routine as going grocery shopping. I know I’m the only one to blame but going through a rut like that; I would like to think, is a necessary part of a dancer’s growth.

See, aside from bgirling, I never tried other types of dance, even the ones under Hip Hop. Honestly, I was a little too scared to venture off into unchartered territory when I already found a niche that I fit right in. I used to think that it was understandable because why bother learning new tricks when the ones I already got has given me enough props I thought I needed (which is wrong btw).

So years passed (with my mentality like that) until I met a DJ friend that went Salsa dancing. We always saw each other at jams and clubs where she spinned and every time we bumped into one another, she would invite me to hit up a salsa class with her. I always said I would think about it, but in the back of my mind I knew it was a resounding hell no! Aside from thinking how salsa was ballroom, I also couldn’t fathom a break dancer like myself getting jiggy with the old folks.

But after consistent prodding from my friend, I ended up going and actually having a great time. It turned out that the misconceptions I had about salsa were just that, misconceptions. I arrived at the place where the classes were held and saw people with ages that ranged from early 20’s to late 40’s of different nationalities just groovin’ to the music. I didn’t know that salsa appealed to that many people! Salsa classes became part of my weekly ritual and it was great. Not only did salsa boost my confidence but it also allowed me to experiment more with the genre I was already active in: Hip Hop.

Every time I feel like there’s a new kind of Hip Hop dance I want to learn, I now think to myself that if I could pull salsa off, what more with this? The expansion to my dance environment wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for salsa. I learned how to appreciate more the genre I belonged to, making me aware of the different dimensions I am capable of.

Bea spends her free time thinking of freestyle rap lyrics. Check out her latest post on the top 100 rap songs at HardKnockRadio.com.

Posted on

NILAS MARTINS QUIETLY RETIRES FROM NYCB

 

According to the New York Times Arts Beat blog, Nilas Martins, longtime principal with New York City Ballet (and son of Artistic Dir. Peter Martins) has retired. Without a farewell performance, without flowers, without fanfare. The story is that he has a knee injury and suffered continuing problems with that, and ended up getting a job with the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at Kennedy Center and just didn’t feel up to coming back and giving a final performance. I can’t say I blame him. He’d received so much criticism the past couple years he probably just didn’t want to see the onslaught of newspaper articles. I want to write a larger post about this, but I received a recent comment on one of my prior posts on a NYCB retirement (that I now can’t seem to find) about how the critics were too negative with  the retirements, writing about the dancers’ faults toward the end instead of their entire career.

It’s a real issue.

I do believe, as Arlene Croce famously said, that a critic’s duty in a democracy is to be critical. But on the other hand, I feel like maybe different standards should apply for the retirement performances. The person is retiring, do their current weaknesses at the end of their long career and the fact that they’re not dancing as well as they did in their twenties and early thirties really need to be focused on? It’s probably easily assumed by the public that they’re not dancing as well as they once did.  And poor Yvonne Borree – the critic assigned to cover her farewell was the youngest on staff; too young to have seen Borree dance in her prime, so all she could say, apart from describing the performance, was that she as a viewer couldn’t ever connect with her. And she should have said what she felt without buttering it up; she’s a journalist not a publicist. But couldn’t they have found someone who’d followed Borree’s career and saw what had been so special about her cover her final performance?

Anyway, more thoughts on this later. For now, I wish Nilas a successful arts management career in DC.

Above photo from the Daily News.