Tag: Pasha Kovalev & Anya Garnis

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I Am Goin’ to Nationals!

Just got my plane ticket for Nationals, coming up at the beginning of September, in Orlando, Florida, where I’ve never been! I was actually pondering saving money and not going this year, but my friend, Michele, blasted some sense into me: it’s going to be far too exciting a year to miss. Am now trying to fill out above form to reserve my event tickets — $70 for Saturday night comp and $60 for Thursday and Friday night each — I do wish it wasn’t so expensive, but at least they’ve moved the competition to a cheaper hotel; last year it was in swanky Palm Beach, and the only hotel in the vicinity was the, basically, ten–star one in which the competition was held.

So, no alligators this year 🙂 (Last year, I took a brief excursion from competition madness to visit the Everglades)

Anyway, this is going to be a big year. Because of a couple of important retirements, new champions will be crowned in two events: American Rhythm and American Smooth.

I’m hoping Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine, my former teacher and an excellent dancer, will do well in Rhythm. Well, I know he’ll do WELL, but will he win is my big question?!

 

Or will the king and queen of rhythm be Emmanuel’s former partner, Joanna Zacharewicz and the super cute Jose deCamps?

 

We’ll know Thursday, September 6th, late late LATE night (these competitions are definitely for night owls)

The highlight for me though is always the International Latin. It’s always a showdown between these two:

current national champs Andrei Gavriline (my favorite American man) and Elena Kruyshkova, and

 

my favorite American woman, Yulia Zagoruychenko, and her partner Max Kozhevnikov.

They also have an open-to-the-world category, in which dancers who are not American residents or citizens can compete. Last year I was just in heaven — my two favorite Latin dancers in the world competed in that category: Slavik Kryklyvyy, who is just about my favorite dancer period (excepting this one of course of course:) ) (Slavik’s dancing here with Elena Khvorova)

and Sergey Surkov (parterning Melia).

 

Oh, I hope so so SO much they compete again this year. I’m thinking Slavik may not, may have only competed last year because he’d just broken up with his old partner, Karina Smirnoff and was testing out a new partnership before the really important world comps, but I really do hope he shows at this one. Otherwise, I’m stuck waiting until next May for Blackpool to see him again…

Two people I’m fairly sure who won’t be there are the couple I always long to see of course: Pasha and Anya, who are, sigh, off to bigger and better things these days… Of course I’m so happy for them, but it is sad knowing I’ll likely not see them compete at one of these events again. I’m thrilled though that so many opportunities are opening up for professional ballroom dancers. The same couples win these competitions year after year after year. And, while it’s always fun for us spectators to watch, I can imagine how frustrating it must be to be a professional dancer knowing you’re likely going to place exactly where you have been for the past umpteenth years.

Anyway, unrelated to the USDSC, here’s some interesting stuff I found on the net:

1) Boris Willis has created a funny little “manly dance” for me, apropos of all my blogging on Bad Boys of Dance and Ted Shawn’s Men Dancers, etc. etc. etc. Thanks Boris!

2) The artist David Michalek, who made those Slow Dancing films I was going on about forever, has linked on his site to a bunch of us bloggers who covered the exhibit. So very cool to see artists taking bloggers so seriously and considering us to be our own little form of press! And, I noticed by reading down his list of bloggers that Alex Ross, classical music critic for the New Yorker, posted a couple of pictures of the event on his blog, one of which intentionally includes both Midsummer Night Swing and Slow Dancing together like many of mine do. I’m glad someone else found the two events coinciding with each other interesting. He describes them, though, as “juxtaposed surreally” with each other in the photo. I’m still interested in why people think it’s odd that an exhibit of filmed dancers should coexist with people actually dancing, that people could enjoy both the physical experience of dancing themselves and of watching dance. To me it seems ideal, not surreal, to have these two events co-occur.

3) Root Magazine, based in San Francisco, is having a little thing on burlesque right now. There’s a write-up on a group that has its origins in Samba, which I found interesting. Root’s editor also deals with the feminist issue, which makes me happy.

4) And, finally, as I’m sure most people already know but I was a bit late to discover (oops 🙂 ), there’s a blog devoted to SYTYCD called, appropriately, Blogging So You Think You Can Dance. It’s really pretty good: they have links to practically everything extant on the internet dealing with the show, and they give detailed, fairly objective write-ups of what happened each night (which is great for me since I’m always out and missing it!) Thanks guys 🙂

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Danny Tidwell Could Use A Bronzed Dance Belt!!!!

Hahhahha! I recently got an email about this earlier post where I was pondering whether I should get Pasha and Luis bronzed dance belts for a holiday gift as an apology for constantly kicking them there during lessons. I’m just so glad, after tonight’s SYTYCD episode that I’m not the only one with that little problem!!

It’s hard to be a male dancer!… What’s up with that look on my face??… Anyway, there we are trying this very cool Karina dip (that I stole from her but can’t do correctly to save my life because, hello, I am NOT Karina!)… This trick is so gorgeous too when done properly IF you can do it properly (when he dips you, it ends up looking similar to the graphic on the top right part of the blog, except of course it should look GOOD, not like that because that is me; I wish I could post a YouTube of Karina and her old partner Slavik doing it because it looks so gorgeous, but they withdrew the clip…) But the trick is so hard because you have to get so close to him and shove your hips into his waist / crotch so that when you arch back you can still hold yourself up and he doesn’t have to throw his back out… And with Rhumba, the beauty of the trick is that you’re coming into him really fast, and with my longish legs, often the left knee that’s kind of humping his back here would be aimed a little farther to the right… He’d shout “hellohellohellohellohello” whenever he needed to warn me. Dancing is so much harder than it looks… Anyway, Argentine tango with all those between-the-legs kicks is just all the worse and I’m sure Pasha is very happy that Argentine tango is not on the International Latin syllabus!

Gosh this is like a lifetime ago! And it’s only last September… Pasha is so incredibly sweet — I just came across these pics recently. He’d agreed to have them taken with me in the studio wearing this Winger t-shirt to model for the Winger! Kristin Sloan (Winger founder and NYCBallet dancer) offered to post pics on the site of Winger readers wearing their t’s at their dance studios or dance-related events, so Pasha nicely let me model the shirt with him 🙂 🙂

I look ridiculously scared!


This was Kristin’s favorite. I look downright in pain! The shirt design is really cool though, right!

I miss him so much! And I miss dancing so much. The most worrisome thing is that, we took these pics right after we’d all returned from Nationals last September (which is on my mind since I’m about to book my tkts for this year — yay!) and I just re-looked at some of my posts on that. I was worried about my flabby butt back then… now, that I haven’t danced in a good — geez eight months — it’s so far beyond sag it’s not even funny. I MUST take dance lessons. I MUST find an inexpensive place.

Anyway, speaking of the Winger, Bennyroyce posted some excellent pics of Bad Boys, the troupe I’d posted on yesterday — they’re far better than mine since they’re up close, or from the perspective of … the Wings! Also, here’s an interesting article in a local Berkshires paper about Rasta and his guys. (Speaking further of the Winger, we still do not know for sure if that dance belt model above is indeed Mr. Hallberg. He would never fess up!!! I think it is — look how similar the face… it’s you, David!)

And coming full circle to Danny and SYTYCD, I was being masochistic and looking up photos of Rasta’s wedding 🙁 and I found this from his ballet school’s alumni page. Look who is in the center of the bottom right-hand picture! And who’s above him — is it Travis from last season?

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Pasha!

Here’s a video from SYTYCD this past week, which I didn’t have the opportunity to watch because I was out on Lincoln Center partaking of all the Slo-Mo action. I just love Pasha, though it’s hard, of course, for me to be objective about him. But lack of objectivity aside, oh how great is he!!!! Gray likes him too 🙂 And thanks to Gray for finding this video for me 🙂

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Oh Good Lord!!!!!!!!

Who saw it last night!!!!! I was DYING! They have studio socials once a month at Dance Times Square (the studio Tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin own) and for part of the party, they’ll have the professional dancers / teachers take the floor and give a little performance. I swear, Melanie has to be begged and cajoled and pleaded with and begged some more to get her out on that dance floor just to do a teensy tiny little seconds-long routine with Tony (her former championship dance partner — they were the National Latin Champs in 1995). And now to see her have to dance on national TV with Pasha!!!!!

If you didn’t see it (SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE that is), what happened was Jesse, Pasha’s partner, became very ill (she actually fainted) yesterday morning and couldn’t perform with him last night. So, in order for Pasha to remain in the competition, Melanie (whom the announcer called Tony’s “Assistant”!!!!!! — I’m sure she just LOVES that title 🙂 🙂 🙂 ) sweetly took Jesse’s place and danced with him! On national TV! Oh good lord, I was screaming, literally screaming at the TV! Did you see it, Parker? Where are you, Parker??? When they did that lift, I had to hold my hand up to the TV! And scream some more! And then cover my mouth so I’d stop screaming… I’m surprised my neighbors didn’t knock to see if something was wrong (or tell me to shut up).

Anyway, if you didn’t see it, my friend Michele sent me this link from SYTYCD website– to see Pasha and Melanie (just scroll down to Pasha). Thanks, Michele!

Aw, Melanie came through for him 🙂 And Pasha was so cute! He’s just so, he’s just such a great Latin dancer, especially Cha Cha! And his smile is so infectious! I just love him 🙂

I hope Jesse’s okay though. They said she had some kind of “heart abnormality” I think is the way (judge) Nigel put it? That doesn’t sound good at all…

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Pasha and Anna on So You Think You Can Dance!!!!!!!!

I missed “So You Think You Can Dance” last week since I was in Blackpool, and now I’m just catching up and seeing that Pasha Kovalev and Anna Garnis were indeed on the show 🙂 Pasha’s sitting in the front row in the wait room 🙂 So exciting seeing my friends (and most excellent former teacher!!) on TV! Reminds me that I forgot to post pics of them in Blackpool. Sorry they’re so crappy — see what I mean about how crowded it was that I could not get a decent seat from which to take decent up-close pics?… Argh!

As you can see, she is wearing a wig in these pictures. Originally a blonde, she is now wearing her hair long and dark, but she often wears wigs for the comps.

I’m so psyched that they are on TV!!!!!

Did anyone see ballet dancer Danny Tidwell? Was he as pompous and arrogant as the judges are saying he was?

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Pasha and Anna Return to the Stage!

I know it is near impossible to see, but here is the great, the amazing, the beyond talented, the bewitching, the captivating, the truly wonderfully incredible — not enough superlatives to describe her! — Anna Garnis, taking her bow after performing in the pro part of the Dance Times Square pro / am showcase last night in Hunter College auditorium. Pasha Kovalev, my former teacher, who is of course all of the same and more(!), is to the left of her.

It was actually really nice not to perform, to just sit and relax and watch everyone else — especially them. My studio friends and I — a bunch of us sat together up in the balcony — were worried they weren’t going to show. Pasha’s just coming out of a long, weird illness, but is finally, thank Heaven, fully recovered. They didn’t appear until the last quarter of the show. When Pasha walked out onstage, my heart fluttered, and my friend grabbed my arm and squealed, “that’s him!”

I don’t know what it was, but tonight — just like after the first time I ever saw them perform, at the first DTS showcase two years ago, before I actually began my lessons with Pasha — I just felt this huge lump in my throat watching them. After they left the stage, I felt like I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the night — all I could do was stare into space. After the show completely ended, I just felt like crying, but not out of sadness, out of … I don’t know what. My friend tried to get me to go to the studio, to the after-show party, but I hadn’t planned on it since I had to get home and get rested up for my hectic work week ahead. But even if I would have decided to go just for a little while, I knew I wouldn’t be able to have fun and be social. I don’t mean to sound ludicrously melodramatic; I just felt like I have when I’ve just finished a novel or seen a movie or play that drove me to tears, that I could only come straight home and just … be. I don’t know what it is — it’s definitely not jealousy — I know I’ll never be Anna and I can definitely appreciate her greatness without thinking how horrible I am; it’s something else entirely … just like something you just can’t talk about for a while.

Anyway, it’s also so amazing, just such an experience, to watch people being exposed to dance for the first time witness truly great dancers. I hardly recognized any of the student performers from the studio, and, since I’ve spent so much time there over the past two years, I knew many of them were new. Being primarily a student showcase, most of the audience was comprised of students’ families and friends, who were, judging by their comments about dance, likely similarly inexperienced in the ballroom scene, or any other dance scene for that matter.

Before Pasha and Anna danced, the crowd was laughing and cheering on the students, having a great time and really enjoying themselves. One of the professionals, Lauren, did a three-quarter splits in her Rhumba routine, and I guess because she went down so quickly — speed being a key element in Latin — this guy up in our section who was being pretty vocal throughout, shouted, “Whoa! Man!” like it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen! The theater’s small and everyone heard him and laughs abounded — Lauren couldn’t help but be affected by his hilarious enthusiasm herself — and she even cracked a smile up there on the stage.

Well, Lauren and Fred, her partner, finished and Pasha walked out. I heard vocal guy say, understandably, “Who’s he?” Every other pro had been on at least once already, if not a few times. My friend and I exchanged glances and giggled. We both wondered if vocal guy and the rest of the crowd would recognize that these two were on a completely different level than everyone else up there. You never really know with a crowd that’s new to something, if they will recognize greatness, you know? A guy in orchestra called out, “Pashaaaaa!” Women down below began cheering. My friend and I clapped. After their music began and Anna took about two Rhumba walks toward him, the crowd went completely still. And remained so throughout. After they finished, slowly the crowd came to its feet. Vocal guy screamed “Oh my God, oh my God,” and several others started a chant of “Bravos” — the first I think I’ve EVER heard for a ballroom performance. It was the most breathtaking Rhumba I’ve ever seen. I really felt like crying. My friend squeezed my arm ever harder. I guess when you’re out for a while, sick and recovering, you just naturally come back with a bang. A huge one.

It’s well known in the studio and the ballroom world in general now that Pasha and Anna tried out for and got pretty far on “So You Think You Can Dance” — the TV show. They’re sworn to secrecy now and cannot reveal what happened in the final cuts until the show airs at the end of this month. I hope so much they did well. They so deserve it. They are true performers. And this is the cruelty and travesty of ballroom. They’re currently stuck in fifth position in the U.S. National Latin championships and basically will be until the four above them retire. Because that is The Rule of the ballroom world: The Rule is that couple number one is Andrei Gavriline and Elena Kruyshkova, couple number two is Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagorouychenko, and so on down the line, and the judges never forget it, those are The Ranks, set in stone. Perhaps I’m being unfair and Pasha and Anna don’t really do that well in competition; perhaps they just excel in performance. Some dancers are like that. And when I see other dancers competitively ranked above them do a solo showcase, they’re nothing compared to Pasha and Anna. But maybe that couple is just better at competition. Maybe competing and performing take two completely different sets of talents, who knows. But I do know that Pasha and Anna deserve to be better than Number 5 in the country for the rest of their careers.

Anyway, here’s my friend Parker taking her bow. Yes, that’s the same Parker from the previous night’s bellydance showcase — this one does practically every kind of dance imaginable 🙂 ! Yes, she’s actually worse than me in that department 🙂 She did a very sweet, very fast fun cha cha, and got a lot of applause!

And here’s the whole “cast.”

Of course I’m sad I didn’t perform as well. But on the other hand, I saved about $2,000, and I got to see Pasha and Anna’s emotionally moving return, from the audience, from their perspective, instead of cramped in the wings.

And … Just one week — ONE WEEK NOW — till my other favorite returns to the stage!!!!!!

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"Dirty Dancing" in Tribeca With Anna Garnis, and Nearly Woman-Less DWTS

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Dirty Dancing, the Tribeca Film Festival, which is now underway, is showing the film at the Tribeca Drive-In, located outside at the World Financial Center Plaza, for free, tomorrow night, Thursday, April 26th. I already knew, and blogged about it earlier, but what I didn’t know is that one of the teachers from my studio, the amazing Anna Garnis, is going to be one of the pro dancers doing a little pre-movie pro ballroom dance demo.

 

I’m so upset because I have tickets for something else and can’t make it! Figures! Anyway, Anna is one of the very best Latin ballroom dancers in this country; she and her partner, Pasha Kovalev (my former teacher 🙂 ), always place in the finals at the national competitions, and they really have the best show-quality of anyone, IMHO 🙂 She is most definitely worth seeing if you can make it down there tomorrow night. Here are deets on the show.

Anyway, DWTS: So, Heather got booted, leaving only one woman — the amazing Laila — who I don’t think is going anywhere for a while — and nearly all of the men who started. The former cultural history grad student in me just wants to look at this as an interesting cultural phenomenon. I wish they would do a demographics study on who is watching the show — well, I’m sure they have but haven’t revealed it to the public — but from reading the message boards anyway, it appears that it is mostly women watching and voting. So, it’s interesting to me, women really want to watch the non-pro men dance. Which makes sense — the men are rather fun; even if some of them aren’t that good, it’s just really kind of fun to see these guys who complain about looking “girly” and “sissified” (and all those annoying terms) doing the Latin hip-swaying thing, being forced to duke it out with each other on the dance floor. Adult men who did not take up dance as a profession and who’ve never taken lessons are often more reticent than women to learn or even to just get out there on the dance floor, so I really think there is some of the fun of watching that going on. I think Laila is different than “normal” women since she’s a boxer. And I LOVED her lifting little Apolo in that group swing! I do hope anyway that she stays a little while longer for more moves like that 🙂 I just think it’s interesting in general, from a larger cultural perspective, to ponder who likes dancing, who watches dancing, who follows dancing, what it is that turns those people on to dance, and whom they want to watch dance…

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Yet Another Red Dress, Friends on TV(!), and New York City Ballet Tix

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.