Tag: Slavik Kryklyvyy

Posted on

Christopher Wheeldon (AKA The Genius) at Guggenheim, and Ballet Makes an Appearance on Dancing With the Stars!

I had such a great dance-watching night last night! First I went to yet another of the Guggenheim’s Works & Process events, this time to hear choreographer / artistic director Christopher Wheeldon talk about his new company, Morphoses, which, I know, I just can’t shut up about and am likely driving everyone crazy with! (But at least I’m not the only one! Also, Philip has an interview up with Morphoses choreographer Edwaard Liang, who was supposed to dance last night but unfortunately did not.)

I just think Wheeldon is such a genius, at least in terms of his choreography. His head may be a bit in the clouds as an artistic director regarding what the company may be capable of in terms of all the visual artists / musicians, etc. etc. ETC. he wants to collaborate with (especially in light of last week’s huge news about corporate giant Altria’s pulling the plug on crucially-needed dance funding in NYC), and executive director Lourdes Lopez told a funny story about his extremely last-minute, day-of-performance, without-a-care-in-the-world wish that she locate a violinist in rural Colorado to play live. But one thing is for sure: as a creator of dances he is brilliant; he is a contemporary Kenneth MacMillan, I do believe.

So, we saw a solo excerpt from “Elsinore,” an abstract, mesmerizing feast for the eyes (which I usually don’t say about either abstract ballets OR solos) danced by Russian ballerina Anastasia Yatsenko. And that was preceded by this absolutely beautiful bittersweet pas de deux called “There Where She Loved,” which tells the story of a woman trying in vain to make herself believe she doesn’t love her cheating husband, and which contained some of the most inventive, gorgeous partnering I think I’ve ever seen. It was danced by NYCB ballerina Maria Kowroski and Ballet Boyz danseur Michael Nunn. It seriously nearly made me cry, a sentiment expressed as well by a woman I met afterward waiting in line for the bus.

They also showed a short documentary-style film about the troupe’s world premiere in Vail, Colorado this summer which was really cute. An excited Tyler Angle exclaimed that you don’t even realize how hard you’re working because of all the excitement of being part of something fun and new. Wendy Whelan sweetly remarked that it was clear Wheeldon had taken pains to assemble a group of dancers who got along so well together, which was a part of the joy and success of working with him. There was no studio in Vail so they brought barres out onstage and took class there. (I always love watching professional dancers take class; I once watched an instructional tape of Fernando Bujones doing the same and it was so unbelievably thrilling just watching a master execute beyond perfection everything you try so hard to do.) Illustrating his charmingly goofy sense of humor, Wheeldon, raising a cup of coffee to the camera man, said, “Okay, I’m ready to run a company now, I’ve had my morning coffee.”

Wheeldon told us his artistic vision and reasons for starting the new company were twofold: to take ballet in new directions by creating fresh programming that would both draw new audiences and re-invigorate current ones; and to give dancers as fulfilling a career possible by allowing them to broaden their training in new dance styles and to share in the creative process by collaborating on the pieces. He believes the old way of running a company top down doesn’t work anymore: dancers are intelligent, they juggle college courses now with their full-time dancing, they don’t need to be lorded over and their minds can and should be used in the artistic process. You can always tell when a dancer had a part in creating a role, he said.

Wheeldon is such a little cutie — a genuinely wonderful, warm, happy guy with a very cheery outlook. I can’t wait to see their first full program, on tomorrow night!

Then, I came home and watched Dancing With the Stars. I was very happy to see Jonathan Roberts convince his celebrity student Marie Osmond to take a ballet class in order to get down some dance fundamentals, such as finding her center. “I don’t know what a core is!” she screamed, like a typical beginning adult. How much can I relate to that, and to her complete inability to do those grand jetes!!! Too funny 🙂 I loved to see her trying though, and realizing how very hard it is.

But more: ahhh, how much do I love watching all those amateur men try the tour jetes in Paso!!!! This is by far my favorite Paso Doble step for the men, of course being the bravura-loving balletomane that I am 😀 It’s really the one ballet step that is used in a Latin dance and it’s so gorgeous of course when executed properly, balletically, as Slavik Kryklyyvy, my favorite, does! Looks very Don Quixote. I’d always get very annoyed at competitions when there wasn’t at least one big huge tour jete in each Paso routine. But those amateur men last night! They were so cute trying to get it right! The boxer guy dancing with Karina Smirnoff jumped quite high, but kicked his feet together then lifted both legs in back instead of only one; I thought he was going to come down right on his knees. Fortunately he fixed it mid air and did what looked like a spiffy Jive bent-knee jump instead, but with a bull-fighter Paso attitude. But it was cute! And another guy just jumped forward with the one foot and turned around in the air and came down on the other, but without gaining any height or even trying to bring his legs together, so looked very squat! Still, definitely better than I can do and I found it all a thrilling blast to watch. I think Karina and the other pros should send their students to Vladimir (I don’t know how to link to that specific step in ABT’s dictionary, but go here, scroll down to jete entrelace and watch Vladimir Malakhov execute the perfect balletic tour jete). Actually wouldn’t it be awesome to have a ballet dancer come on the show and teach!!!

And how cute is that Helio! I love him so much I am already worrying myself sick over him getting injured in a car accident. Be careful, Helio! Judge Carrie Ann said, “Watching you makes me happy to be alive, Helio.” Exactly. That’s precisely the way I feel about Marcelo. It’s a Brazilian male dancer thing, quite obviously. Brazilian male dancers make you happy to be alive 🙂

Speaking of which… it’s just one week now!!!

Posted on

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 🙂

Posted on

Hey Man, Where Are My Peeps Tonight???

Okay, I guess I should check my local Fox listings more often 🙂 I specifically came home from work early tonight (8 p.m. — eh) to watch my favorite show and instead there are all of these men grunting like beasts and ramming their helmeted heads into each other’s bodies??? Where’s my dance!!!

Haha, it’s funny though, because the advertising is sooo different. Has anyone noticed? I don’t know what the commercials during SYTYCD usually consist of because I’ve never really paid much attention, but I know there aren’t all of these bikini-clad women and Bud adverts that seem to me to appeal to the lowest common denominator! It’s kind of sad; I guess there are real gender differences between men and women, or at least the kind of men and women who watch these respective shows. But also interesting to me is that the Fox people seem to know that most SYTYCD-watchers are women and arty, intellectual-type men, no?

Anyway, I was going to blog about this last night but got lazy and tired and had to go to bed after the show, but I’m just so proud of Pasha. I just think he’s doing so well. My favorite Latin dancer in the world has long been Slavik Kryklyvyy — and during my lessons with Pasha, I’d always bring tapes of Slavik dancing with his former partner, Karina, to the studio and ask Pasha if we could try to re-enact some of their lifts and fancy dips. He’d always be the sport and say sure, but I could tell inside he was kind of rolling his eyes — either because they were far above me and he knew he’d be struggling to hold me up 🙂 or because it’s probably just annoying for any dancer to hear how someone worships another 🙂 Pasha’s so great though for letting me drool on and on over Slavik!

Anyway, last night, during the very beginning of the show when they did their little opening half-of-a-second solos, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. He moved just like Slavik. I really think this competition has improved his dancing so much. He’s worked so hard to master all the different kinds of dance styles and choreography to the best of his ability and he now moves in ways that are just breathtaking, so beyond what he did before. I’m just so floored. And, I mean, last night’s hip hop just looked so cute on him. He’s not going to ever be some down-home, bad-ass, hipper than thou, totally hot African-American guy doing hip-hop, but he did his own cute Pasha thing with it, and it was so him and so sweet and so brilliant. And that’s what dance is all about: interpreting something in your own way, adding your style and technique, doing it to the best of your ability, and just owning it. The waltz, as well, was beautiful, as expected. And his solo: I mean, people are saying it was weird (see the comments to this post), and I totally understand what they mean, but I think it was rather ironic: I think he was saying to the judges, “Okay, you say Latin ballroom dancers suck at solos because we’re essentially partner-dancers, so here, here’s a partner-dance for you — I’ll dance with a damn mannequin.” That’s my take anyway…

And, you just never know how someone is going to hold up under pressure. Ballroom dancers dance to normally relatively small audiences — I think the biggest — definitely at Blackpool — must consist of a couple thousand??? I mean, nowhere near the millions who are scrutinizing his every move now. So, I just worry that someone will just crack under the pressure. But not any of these pros 🙂

Okay, I’m done fawning! Oh, but just one more thing: Claudia sent a link to the Blogging SYTYCD blog to some pics she found of Pasha and Anya — these are the photos of them dancing at Blackpool 2005 that I was referring to earlier! Is Anya not absolutely gorgeous!! How much do I want that black dress! Yes, Anya used to have blonde hair 🙂 She looks just bewitching with any color though, if you ask me.

Okay, in other news: I’m excited because I just received in the mail a flyer for the Martha Graham Dance Company, who will perform at the Joyce Theater in Chelsea in a couple of weeks.

I’ve only seen this company a couple of times, but what is so cool is that on the flyer is a picture of Miki Orihara, a newish contributor to my favorite dance blog, The Winger. I’m so excited to see her perform! I personally think blogs are a great way for dancers to communicate with audiences and make new fans. From her Winger posts, Miki seems so incredibly sweet. So, I can’t wait!

Posted on

Places to Score Great Ballroom Videos, Particularly Those Containing Pasha and Anya :)

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 🙂

Posted on

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 🙂

Posted on

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?

Posted on

Depressed, Missing Slavik and Sergey, and Suffering TAC Headache…

Sorry no posting for the last couple of days. It took me forever to get home, first because of a several-hour-long plane delay, then over an hour-long cab wait at Port Authority (to which I took a bus from JFK). And I’m still so tired. I didn’t get much sleep the entire time I was there (in Blackpool), and it’s now really catching up with me. I’m just kind of depressed, missing Slavik Kryklyvyy and Sergey Surkov and all of my favorite Latin people…

Slavik is such a ham, as I realized for the first time this competition. The only other time I’ve seen him dance live was at U.S. Nationals in Florida last September when he competed in the open-to-the-world category, and there, he didn’t play so to the crowd since it really wasn’t his people. Here of course, everyone went completely nuts screaming and cheering the nanosecond he stepped onto the floor so he really hammed it up. How do I choose these guys? Marcelo, Jose, now this one… guess I’m just naturally attracted to a certain dancer-personality type …

Although Sergey seems more quiet, like a David Hallberg. No hamminess, no crazed fanfare, just great dancing, near flawless technique, and intense passion for his very pretty partner… It’s funny because, at one point during finals, Joanna Leunis and Michael Malitowski were dancing very close to Sergey and Melia and I could see from afar that the way Michael threw Joanna out to his right into a lunge, she was going to brush Sergey’s left side. She kind of reached out and playfully petted his left shoulder to let him know she was there, and he was so focused, as he always is, on Melia, I thought oh no, Joanna’s totally gonna disturb his concentration! He did seem a little surprised, but not too much so — obviously he’s used to dancing on a very crowded dance floor after all! After the round was over, still close to Michael and Joanna, he kind of tenderly patted her on the shoulder as well. It was cute. He seems kind of shy. Very attractive 🙂

Hehehe, do you think he’s mad at me for this pic?!?! I nearly dropped my camera when he shot me this look 🙂 Isn’t he cute — doesn’t he look kind of like Keanu Reeves?! He and Melia were meeting fans and autographing posters at the Chrisanne boutique in the shop pavilion, which I blogged about earlier, but here is a better picture. Sorry about the crappy cell phone pictures, by the way. It was the only way I could blog without worrying about an insecure wireless connection for my laptop. I’ll get a better cameraphone the next time!

Anyway, it was just so exciting to be there and I feel like none of my world favorites come to the U.S. competitions and so I don’t know now when I’ll see them again. I hate to think of having to wait another whole year… Now on top of being tired and depressed, or perhaps because of one or both of them, I have another one of these horrid headaches, which means, after the pain, days of being all woozy from the meds…

Anyway, I managed to get all of my pictures downloaded, although the captions are not all up and some names are spelled wrong and there are typos galore… all of which I plan to have fixed by this weekend, at the latest. Unfortunately the pictures this year are not as good as those last year, mainly because I couldn’t get a very good seat up close to the action, so everything is from afar, and pics of the finals in all competitions are from all the way up in the balcony, so you can hardly make out most of the dancers’ faces… It was insanely crowded, so it meant reaching up and over heads, snapping away haphazardly and hoping the picture came out okay… Another thing that kind of depressed me though I guess it shouldn’t. I should be happy that “Dancing With the Stars” and all of these shows have made ballroom dancing so popular that the number of amateur entries basically doubled and it was so crowded you could hardly move, but … I don’t know, it just meant I could hardly see any of the action.

I’m going to be talking about this likely for weeks to come, and posting things as I remember them, but here are a few more quick highlights:

bryan and carmen Bryan Watson and Carmen taking their final ballroom floor walk en route to the judges to receive their final first-place Latin champions trophy. So sad. So many retirements this year in dance in general…

Max Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko being called to the floor to receive one of their two finalist awards: they placed sixth in Rhumba I think fifth in Jive. Max was so cute when their number (198) was called as finalist! He ran out onto the floor and started jumping around pounding his fists into the air like a cute little kid. Yulia ran up behind him and grabbed him from behind. He then remembered her and turned around and hugged her.

Same EXACT actions from these two:

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed

Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed who, for the first time, made finals in Standard Ballroom in three of the four dances (excluding waltz). He ran out in his tux and tails, jumped around pounding the air excitedly, then she ran out behind him in her ballgown, and had to tap him on the back before he turned around and remembered, oh yeah my partner, she helped too, really should include her in the euphoria… Ballroom men!!!!!

It was a great Blackpool for America this year. With Anna and Victor making finals in Standard and Max and Yulia in Latin, and Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova placed second overall in Standard.

jonathan and katusha

Okay, that is all for now… more later…

Also, I went to see ABT‘s Sleeping Beauty last night but will blog about it after I see it again, with another cast, later this week.

Posted on

Emotional night

Emotional night

Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile.


Carmen and bryan watson – world latin champs for ten years and longest in history – announced their retirement tonight after winning again. A lot of tears. Slavik came in third, sergey fifth and max & yulia made finals in two dances placing seventh overall!

Posted on

Highlights So Far, But Very Quickly!

I have a quick few seconds and then must head off to the preliminary rounds of pro Latin today — my very favorite day!!! And, Slavik Kryklyvyy, my favorite dancer, will be dancing in prelims (all couples who made semifinals last year are exempt from afternoon prelims and don’t dance til evening, but Slavik has a new partnership this year so is not exempt. He placed second in the world — with Karina Smirnoff of DWTS — last time he danced two years ago, so it’s always very amusing to see the greats dancing with the newbies!). So, anyway, I must get there early and get a good seat to hopefully get some good pics 🙂

Anyway, very quickly here are some of the pics taken from my photo album (which I’ll keep updating as time permits) of my highlights from the first few days (opening Congress lectures on ballroom dancing through Amateur Latin and Junior Ballroom).

mirko and alessia

First in the world in Standard Ballroom, Mirko Gozzoli and Alessia Betti from Italy, during opening Congress

The fabulous Maxim Kozhevnikov and Yulia Zagoruychenko from the U.S., currently 2nd in Latin in US and first in world in Latin showdance, showing snippets of their new showdance routine during Congress.

This is from the most interesting of the Congress lectures in my opinion. Retired Latin champs, now theater arts performers Jukka Haapalainen and Sirpa Suutari from Finland are working on a full-length dance rendition of Federico Garcia Lorca’s brilliant play “Bodas de Sangre.” The full-length story dance, the first of its kind to be entirely in Latin Ballroom style, will be performed in Finland. I’m so excited about this! Ballet may have a new competitor for full-length story dances!

Exhibition champs Victor DaSilva and Hanna Karttunen from South Africa performing their new routine. Their signature lift is one where he lies on the floor, lifts her with two arms, then to one, then gets up into standing position all the while lifting her with only one arm. I didn’t want to take a picture of that one and risk distracting them with my flash!

Team USA taking the floor during their opening number for the team match. Match consists of a competition — first Latin, then ballroom, with two couples in each style from each of four countries. This year’s match was between US, UK, Russia and Italy. UK came in first, then Italy, then Russian, then US 🙁 UK has all the great Standard Ballroom dancers — two of the top three in the world are from England, while no one country really has all the great Latin dancers — tops are divided between Germany, Poland, Russia, and … oh I always forget where #3 is from — Andrei Skufca and Katarina Venturinini but it’s somewhere in Eastern Europe — Slovenia??) Anyway, the UK kind of has the team comp in the bag because of its Standard…

Slavik and new partner Elena Khvorova competing in the team match for Russia.

Second in the world in Latin Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis from Poland demonstrating during their Samba lecture on the second day of Congress (Sunday).

The adorable Timothy Howson and Joanne Bolton, 2nd in the world in Ballroom, demonstrating Viennese Waltz during Congress.

My second favorite male Latin dancer, Sergey Surkov and his partner Melia from Poland. He is by far the most romantic, passionate male dancer in the world and I think all male dancers could take serious lessons from him — from Latin to Ballet! One of the real highlights of Congress for me was watching him participate in one of the lectures on Latin Dancing Through the Ages.


From that same lecture, given by Richard Porter, here is another couple, represting the Fifties in Latin dancing. I LOVE that dress and kinda wish the styles were still the same — so classic. This was to me the most entertaining lecture. He went through four decades showing how certain basics remained the same but styles and embellishments have changed to reflect the time. It reminded me a bit of Apollinaire Scherr’s recent very interesting article in Newsday apropros of NYCBallet’s new Romeo and Juliet on the different versions of that ballet over time and how they’ve each reflected goings-on in the world at large at that particular time. I’ll have more to say about this (as well as the Bodas de Sangre ballet) when I return because I think this is a very intriguing topic. I can’t think very clearly right now in this over-crowded, noisy, smoky internet cafe!!!

Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, third in the world in Ballroom, and the top US couple, demoing during Congress.

Nick Kosovitch (who’s appeared on Dancing With the Stars — I think Tatum O’Neal was his last celebrity) with his partner Lena demoing their James Bond-ish ballroom showdance during Congress.

Max and Yulia again participating in another Congress lecture, this one on making the proper entrance and exit by this amusing Russian guy named Taliat Tarsonov. After they performed the ideal “exit,” they performed their entire routine from America’s Ballroom Challenge / Ohio Star Ball that they also performed here last year (and the performance of which I’ve previously embedded a YouTube code) — don’t have time to find it and link, sorry! So exciting! Another big Congress highlight.

Marcus and Karen Hilton, MBEs, former ballroom champs, giving a lecture on “Quality Ballroom.” The crowd went wild and gave them several standing ovations.

And finally, the illustrious, 9-times world Latin champs, Bryan Watson and Carmen from Germany, ending Congress with their lecture on what makes a world champion. I have more to say on this topic too because, in light of their lecture as well as the previous one by the Hiltons, I think what makes a star and a champ is a really interesting topic as well, and one I will blog more about when I return.

For now, I have to get out of here and get to Winter Gardens for pro Latin prelims!!! Sorry if this is loaded with typos and other mistakes — no time to correct!!