Tag: So You Think You Can Dance

Posted on

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?

Posted on

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!!!!!!

Posted on

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.