So much to blog, so little time

My attention has been largely consumed lately by trying to 1) sell a house, 2) buy a house, and 3) relocate my life four states away. Yes, sadly I will soon no longer be musing about dance from Houston. Mr. Silvershoes got the job offer of a lifetime and we decided to carpe diem and move to Atlanta, GA. I will, however, continue to muse about dance in Houston, particularly concerning the differences between the Houston and Atlanta dance scene. I know next to nothing about the Atlanta dance scene, so it will be a journey of discovery for everyone.

In the mean time, here are a few abbreviated entries on performances both local and national. I'm hoping to catch a few more live performances before I make the trek out to peachland. I have 6 more days of vacation to use up, too, so I might even find the time for proper entries!

Acis and Galatea, February 18, 2006, Hobby Center's Zilkha Hall

This 1718 opera by Handel was performed by Mercury Baroque with staging by Dominic Walsh. The cast consisted of two female and six male vocalists, two dancers, and two little boys. The dancers, Lindsey McGill and Dominico Luciano, are familiar from DWDT and were excellent. I enjoyed the performance, but had one complaint: in the first act NOTHING HAPPENS. The music was nice but too much the same throughout the first act; it was almost like listening to the same song for 45 minutes. The program notes for this act say

In the pastoral land of nymphs and shepherds, Galatea, a sea nymph who is partly divine, loves the shepherd Acis. The two pursue each other, and finally become lovers.

The pursuing seemed to consist of bumping into each other in the middle of a field. The second act picked up a bit as Polypheme got into the act. Polypheme loves Galatea; Polypheme is jealous of Acis; Polypheme kills Acis; Galatea turns Acis's dead body into a river. You know, standard Greek mythology stuff.

The female vocalists and the dancers were the highlights for me. Walsh's choreography was intriguing as always, but it was a little strange to mix contemporary ballet with a production which in almost every other way tried to remain true to how the opera would have been performed back in the day. I couldn't help but notice that as Polypheme transformed from crude, dirty monster to sophisticated, clean monster, he (or at least his clothing) began to look more and more like Walsh. I wonder if Walsh, who designed the set and costumes in addition to stage directing, did this consciously or unconsciously.

The best man won (DWTS weeks seven and eight)

I'm astonished. The "star" that I thought most deserved to win actually won the discobolusish Dancing With The Stars trophy. (Don't look it up. It's an inside joke.) It's clear that Jerry Rice didn't make it to 2nd place with his dancing, although he finally let go and had some fun during the last two shows. Stacey's freestyle dance on Thursday was a real disappointment, but it did Drew a huge favor. Since Stacey came in third in the popular vote (which she had to in order to be third overall), it didn't matter who came in first and second in the popular vote, because Drew would have won overall either way. In fact, Drew could ONLY lose if he came in last in the popular vote.

Of course the above all rests on the order of the judges' scores. I didn't understand why they gave Drew 9's for his last dance. It's like they punished him for being as good as he was on Thursday, while rewarding Stacey, who merely came up to his level on the last dance. I guess that's the problem with judging something artistic - there's no way to be completely objective.

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No, I haven't forgotten about America's Ballroom Challenge, part II. I guess I was a little underwhelmed by it. In most cases, it was like the judges got inside my head and picked the couple I liked the least. Dragging someone across the floor is not ballroom, or at least it doesn't fit my image of ballroom, and I can't stand the way so many ballroom ladies break their arm lines at the wrist. If you want to see an example of what I'm talking about, go to this page and look at the picture of Erminio Stefano and Liene Apale. They were nice dancers, but that picture just makes me cringe.

fashion show

This is the most fun I've had in years. Last week I was a volunteer model in a fashion show given by ballroom dress designers Designs To Shine. I got to wear sparkly dresses, and that by itself would have made it quite memorable, but what made it so fun was that one of the dresses I got to wear (the red one) was worn by Charlotte on Dancing With The Stars! There were several other dresses from the show on display, including the one on the left shown below. (My fellow models included Viktoria Belova, right, also way cool!) If you have several thousand dollars to spend on a dress, I'd definitely recommend Designs to Shine.

Erratum: I had previously reported that the dresses for Season One were supplied by ChrisAnn. Apologies to Designs to Shine for that mistake.

DWTS, weeks five and six

week 5: Stacey really shook her thang, George did a little actual dancing, Jerry did a whole lot better. Which is all I feel like writing. So there.

For week 6, an experiment: stream-of-consciousness blogging!

Demonstrations by the professionals - oh goody!

I still don't like Jive. But Ashley does it well - I think it's her strongest dance.

Jonathan and Anna. I miss Jonathan; he's such a nice standard dancer. Oh, foot cam! Does every dance have to end with the lady bent over backwards?

Edyta must like that color. Oops, bird lift didn't work AT ALL. Been there, done that; they did a pretty good job covering it. I get the feeling they all had about an hour to come up with their dances.

Cool dress on Cheryl! She's really drapey. Three out of four.

I don't know the names of either of these dancers doing the Quickstep, but they're quite good.

Jerry and Anna, Paso Doble Can I say, it's awesome to have a professional football player on TV talking about how much he wants to dance. Ouch - bad joke about the quarter! Still a little stiff, but he's really into it. He looks like the king of Siam. 9, 7, 8? 8, 7, 8, I was close.

Drew and Cheryl, Tango My mom says to me last week, "Drew is very musical." This thing with his brother is a little hokey. They couldn't put makeup on the hand elastic? Another nice dress, though. I can't decide if this song sucks as a tango or not. Somehow, it both sucks and doesn't suck. Good intensity. Nice bow! I see 10's coming up. 10, 10, 10!

George and Edyta, Rumba Chernoble, lol. Ooh, I like this song, and nice singer, too. Wow, Edyta looks sexy! He's got the right feeling on those cucarachas. Oh yeah, he's enjoying this. Drag next time? 8, 7, 8? (Inspector Clouseau!) 8, 7, 8, yep.

Lisa and Louis, Quickstep They got screwed on the music last week. Ha ha, Miss Manners! What's that thing on her head? 9 to 5?? It's not working for her. Her hold is really weak. She's got the footwork, though. Cute ending. Let's see how gentle the judges are. Umm, really gentle - I think they're cutting her a lot of slack. 8, 8, 8? 9, 9, 9, wtf?

Stacey and Tony, Jive You know that coat's coming off. She's a performer. There it goes! Pretty good, I'd say. Hmm, I see a tie in the near future. Yep!

Wiener Waltz! Nice bird lift! Uh huh, nice spin, no surprise there. Nice funky chicken, LOL! Good standing foot spin. I don't think they did drop spins in Vienna. Another bird, imaginative exit.

Ok, I'm beat, going to bed. 'Night!

Get down

Ballet is all about up. In just about any ballet class, you'll hear the instructor mention at least once how you should lift here, stretch up there, and look up! A Google image search of "ballet " pulls up pictures of women on pointe and men looking up to the balcony. Ballet has taken up to an extreme by having women dance around on their toes. Bent legs are a real no-no in ballet; if you're on relevé, your leg damn well better be straight unless you're doing hops en pointe. There are for the most part two levels in ballet, middle and up. Down is rarely used; sure, you plie for just about everything, but the plie isn't the end, it's the means. The most obvious exception is lunges, but those are usually only done as part of an adagio. All this is why my thighs always hurt the day after taking jazz, which could be seen as the complement to ballet as it's mostly done middle and down.

You know all that time you spent in ballet class mastering the "up?" Forget about it when you enter a ballroom studio. Ballroom uses all three levels equally in a manner unlike any other dance system I've studied. (Modern can be anything, of course, but I haven't studied much of any particular modern technique, except enough Horton to know that I'm not made for it.) When you're down, you need to be down, not just "below middle." This is something I tend to forget when my mind is focused on other things, like remembering what comes next. In the absence of conscious command, my body reverts to ballet technique. Just about anything my teacher tells me I'm doing wrong I can attribute to the fact that I'm doing it like a ballet dancer would do it. When I go "up" I straighten my legs, which is a real no-no in ballroom. It's actually hard for me not to straighten them, but I think I see the point: it's darned near impossible to maintain the correct hip placement with straight legs. I suppose, in this respect at least, I would be better off with less dance experience, as one of the more difficult things for beginning dancers to master is keeping their legs straight in relevé.

America's Ballroom Challenge, part I

Did you remember to watch America's Ballroom Challenge last night? It was great to finally see professionals dancing with professionals. I haven't seen much of that since I started ballroom, and I was having trouble picturing what a lot of moves should look like. Now I have lots of examples! And I didn't have to pay $100 for a video!

I have to admit that I wasn't all that enthralled by the American dances. In some of the styles you could barely tell which dance they were doing because of all the flourishes and poses. I'm also going to take a moment to kvetch about the ladies' dresses, particularly the Smooth ones. The current fashion is to bare as much midriff as possible while keeping the illusion of a dress. This has led to tortuous cutouts that spoil the dancers' lines. You can be sexy and still be elegant, but this isn't the way to do it. I realize that I may come across as an old fuddy-duddy on this point, but for one thing I'm a traditionalist by nature, and for another, the costumes are blurring the line between ballroom dancer and Vegas showgirl. Dance isn't about showing skin, it's about dancing!

Costumes and choreography aside, the dancers were quite good. I mean, you'd kind of hope so, right? It was exciting to see Viktoria Belova and Eddie Stutts in the Standard final, since I see Ms. Belova teaching all the time. I even saw her and Eddie having a lesson of their own last Saturday. Everyone in the Standard final looked quite elegant (yea, no weird cutouts), and I felt very inspired by their performances. There were quite a few collisions in that group, but it makes sense given that it was the most progressive style.

My mom was paying more attention than I was; Tony Dovolani, one of the top finishers in the Smooth finals, is Stacey's partner on DWTS.

DWTS, weeks three and four

Master P is gone, finally! It was becoming increasingly painful to watch him dance every week. I didn't mind that his technique was not so good; what bothered me was that he was barely even trying. I was shocked when the announcer-lady mentioned that while all of the other dancers had averaged 130 hours of training, P had only done 20. What message do you think he was really sending to the people in the 'hood? Ashley deserves sainthood for remaining positive throughout, at least on camera.

The level of dance in the competition is clearing rising. Some of these people are starting to look like dancers! Someone at some point commented on Drew's musicality, which really shouldn't surprise anyone given that he's a musician. (What do you call a musician without rhythm? "Waiter!") Speaking of music, some of the choices for the Paso Doble were truly appalling. How exactly is one supposed to imagine a bullfighter to "Thriller?"

This week everyone does the same dance for the first time, the Samba. The only dance left on the list is Viennese Waltz, so it will be interesting to see what happens next week.