And now, Atlanta

As the man says, and now for something completely different. You never know where life is going to lead you; in my case, it has led me to Atlanta. We have now officially taken up residence in Georgia, and thinking about it too much still makes my stomach hurt. It's not that I have anything against Atlanta, just that I've left so much behind in Houston. I have to say that I did not truly appreciate how many good friends I had made in Houston until it came time to leave. Logically, I know that I'll make new friends here, but that doesn't make it any easier to leave the olds ones behind.

Of course I'm impatient and want to have great places to dance right away. I've taken ballet classes at two different studios now, and according to that sample one could conclude that no one in Atlanta does frappés or ronde de jambes en l'air. Fortunately there are several different studios and many different teachers to try, and I'm sure at least one of them will get around to doing a grand allegro. In the mean time, I'm kind of enjoying not running off to dance class every day.

So, I'm sure you're wondering what will become of my lovely blog about dancing in Houston. (Or at least I hope you're wondering.) I see in the future many opportunities to compare and contrast the Houston and Atlanta dance scenes. As Mr. Silvershoe's former students would have written, "The dance scenes in Houston and Atlanta are both similar and different." To begin with, the Atlanta Ballet's season was over before I got to town in the middle of April. Houston Ballet still has two more productions scheduled! (I'm hoping to catch at least one of them on the tail end of a business trip back to town.) Additionally, the modern company CORE Performance Company performs in both Houston and Atlanta. I never managed to see them in Houston, but maybe I'll catch them here.

LOL - The spell-checker on blogger.com doesn't recognize the word "blog."

Dancing in your genes

A friend of mine recently sent me a journal article with the alluring title of "AVPR1a and SCLA4 Gene Polymorphisms Are Associated with Creative Dance Performance." This article was published in PLoS Genetics (you know you have it in your bathroom) in September 2005. It describes a study comparing the frequency of variants of certain genes in dancers, non-dancing athletes, and the general population. The authors find significant correlations between being a dancer and having particular variants, which suggests a genetic predisposition to have the urge to dance. (It seems therefore appropriate that the phrase "Gotta dance!" was announced in Singin' in the Rain by Gene Kelly.)

A few quotes:

We suggest the notion that the "dance" phenotype is no more difficult to define than other complex human behavioral phenotypes (schizophrenia, attention deficit, personality, violence, and others) that have shown to be both heritable and amenable to genetic analysis. Dancers fulfill a set of criteria with considerable face validity (similar in principle to the usual Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-style "symptom checklist") that both identifies and distinguishes one disorder from another.

Read that last sentence without the words in parentheses: "Dancers fulfill a set of criteria with considerable face validity that both identifies and distinguishes one disorder from another." A little copyediting would have helped here, because I don't think the authors were suggesting that dancers suffer from a disorder - although that's open for debate! Two words: pointe shoes.

...in the Korean Salpuri dance, an ecstatic trance state is induced that results in changes in alpha wave activity. [snip] We suggest the notion that the association we observe between SLC6A4 and dance is perhaps related to the need for altered consciousness states that subjects participating in and performing this art form sometimes have. [snip] Perhaps a prerequisite for some types of dancing...is the ability to enter into such a higher state of awareness.

This idea intrigues me, because I've always found performing to be different than any other experience in that I seem to be particularly aware of the emotion and physicality of the movement.

Cross-posted on my science blog.

[4-25-06] Coincidentally, I saw a newspaper article about this study posted at the studio I went to for ballet class last night.

The New Texas Challenge, March 25, 2006, Sheraton North Houston

This (the Texas Challenge) was the very first ballroom competition I've ever been to. I found watching it to be very much like watching a ballroom competition on PBS, minus the dippy commentary. They even had the same announcer. This was the fifth dance event I went to in Houston in March; a quick look back shows how broad the range of dancing is in Houston, because each show was quite different than the next.

The ballroom at the Sheraton is not very large, so you pretty much had a good view wherever you were. I attended the Saturday evening session and got to see finals for the Pro-Am, Rising Star, and Professional categories. (Will someone please explain to me what "rising star" means??) Many of the professionals were familiar from this year's PBS show, including Mazen Hamza & Irina Sarukhanyan, Anton & Lena Koukaeko, and of course Eddie Stutts & Victoria Belova. (Vika and Eddie definitely had the hometown advantage!) It was inspiring to see dancers at the top of the profession swaying not 10 feet from where I was standing.

I prefer International styles over American (is that un-American?), although I confess I can't tell the difference between some of the International Latin and American Rhythm styles. Nevertheless, I found all styles to be enjoyable when watching professionals in person at short range, which somewhat surprised me; however, I still can't STAND when women, even professionals (especially professionals!) break their arm lines at the wrist! Luckily, that didn't happen too often. There was one couple in the professional International Standard that I really enjoyed, although unfortunately I didn't catch their names. I believe they ended up third. If anyone out there can enlighten me as to who they are, please do!