about LaurieAnn , Brazilian Samba , dancing for joy , inspirational dancing , Learning dance , performance dance , rhythm , teaching dance
My last two posts were about two amazing dance teachers who are influencing me now. More than one person has asked me, since I’ve been teaching for more than three decades, am I still taking lessons. There are so many aspects to that question that I thought I’d address some of them here. Dance […]
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Last week I wrote about my Samba teacher Jacqui Barnes. Today I’ll introduce you to my latin rhythms teacher, Yismari Ramos. Like Jacqui, Yismari is passionate about the music of her culture (Cuban) and the the way the dance feels. Her classes consist of complicated choreography that incompasses the various rhythms of Cuban dance. […]
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Dance teachers in my present I wrote a post a while ago about dance teachers in my past who influenced me. I’d like to write now about teachers who are influencing me now. Yes, dance teachers do still study. It never ends! Brazilian Samba I am lucky enough to be able to study Brazilian […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , dance videos , dancing for joy , dancing in the streets , flash mob , lindy bomb , Lindy Hop , Outdoor Dancing , performance dance , social dancing
In this charming video a group of swing dancers gather around a street orchestra to perform a charleston routine. It’s a simple routine that repeats, they do it well, and they are enjoying themselves immensely. It’s a great choice for a flash mob because for swing dancers it wouldn’t take long to learn. They know […]
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On my way to a dance last week in bumper to bumper traffic, I stopped to let a car change lanes in front of me. It was stuck in a left turn lane and evidently had been having considerable trouble getting anyone to let it in. As the car moved into my lane, a flurry […]
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In a perfect world, dance lessons would be ten minutes long. You’d go home and practice and then come back to learn the next step after you’ve mastered what came first. In the real world, you work on the first thing until you’re doing it right most of the time and understand it well enough […]
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I’ve written before about partner dancers combining styles, but performance dancers do it too. Some years ago I spent 8 Julys in Sweden studying the European partner jazz dance Boogie Woogie My favorite teacher, Christer Isberg, was the best all around dancer I’d ever seen. It seemed he could do anything. His background included classical […]
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Controversial dance This surprising controversy in the dance community popped up when this video started going viral: [embedplusvideo height=”390″ width=”640″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1oaNfNp” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/XAh9zYWfJiY?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=XAh9zYWfJiY&width=640&height=390&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep7038″ /] But is it really dance? Some people commented that is isn’t really dance because it’s really just a bunch of aerials and really qualifies as acrobatics rather than dance. If […]
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I remember teaching a group of teenaged Lindy dancers who were sent to me from another dance teacher. They were advanced dancers who had outgrown their first teacher. When I asked for a follower with whom to demonstrate a new move, one of the boys volunteered. They had all learned to dance both parts and […]
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There is a great video going around about a young woman who learned to dance (really well) in just a year. There is also a website encouraging people to accomplish any dream by focusing on it for 100 days. If you go there, you’ll see lots of people taking a video of their progress on […]
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The Bee gees “Stayin Alive” is a great dance tune, but did you know it’s also the perfect beat for CPR compressions? The Chattanooga fire department produced this wonderfully entertaining video to illustrate the crucial points of emergency CPR with the clever use of music and dance. Dance and public awareness I love it when dance […]
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I’ve often heard it said that in their dance routines Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did except she did it backwards and in heels. It’s a popular comment, except of course she didn’t lead and she didn’t choreograph the dance. She did, however, dance in heels and had the bleeding feet to […]
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