Debonair Dancers Survey Helps Boost Membership

Posted on November 8, 2013 by WildBill

It takes effort to keep ANY group intact and lively. This goes double when there is natural attrition that requires replacing members. But what KIND of effort is best? Wilddancer’s mission is to advise and suggest ways to maintain or increase membership. One of the best ways is to tap the members themselves for ideas, and Wilddancer helped the Silicon Valley-based Debonair Dancers dinner-dance group do just that in a survey of their members during the first calendar quarter of 2013. (Debonair Dancers’ membership had fallen well below their long-term 100-couple level (they formerly had a waiting list), so concerns were growing.) The results of that survey are at survey. The last page of that report lists more than 25 ideas, and the board and members have already followed up on several of them, resulting in a membership boost of more than 20% during the ensuing six months. In effect, the survey acted as a catalyst to remind members of the situation and energize them to act.

“Dirty Dancing” Musical Puts Romance Back into Couples Dancing

Posted on November 1, 2013 by WildBill

The famous “lift” (don’t’ try this at home) that is the signature image of this movie is just its public face … which is rated by one expert as the sixth most famous dance pose in all movies ever. But there is lots going on behind the scenes in this drama. Impressive as it was on the big screen in its 1987 debut, we had “the time of our life” seeing it on stage in London this month. The male lead Johnny, Paul-Michael Jones, is a British champion Latin and Standards dancer, so had plenty of dancing talent. And while there are a lot of choreographed “theater art” moves in both the movie and this stage version, there are also a lot of scenes of young couples doing sexy dance steps that shocked their waltz-and-foxtrot-oriented parents. We don’t know if any of many “millenials” (under 30’s) have watched this, but we’d bet that they would find it at least as interesting as the newer version of “Footloose”. Not surprisingly in show business, there is a story behind the story, as detailed in this 25th anniversary tribute.

Young People Dance the Polka Too

Posted on October 21, 2013 by WildBill

The signature dance during the Oktoberfest season is the polka, which likely triggered Garfield’s creator to create this cartoon. Maybe the latest craze among teenagers is hip hop/street dance/urban dance. But if you check out “polka dancing performance” on YouTube, you see some terrific stuff—both competitions and social dancing. And things change. Today’s Dancing with the Stars might be tomorrow’s Polka Party. (Actually there are a bunch of Polka Dancing with the Stars videos on YouTube too.)

Can the Rebirth of the Dirndl Help Boost the Popularity of the Polka?

Posted on October 4, 2013 by WildBill

The more we do the polka, the more we like it. It is the fastest social dance widely done today, so it’s good exercise. And it seems pretty tolerant to less-skilled dancers. If you learned in your childhood how to skip, you already know the basic step. And if your turn doesn’t get done in two measures, take four to do it. (But please remember to move along line of dance.) And since it’s Oktoberfest season right now, with the most popular destination being Munich, in the heart of Bavaria, it’s time for those who own traditional clothes—lederhosen and dirndls—to struggle into them. But, along with the increasing popularity of German comedians who are poking fun at Germany according to The Wall Street Journal is the increasing popularity of the dirndl … though the latest designs are departing from traditional colors and styles according to The New York Times. While women may say that every man looks better in a tuxedo (a good possibility if the alternative is lederhosen), it is likely that men would say that every woman looks better in a low-cut, tightly-laced traditional dirndl.

Trolley Dances in San Diego Oct. 5-6, Riverside Oct. 19, San Francisco Oct. 19-20

Posted on October 4, 2013 by WildBill

Today when two political parties—members of closely-related species–in Washington can’t agree on anything, it seems incredible that two very dissimilar species–a dance choreographer and a metropolitan transit system—could forge an alliance. But according to The New York Times choreographer Jean Isaacs and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System did just that in 1998, and this year celebrate their 15th anniversary (San Francisco picked up on the idea five years later so theirs is their 10th). Yeah, we know it’s not couples dancing (no cha cha’s or waltzes), but it IS social (or at least sociable) dancing. And the audience does a lot of the moving, as they board public transit, alight at various stops, and watch 10-minute dance routines (often in imaginative venues).

Viennese Waltz Ball in San Francisco on November 2

Posted on September 19, 2013 by WildBill

Viennese waltz balls are the most elegant of all social couples dancing events. The venues are as high end as you can get; in Vienna itself—which has over 150 balls each winter–many are held in the largest and most historic palaces. Ladies and gentlemen are dressed in their finest: floor-length ball gowns for ladies and white tie and tails for gentlemen. And the people are urbane; one year we exchanged cards with one couple with homes in San Francisco, London, and Vienna itself and another who had flown a very small plane the full length of North and South America. The San Francisco event—the Annual Gala Autumn Viennese Waltz Ball— is held by the San Francisco Waltzing Society, which dates to the early 1950’s. This year it is being held at the historic Hotel Whitcomb. As in recent past years it features the 30-piece Saratoga Symphony playing the music of Johann Strauss and other famous composers. There will also be a special performance by Dance Libre.

Murder Mystery Books Set in Dance Studio

Posted on September 12, 2013 by WildBill

A series of murder mysteries—Quickstep to Murder, Dead Man Waltzing, and The Homicide Hustle–with a beautiful and adventuresome heroine who is half-owner of a dance studio has lots of entertaining action that might inspire a movie or two. Author Ella Barrick makes no claim to be an expert dancer, but her sources on studio owner, dance teacher, and student behavior know their stuff. She even parodies Dancing with the Stars, with the thinly-disguised “Ballroom with the B-Listers”. Wilddancer liked the Quickstep and Hustle ones best, but all three are easy to read and good entertainment for non-dancers and dancers alike. And they put the romance back into dancing.

We need another good dance movie or two to get people excited about couples dancing again. Dancing with The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance are good entertainment, but they’re reality shows intended for watching (and making money for TV networks). And they are increasingly featuring dance types that social dancers can’t do. We hope that Hollywood beckons to the author and produces a film as good as Strictly Ballroom (1992) or Shall We Dance? (the Japanese one in 1996).

Which Star Athletes are the Best Dancers?

Posted on September 9, 2013 by WildBill

Not tennis players, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Journal’s reasoning was based on a handful of tennis players’ lack of success on the reality show “Dancing with the Stars”. But there are lots of factors beyond the stars’ dancing ability that play big roles determining their rankings on that show–the judges’ biases, the general popularity of the stars, and especially the show’s ratings (watchership). And the Journal’s definition of dancing was pretty broad, and included a bunch of stuff that goes well beyond couples dancing. But their point may be well taken. All-time tennis champion Martina Navratilova’s professional dancer partner, Tony Dovolani, blamed it on the need for tennis players to be “heavy-footed” when they hit the ball … a far cry from the classic “tripping the light fantastique” that is the goal of a ballroom dancer. Other tennis players put it down simply to lack of dance–or even music–experience due to their focus on tennis from an early age that leaves little time for recreational/social activities. And speaking of social, the smile on a dancer’s face counts for a lot, but tennis champ Monica Seles underlines that in tennis it’s how the ball is hit that counts.

Performances on dancing with the Stars is ABC’s highest-ranked (though declining) show is probably not the best gauge of athletes’ dancing abilities. Male athletes in popular spectator sports are usually big and strong, but not always nimble. Sometimes dance training can improve their athletic prowess, though. Cornell University’s football coach once sent several clumsy players to ex-Rockette Rosalie Bower Amoroso, who co-owns Ithaca Academy of Dance in Ithaca, NY, along with her ex-Rockette sister, Diane. Rosalie’s efforts apparently paid off, as she attended a game where one of her football player students did a “grand jete” (big jump) over a would-be tackler.

Financially, of course, the athletes are better off. Their performance on the baseball diamond, football gridiron, boxing ring, or tennis court is far better rewarded than elite dancers’ performance on the competition dance floor at Blackpool or other high-level competitions.

Senior Olympics Winner Trains by Dancing

Posted on August 22, 2013 by WildBill

One of the good things about getting older is that your preparation for athletic competition can be more fun. According to The Wall Street Journal the nearly-99-year-old Jim Kales skipped doing most of the track and field events he specialized in, opting instead to dance three to five nights a week (three hours each session), play tennis six days a week, and bowl occasionally. His dancing expertise includes swing, cha cha, salsa, rumba, bolero, tango, foxtrot, quickstep, waltz, and Texas two-step. This year he won two gold medals, three silver medals, and a bronze medal.

Annual Dance Conference Excels

Posted on August 12, 2013 by WildBill

The dance world is rapidly reaching critical mass, if developments at the combined conference of the World Dance Alliance-Americas (WDA-A) and the Dance Critics Association (DCA) held at the one-of-a-kind Scotiabank Dance Center in Vancouver, BC, Canada during July 29-August 4 are any indication. Highlights included world-class innovative dance routines, strong coverage of the burgeoning urban dance category, a brand-new dance journal, expansion of the WDA to Europe with a fully worldwide conference in Angers (France) in 2014, and a massive government effort to catalog and measure dance in all its forms within Canada. The event was all the more noteworthy because the two organizations are all-volunteer ones, so all the heavy lifting was being done as a labor of love. WDA-A Conference Committee Chairman Scott Martin was everywhere, and did a terrific job before and during the event

The conference focused on dances that are performed for audiences, so the only participants who actually dance are the performers on stage, who take part in “concerts”. In social couples dancing, which—with the exception of Wilddancer—was essentially unrepresented at this conference, there is no audience, everyone participates, and the events are called “parties”. But the WDA-A seems happy to include all forms of dancing, so we will likely see and hear more about social couples dancing in the future, with support from Wilddancer. And with the strong feeling that the organization wanted to be inclusive, to welcome all forms of dance, and to chronicle changes in the dance world as they happen, the WDA-A is in a strong position to grow and adapt. We expect that social couples dancing will be the beneficiary as rhythms and movements from other categories, or even whole new dances, are integrated into what is already being practiced in ballrooms and club venues. We are particularly interested to see what, if any, changes will come via a flow from urban dance (AKA hip hop or break dancing), which is already a social phenomenon but not specifically for couples.

(During the DCA portion of the conference veteran critic George Jackson pointed out an interesting overlap between ballet and lindy hop. Pioneering dance critic Carl Van Vechten wrote in 1930 that the new Lindy Hop would likely follow the pattern he had observed with the Cake Walk, Bunny Hug, Turkey Trot, Charleston, and Black Bottom, in which roughly every decade a black dancer would invent a new step that would become popular with black (and sometimes with white) dancers. Whether or not it was ever done, Van Vechten pointed out that the Lindy Hop “could be danced, quite reasonably, and without alteration of tempo, to many passages in the Sacre du Printemps [Rite of Spring] of Stravinsky” (see Swinging the Machine: Modernity, Technology, and African American Culture between the World Wars, by Joel Dinerstein, University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.))