justfordancers

Dancing with the

rhbee — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:26:57 +0000

stars in your eyes and

and this is what you get.

Superstars of ?

rhbee — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:09:22 +0000

I know I should be a lot more user friendly but I just can’t. I watched the whole opening episode of SoD and just got incredibly bored. The second show last week, I could only manage occasional glimpses over the top of the book I was reading. This week, the hell with it, I’d rather laugh myself silly over the Big Bang and My Mother or even better watch the Lakers and the Cavs duke it out.

Anyway, that’s not the point. This show is not about dancing it’s about world culture and they are trying to use the hook of the dancing to draw us in. What really hurts is that there is no way to judge what they are doing and so are stuck with the opinions of the eight judges as though they know enough about the other cultures to understand the dance representations fairly.

Ah well, Lithgoe and Crowel have made enough bucks off of this “reality craze” to afford a failure or two. And that is clearly what they have wrougt here.

Just a dance test

rhbee — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 13:47:30 +0000

I have been trying to post a video and failing for a few days. I think I just figured out how I was misreaading the directions. If I am right then I can do it by just pasting the imbedded info into this edit page:

http://www.youtube.com/v/myJj0mNNe1Y&hl=en”> src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/myJj0mNNe1Y&hl=en” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”344″>

Okay see that isn’t it. When I previewed this post the code above is what showed up.

So let’s try it this way.

Well, if you could see what I see you would know that the imbedded info appeared on the write page but not on the blog. So so far the results are the same. No video.

Finally, I used this way: I copied one of the highlighted pieces of code you see above (that’s it down below) and clicked on the add a video button and then pasted that into the URL slot. If you are reading this post then you see that that worked.

http://www.youtube.com/v/myJj0mNNe1Y&hl=en

Oh and BTW, i also dropped in on a big discussion of this issue at the wordpress forum. Apparently I was not to blaim for this malfunctionality. I blame it on the nerd gods who seem to delight in driving us all up the wall of constant change.

Dancing with the Stars . . .

rhbee — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 15:16:26 +0000

concluded another great season last night with Helio outlasting Mel B by just enough voter’s strength to take it all. T. and I were on the edge of our seats with worry that the sympathy vote for Marie would out weigh the dance vote but the judge’s scoring took care of that. As dancers though, T. and I both appreciated that the choice between entertainment value and dance value in the choreography can make the vote difficult. Luckily in this case, the dance choreography for Marie’s free style put too much emphasis on the story it was creating and left little time in the routine for dancing.

Meanwhile, the voters choice of Helio over Mel probably was by a very thin margin. T. and I thought that the dance connection between Mel and Max was more consistent throughout the tournament and especially at the end. Meanwhile, Helio and Julianne, though obviously connected, did not always show it in their routines. I felt this was most obvious when the couples danced a repeat of a routine. But as I said earlier, either dancer deserved to win and in the final analysis the true winner is the viewer who loves dance.

US Open Swing Dance

rhbee — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:42:15 +0000

Yes, it’s that time again. The time when all those who worship at the altar of swing and competition meet to check out the new choregraphy and each other. A time to worship the feet of the dance gods as though there are no other. A time to watch and to dance and to hope that somehow this year the music will be less hip hop and more true swing, though I doubt this will happen. Anyway, it all happens at the Marriot near Disney’s Land in Anaheim over the four days of Thanksgiving weekend. Only this year, we get a bonus night because the stars are putting on a dance show on the Wednesday before.

I Like it Best

rhbee — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:23:56 +0000

when my life is lived as though I have enough. I like a balance. Plans help me with that. Sequences of events, my mind map. A life like that can be danced. Can be dance. A surfed walk down the board to the tip, toes in grip. Centered in the complex of events that is the wave the wind and you.

The dance floor news . . .

rhbee — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 21:03:10 +0000

Just got this month’s copy of Dance Magazine and two things caught my interest. Dancer’s, social dancers, do not get very much education about how to treat their bodies. The classes they take ar the studio level in general focus on getting the dancers a basic rhythm pattern and then some floor patterns to get them moving. It has been my experience that less than 60 % of the students in the beginning level will survive the initial classes.

If the dancer continues to dance, he or she will find a learning level in the street or at a studio. But no matter which camp one ends up in, a he or she will become sort of in condition to dance. But education about the health factors in dancing, that comes infrequently and often is disregarded.

Dance Magazine, available in most studios and on many magazine racks, deals with this situation in the issue for October’s Health & Fitness section. It takes a rather cool look at the cost and health benefits of today’s popular sport drinks over just plain water. “If you haven’t been exercising vigorously, many of the branded vitamin drinks are a sugar-water splurge.” Lauren Kay goes on to point out the danger in the belief that these drinks can satisfy all of your daily needs.

I like the drinks myself as a cool refresher without the carbonation. But it is true, pure water contains no sugar and maintaining your weight is one aim of good conditioning. By the way, the on-line version will only let you get to this article if you subscribe but the home page of the site still has some valueable buttons that you can push.

Went out dancing and . . .

rhbee — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:26:28 +0000

the music swung and the dance partners were sweet. A tall blonde took my lead and turned it into a wavy graceful line, a dark brunette, older, but in love with dance, took my lead and turned it into a chance to express her hope and willingness to try, and then later, another blonde almost captured my love of the dangerous with her smooth and dynamic explosive hips, capricious smiling lips, and courageous dives into my leading dips.

Dance lets me lead many lives. I found myself at the break outside gazing at the bright, clear sky and the sparkling stars. I felt the need to breathe it all in. In my mind, as I, we, move to the music and in and out of each other’s embrace I try to trace the maybe of what each move means to her to me? I romanticise by playing with the possibilities. It’s good but sometimes frustrating. The dance partners are like ice cream when I can’t get enough. The overload is dangerous.

Why I want to talk dancing

rhbee — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:23:27 +0000

I go dancing at least once a week. The band starts up and usually I am one of the first onto the floor. And right from the start I am dancing. Sometimes, well even maybe most of the time, my partner acts mystified by my confidence. But I don’t really care about that except as it impedes our progress. I am a firm believer in the “Shut up and dance” school of thought. I can only have a discussion about what we are doing if it really is mutual. So I try, and sometimes fail, to dance through my connections with my partner and let that be my conversation. Because it isn’t that I don’t want to talk, I just don’t want to talk about dance when I could be letting the dancing do the talking.

Jack and Jill O’rama

rhbee — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:16:08 +0000

Jack and jill contests in dancing have a long and some say down and dirty history. I know at least two guys named Jack who claim that they invented them. And I know quite a few jills who learned that the best way to win one of these storied events was to follow her jack anywhere. But, of course, that’s not what I’m writing about today. Today everything is all squeaky clean, and held in a very expensive modern hotel ballroom. The dancers all take lessons (or teach them) and stress the importance of honoring the rules. Oh yeah, one of those Jack’s who claims to have started it all, he’s still around judging today’s contests.