T-shirt quilt Dance Style

So I had been collecting every t-shirt I ever had from dance recitals and competitions since I was 4 years old.  Well, I guess technically my mom starting hanging on to them.  So I decided this summer, after 21 years worth of shirts, it was time to do something with them.  I couldn't get rid of them, so what better way to preserve them than to make a t-shirt quilt.  That's just what I did.  It was so much fun making it because every shirt has so many memories.  I reminisced on the people in my class from each year, each dance, every award from competition.  I am so excited (and proud) to display my quilt in my apartment. 

Knitting Adventures

I have recently challenged myself to try knitting socks, as I have always read and been told that they are very challenging.  But my determination paid off and I just completed my first sock.  I hope my family is ready for all the socks they will be receiving for Christmas this year :)

Self-striping yarn is amazing

"There is no telling how many miles you will have to run while chasing a dream."  -Author Unknown  (especially in my new knitted socks)

Dance Teacher Summit 2011 - NYC

What an amazing opportunity to attend an event with such great people from the dance world.  It was a hectic few days, but totally worth every second (and penny.. well, $1,200).  We flew into NYC on Thursday afternoon and headed off to the hotel.  First surprise – standing outside the front of the hotel, we were diagonally across the street from Radio City. 

View from our hotel.

How amazing.  We spent Thursday evening walking around Times Square and grabbed some dinner.  As always, you never know what (and who) you will see.  This guy was walking around wearing a hula skirt made of candy necklace strings and had candy glued to his chest that said Candy Man.  Definitely gave us all a good laugh.  The hustle and bustle of the city definitely sent lots of energy into me and got me even more excited to be where I was.  We crashed early as we were all tired from traveling and walking around for several hours. 

Thursday morning started the Summit.  Breakfast, meeting dance teachers from other parts of the country, and a quick intro to several classes started our weekend.  The first class I took was a jazz warm-up by Bob Rizzo.  I’ve heard of him before and I know of his instructional DVD series he has out on various dance styles.  It was a great warm-up class in which he incorporated ballet with some jazz.  It was pretty neat.  Next up I took a seminar on Dance Studio Start-Up.  It was definitely helpful and gave some great tips – like be confident in pricing, how renting can be better than owning the facilities, and various phone and internet ideas.  It wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped, but I still got a lot out of it that will definitely be very helpful as I begin the journey of opening my own studio.  My third class of the day was Body Placement from the amazing and brilliant Denise Wall – whose son is the one and only Travis Wall.  She discussed various ways to get students to understand placement, even the youngest students.  It definitely helped me immediately, as well.  What I’d give to spend a month (or year) studying this topic from her.  

Audra, Aaron and I with Luigi after his class

 Following lunch, I took class from two jazz dance legends.  The first was Luigi.  Wow!  What an honor to be in his class.   

The man is 86 years old and still lead class like he’s never stopped.  His technique is so unique and fun.  His assistant also gave us little bits of his life throughout, allowing us a better understanding of Luigi’s life.  I honestly almost cried several times just being in the man’s presence, much less taking a class from him.  Following his class was jazz/VOP from Frank Hatchett.  This dude is awesome.  His combination was extremely high energy and a ton of fun.  He also told us how he was one of the first judges for the competition world and one of the first to go on a teaching convention tour.  Awesome.  He still teaches at Broadway Dance Center (and I’m going to try to get up there to take another class from him soon).  That rounded out classes for day one, but the excitement had only begun.  The exhibit hall was filled with so many vendors I lost count.  There were vendors for competitions, clothing companies, costume companies, online registration/management software companies, shoes, Disney… pretty much anything dance related and it was there.  There were so many free giveaways and prizes and raffles that we almost didn’t get to bring everything home with us.  It was great getting to meet and network with so many people.  I definitely found that to be a huge perk.  Friday night was the Fashion Forward Fashion Show and the Cocktail Party.  The fashion show was all about the costume companies getting an opportunity to showcase to the public for the first time the new season’s costume lines.  It was really high energy and a lot of fun.  Plus I got some good costume ideas (not that I can use them soon, but still helpful).  The cocktail party wasn’t as I imagined, but oh well.  I thought it would be about networking and talking to other people, but it was more just having fun and dancing around and drinking. 

Saturday morning began bright and early.  The first class I took was lyrical from Doug Caldwell.  This dude was hilarious.  Despite being really early on a Saturday morning in NYC, he had the whole room laughing quite a few times.  The combo was simple, emotional, and simply amazing to dance.  The second class I took was a Modern class with Gus Solomans.  It was pretty good – just an introduction to various modern techniques.  It wasn’t anything more than the modern classes I took at UK, but it was a nice refresher.  After that we took some time to visit the vendors and meet some of the people work them.  Aaron knew some of the people working Summit and the Starpower table from his participation in Power Pak several years ago, so it was neat to meet them too.  After lunch we took a Broadway class with Andy Blankenbuehler that was a lot of fun.  It was a high energy class with classic choreography.  Andy won the Tony for his choreography for In the Heights on Broadway.  He is also in the process of choreographing Bring It On: The Musical, Annie, & another Broadway musical that I can't think of right now.  He also gave some great insight into his process of using musicality when choreographing.  It definitely was helpful and got me thinking about my own choreography process.  The next class was a Competition Q&A with the owners of three dance competitions.  It wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped, simply because they didn’t fully answer questions, and the questions that were asked by the audience were all scenarios I had personally seen throughout my years in the competition world and wasn’t necessarily upset by any of it.  But none the less, it was interesting to be in the room with everyone and listen first hand to the discussion.  After that we had more time in the exhibit halls to visit the vendors.  After just a short time doing that, we decided to head on to our room to get ready and grab some dinner before the Capezio ACE awards that night.  The ACE awards were definitely an amazing experience.  This was a chance for up and coming choreographers to showcase their work.  The winner received a $15,000 budget to do a show in NYC.  The pieces were all incredible, both choreography and performance. 

Sunday we started the morning with another Denise Wall class – turns and transitions.  It was once again probably one of the most helpful classes of the entire weekend.  She gave great information that was immediate fixes to common turning problems.  I could tell an immediate difference in my turns.  The second class I took was a body conditioning class for dancers.  It was helpful and gave me some great ideas for strength training and core training for dancers.  Many of the exercises were also in p90x that were slightly modified.  The one hour course definitely gave me a great core workout for the day.   

Aaron & I with Mandy Moore.

After that I took a jazz class from Mandy Moore from SYTYCD.  She taught a combo that was detailed and challenged my ability to quickly pick up on choreography, but it was still a lot of fun.  She also gave some great info on her creating process which helped me reevaluate my own creating process.  After lunch we took a seminar from Mandy Moore on Competition Mistakes that she sees as a judge.  Wow – incredibly helpful.  She told us what moves she never wants to see again, how she feels about props, costumes, and how she adjudicates and leaves comments.  This will be helpful in a few years when I open the doors to my own studio and start competing.  The final class of the summit I took was about recital ideas.  One teacher told us how she makes up to $25,000 per year just on her recital book alone.  I definitely will be doing this.  All of this was done with ad sales competition where the winners win the cover photo and selling the book for a measly $5 at the recital.  This is an amazing way to pay the bills for the summer without having to teach classes. 

Jacques D'Amboise

The final session, a Summit, was inspiring because they presented Jacque d’Amboise with the Lifetime Achievement Award and he, Mandy Moore, Denise Wall, Luigi, and Judy Rice talked about where they think dance is now and where it’s headed in the next 5-10 years.  Luigi’s assistant also told us many stories of Luigi’s life which was honoring to hear first-hand.  Jacque d’Amboise told us how every movement is dance and how he will never stop dancing.

 He recently wrote a book and had it for sale and was generous enough to autograph them for us.  It was such an honor to have him sign the book I bought.

Overall the entire weekend was by far the most amazing experience of my life thus far.  I am already looking forward to next year.  I learned so much that I have already been able to use teaching just 2.5 hours.  It was an honor to be in the presence and study firsthand from the teachers there and be inspired by them (and in turn they said we inspired them).  It was worth every penny!