Anna performing Rumba / Tango at Starlite
Wow – it’s amazing what you can find on youtube!
I’ve got my hair in a medium length bob – kind of poofed out, and it was bright red at the time, though you can’t tell because the lighting is so dark.
Steve Vasco choreographed this routine for the Starlite teachers to perform at Winter showcase a few years back. It was part American rumba, part International rumba, lots of tricks, some contemporary, and some Argentine tango – overall quite fun!
At the end my top got caught on Gavin’s vest buttons – but other than that it all went well.
Music Playlists
Howdy! So various folks have asked for the names of the songs that I use in class… so here’s my playlists as of today (they change every week)….
Current Bollywood class:
Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire (warmup)
Chor Bazari from Love Aaj Kal (isolations)
Ishq Hi Hai Rab from Dil Bole Hadippa (stretch)
(Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje from Hum Dil de Chuke)
Dholna from Lau
Wake up Side from Wake up Sid
(Gym Shim from Dil Bole Hadippa)
Discowale Khisko from Dil Bole Hadippa
(Hadippa (the remix) from Dil Bole Hadippa)
Twist from Love Aaj Kal
(Say Na Say Na)
Boro Boro from Bluffmaster
Dhadak Dhadak from Bunti Aur Babli (cool down)
Current Hip Hop Class (with Hindi hip hop included):
Young’n by Fabolous
No Diggity by Blackstreet and Dr. Dre
All of the Above by Maino
Nuthin’ but a G Thang by Dr. Dre
Gold Digger by Kayne West
Replay by Iyaz
Whatcha Say by Jason Derulo
Chiggy Wiggy from Blue
Ego (remix) by Beyonce
Celebration by Madonna
Meet me Halfway by Black Eyed Peas
Tha Kar Ke from Golmaal Returns
Paparazzi (demolition crew remix) by Lady Gaga
Shattered Glass by Britney Spears
Jee Karda from Singh is King
3 by Britney Spears
Ambitionz Az a Ridah by 2Pac
Trade it All by Fabolous
All Eyez On Me by 2Pac and Syke
Whatever You Like by T.I.
The Way I Are by Timbaland
Chillin’ by Wale
Om Mangalam by Anu Milik
Current Zumba class:
Guajira (I Love U 2 Much) by Yerba Buena (warmup)
Come Fly Away (Mobbing Remix) from Club Anthems (isolations)
Samba No. 9 by Maya F.S. (stretch)
Lirirrixa by Babado Novo (samba)
El Rey del Mambo from Zumba (merengue)
Como si Na from Zumba (pop)
Bailadora from Zumba (samba)
Drum Oasis by Neena and Veena (bellydance)
Habibi by Aradia and DJ Zen (bellydance)
Move it Up by Zumba (reggeaton)
Don’t Stop by Zumba (samba)
Latinos by Zumba (salsa / hip hop)
Como la Flor by Selena (cumbia)
La Carcacha by Selena (cumbia)
Agustito from Latin Music 3 Dance House (samba)
I’ve Gotta Have You by the Weepees (cool down)
Fidelity by Regina Spektor (stretch)
Current Playlist for Around the World class:
See Zumba, plus:
Riverdance Remix by Bill Whelan (Irish)
American Wake by Riverdance (Irish)
Jenjela Runyenje from Roots! African drumming (African)
I Like You from Latin Music 3 (Cha Cha)
El Ritmo Caliente by Zumba (Quebradita)
El choclo by Villoldo O.S.T tango (Tango)
The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson (Cool down)
Give Me Your Forever John Mayer (Stretch)
——-
So what are you favorites? Let me know if you have particular songs that you want to hear in class – I’m always open to suggestions!
Halloween
The only problem with attending the beautiful Oracle Diwali performances – they were at the same time as Googleween! So I didn’t get to see all my crazy Google friends dressed up in awesome costumes (and vice versa). I had lots of folks ask what I was for Halloween…
Let’s say I was “an artistic impression of a zebra”.
It was a great Halloween, but a little tough trying to dress for all the different parties – one was a little more family oriented, and one had the theme of “fishnets” for which I wore a fishnet top and Heraldo dressed as a pirate (who likes fish nets) – tough to make costumes work for multiple parties!
Thanks to Scott for the great photos, and yes, black and white is a great way to cure funky light balance!
It’s funny, as a kid I would plan for months and months what I was going to be for Halloween, and spend tons of time (and my Dad’s time) creating elaborately constructed costumes. I think the biggest was a 1 dollar bill that we made out of the box that a refrigerator comes in. I fit entirely inside the box, and we painted the outside with all the details of a 1 dollar bill. It was a fun idea but a pain in the neck to wear.
I think one of our best successes was the year I went as the constellation Orion. Dad fitted me out with a battery pack and LED lights that blinked in the same spots are the stars in the Orion constellation. Good use of his EE degree.
But these days, I have so many dance performances that creating wacky costumes is regular occurrence and I find myself spending a lot less time on Halloween.
I guess when you’re dressing up in lederhosen, lenghas, and rhinestone sparkly dresses all in one week, the chance to dress up for Halloween is just less of a big deal. But it is a fun chance to do something that’s a little off beat – something that doesn’t have a “direct purpose” the way most of dance costumes do. I guess that’s why I end up with whimsical costumes like “Zebra-ish”.
So what were you for Halloween?
Diwali at Oracle
Congratulations to all the dancers / musicians / actors who performed at the Oracle Diwali – what a show!
I was impressed by the content of the “skits” that the actors / singers performed in between the dance numbers. Usually I find skits to be tedious and just want to get on to the dancing. Although some of the skits were a little slow / long, I found the content to be interesting, especially in respect to Indian families and friends and work.
It was also really fun to see how interactive the Emcees were with the audience. The audience was willing to sing along in the microphone, answer questions, and even tell jokes on the fly! I thought the audience was much more willing to participate than audiences I have seen in the past.
I was very proud of my groups who performed the opening number to “Desi Girl” and the closing number to “Marjaani” – they did very well with their steps and looked great because they smiled and enjoyed themselves!
I don’t yet have photos / video from the show – I am sure I will get them soon. In the meantime, I was pretty happy with the new blue lengha that I had for that day. It served well at Oracle Diwali, and I wore it later that evening at Cheryl Burke Starlite to teach the beginner’s class (salsa, rumba, and waltz). It was fun to dance in, but I forgot that they would have a hard time seeing my footsteps in such a long skirt! Oh well, it was still fun to swirl around.
If you have videos or photos from the show, please comment and post them below – I would love to see them!
It’s really nice having my favorite photographer back in town – missed you bebe!
Teaching Dandiya at a Beautiful Indian Thai Wedding
I had the pleasure over the weekend to teach a little dandiya lesson at my friend’s wedding. For those who haven’t tried it, dandiya is an Indian dance in which each dancer has two short sticks (or dandiyas) that they hold in their hands. The dancers tap their sticks together with a partner’s sticks, or on their own, in a certain pattern. There are many common patterns, such as the basic 5 count pattern that we started with. However an individual or group can also invent their own patterns (as long as they work comfortably) and use them with a group. I also taught a fun 12 count pattern that involves switching places with your partner and back again before rotating on to the next partner.
I was very excited / relieved / impressed that everyone at the wedding picked up the patterns so well and there were no disasters in the dandiya line! It can be a problem if one dancer (or more) get off time, or forget the pattern, the whole rotation can get thrown off and the dance falls apart. Thankfully this did not happen and everyone had a good time meeting different people and playing dandiya together. I think this is a great party dance, as you get a chance to interact a little bit with a whole lot of people. Specifically at a wedding, it is great to get people out of their groups and meeting people from the other family or sets of friends.
A big thank you to all the Gujaratis who have helped me learn this style in time to teach it to others! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you…
The wedding overall was very beautiful.
Neal and Ann looked absolutely amazing in their wedding finery. I could have stared all night at Ann’s beautiful dress and ornate hair style. They also looked pretty cute later when they changed into more comfortable dancing clothes for their first dance (a very cute, choreographed swing dance number).
Because Neal and Ann met in our dance group, Decadance, they had the troupe there to perform various numbers.
They performed a couple pieces that Neal and Ann had choreographed, and also a brand new Dandiya performance piece that was very cool.
Made me wish that I had brought my Gujarati friends to the wedding because I think they would have enjoyed the performance! Oh well, next time.
Best wishes for a long and happy marriage to Neal and Ann, and thanks for the awesome Henna lady on Friday night, I am so excited about the henna on my hands!!
Beautiful Photos (and hot salsa dancing) by Shu-Jon Mao.
Steampunk Dance Style Creation
If you were to imagine an alternate universe, would you be able to determine what the dance forms would look like in that universe?
Imagine, say, that something strange and apocalyptic happened during the turn of the century, so that the whole of society spun away from democracy and technological progress. Instead it stayed in a state of psuedo-Victorian “grey age”. This is the vision of many “steampunk” afficianados, who adopt a combination of love of historical items (from top hats to blunderbusses), do-it-yourself crafts projects (such as creating elaborate costumes, googles, props, guns, etc), and a modern sexy vibe that includes punk, lingerie as outerwear, and burning man creativity.
If this alternate “steampunk” universe were to exist, with it’s own separate path of history, what would the dancing look like? Would they still dance partner dances (such as quadrilles and mazurkas from the 1890s)? Or would they have had their own dance revolutions and have brand new styles not seen in this universe?
All of this comes to mind as I have been commissioned to choreography a modern quadrille for the short film being created here in San Francisco, Perpetual Steam Punk.
I will be creating the dance for the end of the film, which is set in the alternate steampunk universe in our current decade. The directors have asked for a combination of traditional quadrille steps with modern movement.
Which brings to mind the question, can you solve for what a society’s dance forms will look like, if you know enough about their culture? And which things in the culture determine what the dance form will look like?
I have never really had a chance to think about it before, but with many years of studying dances from around the world, I wonder if you took the following things into account, if you could determine what the dancing will look like:
1. 
What the culture values (order vs. independence, strength vs. elegance, academic intelligence vs. joyful spirit). If you look at cultures that value order, they tend to have dances with elaborate, ordered interlacing of the dancers in floor patterns. Cultures that instead value individuality and creative spirit tend to have more individual creative body movement, flexible use of the body, and less rigid posture.
2. Religious standards about touching. Religious idealogy frequently sets boundaries to the kind of body movement accepted in a culture, both how one dancer moves their body, and how dancers touch and interact.
3. Hygiene. Not sure if this is actually true, but it would seem possible that areas of the world that have extensive medicine and infrastructure for clean water / showering / etc. tend to have more close contact dancing. Dances from less infrastructure areas might have less close contact dancing.
4. Status of women in the culture. Are women valued for their hard work, strong bodies and minds? Or are women valued as decorative and delicate objects to be possessed by the men? You can tell a lot about the way the way women’s dancing will look by how they are valued in the culture. Are women allowed to make their own choices about who and when to marry / partner with? Or are these choices forced upon them? The power dynamics of the culture will also give insight to whether’s women’s dancing will be an appealing show for a male audience, a celebration of personal power, or an individualist show of strength.
5. Status of men in the culture. Are men valued for their kindness, or their brawn? For their self-discipline, or their flexibility? I think men’s styles of dancing around the world vary a lot less than women’s. Perhaps this is because men are frequently showcasing their skills for women’s approval and tend to showcase the same things: physical strength, agility, and endurance. But you do see some variation, which perhaps leads to the difference between Irish Step Dancing vs. African warrior dancing.
6. Existence / ease of birth control. I think many dance forms from prior centuries kept the men and women separate because dance = hanky panky = unwanted children = societal problems. The simple solution – keep the men and women separate as much as possible. Certainly the kind of close dancing you now see in clubs would have lead to many problems before the advent of modern birth control! I believe the existence / availaility of birth control can tell you a lot about the way cultural dance forms will look, and the kind of partnering you see.
I am still thinking of various factors that might influence how dance evolves in a particular culture. What do you think makes an impact? The clothing style? 
Musical instruments? Types of footgear worn? Religious / story telling traditions? Performance traditions?
I am excited to try to take the alternate history of San Francisco steampunk, and try to create a dance style that matches wha might have been. In a universe like our own, but with changes to the technology and history, would we dance as we do today?
Check out more about Steampunk Dancing with Richard Powers.
Leave your thoughts below…
Top 10 Highlights from Burning Man
Everyone keeps asking me “how was Burning Man this year?”
The brief summary is “awesome”.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to explain more fully than that in words as Burning Man is such a visual experience. The art, people, costumes, cars, physical environment, etc. are so wonderfully out of this world. To some extent, you have to be there (or have been there) to “get it”, but none the less I’ll give you my top 10 highlights from this year’s burn.
10. Meeting a new friend at the French cafe (Hippocampus) over breakfast with awesome Seattle coffee and freshly made pancakes. Mmmmm! But really the highlight was learning that she was an aerealist and that she was going to perform silks later that day. And I even made it to her show and got to watch 4 different performers. This is the kind of friendly randomness that turns into art and performance constantly at Burning Man.
9. Learning to use a power hammer to drill rebar into the playa. Yeah, power tools. Also the interest with which the camp of 40 boys watched me use the power tools was pretty amusing.
8. Camping by myself. I know this sounds really weird, because my favorite part of the playa is the people. But camping on my own allowed me to meet sooo many new people, not be tied into one group (and its drama) and allowed me to help with setup for lots of camps.
7. Helping an artist set up her art. I am hoping to do an art installation for burning man one of these years, and helping an artist construct, tie down, and light up her art piece was really fun and educational. And I got to hang out with my brother and admire his mad construction skills.
6. Meeting new people at Camp Above the Limit, Tangoed up in Blues, Hippocampus, Spin Art, Playagon, and many, many other camps (and solo campers).
5. Unstructured space and time. It’s really wonderful to arrive in a place where there is nothing – just a flat white plain, and then seeing a whole city rise up out of the dust. This is such a break from my normal life where everything is completely built, structured, time bound. I enjoyed the freedom to put my tent where-ever I wanted, and to add to various art pieces / murals / camps as they built themselves too.
4. Monkey Chant! I actually made it to an activity that was listed in the what where when guide. Normally I have such intention to make it to lots of the cool sounding workshops, parties, and other activities listed in the guide, but never make it to any. This year I actually made it monkey chant, which is a group vocal version of Balinese gamelon music (think lots of people making percussive chanting noises in different rhythms, together creating a symphony of rhythm). After studying this kind of music in school, if is really cool to reproduce it with just our own voices… and *lots* of people!
3. Awesome art cars – there were so many really well constructed and awesomely live partying art cars this year. My favorites were the huge 3 story sailing ship we got a ride on, “the Front Porch”, and “the Board Room” (on which we staged a hostile take over and then did a display of the company’s assets).
2. Admiring the art. I really enjoyed the lock and key statue this year. The temple was beautiful as always. But my favorite was the temple of tea, which I can’t believe I had never noticed in prior years!! Yummy oolong served up fresh in the most beautiful and serene space I’ve seen on the playa – wow.
1. Being able to find (almost) everyone I was looking for. I had some friends who were coming to burning man for the very first time, and many others who live far away that I only see on the playa. I was so grateful that I had excellent luck all week finding / meeting up with my friends. Especially since I was staying by myself, I could have been horribly thwarted and spent all week searching and not finding people. Instead I had a couple great nights with friends from home and brand new friends that I just met.
And number 0 (a very important number) – the creativity. I go to burning man to refresh my own creativity – see everyone’s amazing ideas and wallow in endless new ideas. You can do, create, burn, party, be, share, anything at burning man. And this kind of freedom helps me to “refuel” for my life and work, staying creative and alive through the year.
Where else does someone take a tandem bike and creating a burning back seat “passenger”? Awesome.
Oh – and for those who think that Burning Man is all about taking drugs – they are really completely unnecessary. With this much crazy stuff *actually* happening, I consider drugs to be rather a waste! Enjoy the creativity – so enhancement necessary.
GoogleMela – Great photos
So my husband took up photography to keep himself occupied when I dragged him along to ballroom dance competitions (although really I think he prefers to take photos of natural things). And as he got more into the hobby I learned some myself about cameras and lenses and all these sorts of things. Not that I can do much with a camera – I am happy to outsource that to him, but I can now at least recognize high quality equipment.
Which is why I noticed one particular Googler who was taking photos from the sidelines at the GoogleMela show. Of course I bugged him to send me his photos (you can never have too much evidence), and he sent me the link to his blog.
I had never met Omari before, but I knew his stuff would be at least decent because of his equipment. However I was completely wowed when I actually saw his photos – I really like how he captured more than just the dance. He got attitude, interaction between performers, story line, spirit, cool reflections in the building behind us, all kinds of interesting things besides just the dancing. It’s always a treat to see what we do through someone else’s viewpoint.
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.
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Like take this photo of Susan Lin getting ready to do her Mongolian chopstick dance. You get one story line with her intense concentration on getting ready – making sure her shoes are going to be sticky enough (I think she puts sugary Sprite on them to make them not slide!) The photograph puts her as central, and includes her cool looking shadow. But there’s a whole second story line in the window – all the Bollywood Medley dancers in the middle of dancing Aaja Nachle! I feel like you can feel the whole complex of the moment just in this one moment – on stage and off stage both represented.
Thank you Omari!
Ballroom Beautiful
I may have my gripes with the competition ballroom world. It can encourage people to be obsessive about shallow things – their fake tan, long nails, fake eyelashes, and brand name accessories. It is, quite honestly, a terrible waste of money, with the five thousand dollar costumes, outrageous entry and ticket fees, and constant travel. It can create eating disorders and snobby behaviour. Worst, it can make people forget that dancing is beautiful and fun.
So I just wanted to throw up here a few of my favorite dancers and favorite routines to remind everyone (myself included) that competition styling ballroom dancing can be beautiful. Besides just beautiful it can be a creative, heart felt, and touching performance style. For any who feel like ballroom is only a bunch of people posing, and it has no heart or room for personal expression, I hope you appreciate these performances as much as I do.
First, Michael Malitowksi and Joanna Leunis, in a romantic and sweet rumba:
Mayo Alanen and Lisa Vogel dancing a smooth showcase to “Hurt”,
or the same couple with a more classical style:
One of my favorite ladies, Yulia Zagoruychenko with her former partner, Max Kozhevnikov, dancing a creative and smart samba:
and one of my favorite creative dances, from the same couples:
And even a tango, danced by my favorites, Victor Fung and Anna Mikhed:
As stylized as these dances are, there is room for beauty, emotion, personal expression, joy, anger, sadness… all the things that we feel in life can come through in our dancing.
If you have a fav. video, post below so we can all see!
Don’t blame welfare
So I met up with a new acquitance recently, and somehow we got to discussing the economic downturn.
She mentioned something I didn’t quite understand, something about being in the grocery store and seeing very well dressed people paying for their groceries with food stamps. It seemed like she was implying that people were scamming off the food stamp program, that they were really rich enough to afford nice clothes, but somehow they were stealing from the hard working tax payer to get food stamps. And this was somehow related to the economic downturn, as she then started to talk about women who have too many children and just live on welfare for fun. She mentioned something about all this welfare spending being the downfall of the American economy and ruining the government budget.
REALLY???
Just to say it to everyone who might ever read this, welfare spending is less than 1% of the American budget. If you add in food stamps, it’s about 2.5%.
Compare to, say, the military budget, which is somewhere between 20-35% depending on who you ask.
How could helping those in need lift themselves out of poverty, care for themselves and their children possibly be creating the economic downturn? And yes, we have a serious national debt problem, I will agree there, but cutting welfare isn’t even going to be a drop in the bucket.
In many countries, on the other hand, that have even better welfare benefits than we do, many of the recipients more quickly get back on their feet and back to work than they do here in America. Of course it’s difficult to sort out the causes of that, but it might be that with enough help someone can actually mainstream themselves more easily than with a tiny pittance that just keeps them alive.
I should add a note here about social security, medicaid, and medicare. These programs *are* eating up a large portion of the national budget – possibly as much as 60%- and are also sometimes called “welfare”. I think this confuses people who are discussing the issue because they hear that “welfare is taking up 60% of the budget” and think all their hard earned tax dollars are being handed out to the poor. These programs are frequently aimed at supporting the middle and upper classes who already paid into the system, and are now cashing out. I think it is extra important to support the new health care reform being discussed in Congress, as it will help lower the cost of insurance, medicare, and medicaid that are currently taking up so much for the budget.
Back to welfare – Anything can happen in this world, even to very good, hard working people. You never know when you yourself might need a helping hand. Cutting off this kindness from people who need it is not only selfish but short sighted for the good of the whole society.
Yes, we need to save money and pay off our debts here in America (we could start, for one, by not invading any more foreign countries and killing people). I hope that people can find the compassion that they have on an individual level for their friends and family and apply it even to strangers they may never meet. Thoughts? Feel free to respond below.
