G2G Classes at Google
I got tasked by Google to put together a series of “G2G dance classes” that is, Googlers teaching other Googlers how to dance. It’s been really fun giving my friends a chance to shine. There are so many Googlers that are talented dancers and experienced teachers, and it’s great to help them with the back end business so they can enjoy teaching.
I’ve known Rebecca since right after college, when I met her through the Stanford dance community. She taught with me at Starlite Dance Club for many years before joining Google, and she was always a super pro at working with new dancers. I teamed her up with Stephen Ames, who I’ve also known since he was my teacher at Body Therapy Center. He was such a good teacher I knew that the two of them would be excellent together teaching beginning swing. If you haven’t checked them out yet, they’ve gotten great reviews so far teaching their swing classes on Mondays at noon.
I’ve known Alexei since he was a student of mine at Starlite and fellow compatriot at Jeffrey Lynn’s dance camps. Since then Alexei has become a rock star Argentine Tango dancer – he goes out tango dancing 5 nights a week! We couldn’t find any experienced ladies who were free to be a demo partner with him – so I’m enjoying partnering with him to teach this tango class, Tuesdays at 7 pm.
I only recently met Rasika, but she’s been dancing her whole life. Her mother owns a dance studio, and Rasika grew up with traditional Indian dance. I was so impressed with the choreography that she put together for the Googlemela show, it’s great to give her a chance to teach some more! Her Bhangra class on Wednesdays at noon have been awesome so far!
Dobromir has been teaching G2G salsa longer than any of us have even been at Google! I had heard a great deal about Dobromir from my husband, Heraldo, as they worked on similar teams. I first met Dobromir at the Google Holiday party in 2005 when we had a grand time dancing during the party, and we got to hang out even in Tokyo! We’re happy to have Dobromir continuing to teaching salsa on Thursdays at 5:30 pm.
Both Stephanie and Dounia have taught G2G bellydance before, and it’s really fun to have them teamed up to teach together! Sadly both of them were out of town last week so I had to cover the class myself – hopefully it was helpful to the people in the class, even though it’s not really my style. But it was lots of fun and quite a workout. The next two Fridays at noon the class will be with Stephanie, and the last two weeks will be with Dounia.
I’m excited to get to help bring more dancing to Google!
Diwali Dandia and Garba Performance
Thanks to the IGN for inviting me to help out with Diwali 2009 at Google – there were many aspects to the Diwali celebration: IGN made a beautiful display of candles in the shape of temples and stars all over Charlie’s Patio, great food in Charlie’s cafe, and of course, dancing!
We had only 2 weeks to put together a dandia / garba performance. At first we were just going to demonstrate a few interesting dandia patterns, and then teach dandia. But it developed into a whole four song medley and choreography – it’s always hard to “Keep it Simple!” Thank you to Ramya, Sugeeti, and Jatin for helping me find the right music to edit together (and thank you to the group for putting up with my rough draft edits!) Thank you to Sahil for helping remind me to K.I.S.S. whenever possible. =) Also thank you to Jatin, Vandana, Piyush, Sugeeti, and all the dancers who gave great suggestions for the choreography / dandia and garba patterns.
Big thank you to Vandana, Meghna, and Sai for helping organize costumes. The jewelry for the ladies was so much fun! I don’t think I’ve ever had so much volume of jewelry on at the same time!
Bhangra class at Google starts next week!
Since we finished the Bollywood series at Google, I have had *so* many requests for more Bollywood / Bhangra classes on campus.
So I am very happy to say that we will have a special 5 week Bhangra class starting next week, running Wednesdays at noon in the Building 46 gym.
This class will be taught by Googler Rasika Kumar, and is free to all Googlers who wish to attend! Rasika is the one responsible for choreographing this awesome Bhangra routine that was performed at Googlemela in August. She grew up dancing in her mother’s dance studio, as is an experienced dancer, teacher, and choreographer.
I hope everyone will come out to attend her classes, they will be great exercise, lots of fun, and a good chance to learn about Indian culture.
Register at g2gDanceFest online.
Google Oktoberfest Performances
The culinary team strikes again with another great party at Google – this time celebrating the German Oktoberfest. The culinary team had great food, great beer, some cute beer hostesses to serve the beer, an impressive 20 piece German brass band… and US!
I enjoyed choreographing three dances for our performances, and wrangled up three different teams of dancers to perform.
I was super proud of our newbie polka group – most of these dancers had never danced polka before, and they did such a great job! They learned this routine in just 3 weeks. Thanks to Piyush for extra costume prep, and to Robin for sticking around to Emcee!
At the afternoon lull we performed a Lady’s Landler Waltz. This one incorporated redowa, mazurka, and waltz steps (as well as some folk dance figures) and a whole lot of cuteness. Shouts out to Katie for being an incredibly hair braider, and thanks to Deb for rushing back to town to learn this and the help with the choreography wraps. Thank you to Merry for pulling it all together!!
And last but certainly not least, we performed a Zweifacher. This is a crazy difficult kind of dance that mixes waltzes and pivots to match the uneven timing in the music. It also has lots and lots of spinning that makes all the dancers dizzy as well! I was very impressed with how well Christina, Paul, Tina, Daniel, and Scott handled this challenging choreography – they even got compliments from the traditional German band who were impressed that they tackled a Zweifacher. Whoot!
Thanks again to culinary for the commission to perform and assistance with costumes, and thank you to all who turned out to watch the show!
Oktoberfest at Google – this Thursday
Hey Googlers (and friends of Googlers),
The Google culinary team is putting on a party – which means, it’s gonna be good!
This Thursday from noon to four there will be beer, German food, a real live 20 piece German oom-pah oom-pah band, and…. DANCERS!
Yes, we’ve been rehearsing for a big phat 3 weeks to put together some German dancing to perform.
I have a rocking group of 5 couples dancing at polka at 1 pm, a cute cute group of 4 girls dancing Landler at 2 pm, and a very dizzy group of 3 couples dancing Zweifacher at 3 pm. Right after the last dance I will be taking the microphone to teach *everyone* how to polka.
So if you wanna see us dance around in Lederhosen and cute German dresses (or both, in my case), or teach or learn some basic polka steps, come out to Crittenden this Thursday!
See you soon,
Anna
Love Mera Hit Hit Performance
The very brave crew who performed Love Mera Hit Hit from Billu Barber for all their coworkers and friends at Google!
These folks are were part of the GFit Bollywood dance class (6 week special series), and they come out extra to practice this dance for the GoogleMela performance.
Special thank you to Jimmy and Mike who joined up so that Scott and Sahil could stop worrying about whether they would be the only guy.
Also shouts out to Christine who would have done a lovely job in the show but had a last minute emergency and couldn’t participate. Next time!
Also special thank you to my good friend, Deb Henigson, who choreographed these dance moves originally – before I got ahold of them and changed them up!
By the way, if you haven’t yet seen the original video that goes with this music, the costumes are awesomely hilarious and worth viewing.
Jimmy, Mike, Scott, and Sahil get the choreography started.
So much punching in this choreography!
Pose! (awesome photos by Rebecca Dowell Mashhadian – good job with a substitute camera!)
Aprajita, Anna, Prachi, and Ruchita have flying hair!
GoogleMela Show at Google
So many of you may have been wondering what I’ve been up to for the past month…
There was a big International Cultural Festival celebration timed with India Independence Day this year at Google. I got involved as the performance coordinator / teacher / stage manager / Emcee… lots of hats = lots of fun but also = not doing much else besides the show!
It was great that my GFit Around the World and Zumba classes performed (a cha cha and cumbia, respectively). One of my favorite parts was the ending – we all danced Jai Ho together, and the audience totally got into it! I was so excited that the day had gone so well that I look a little spazzy in the video, but oh well!
I was really happy that my GFit Bollywood class got a chance to perform. I was not planning on dancing with them, but one of the dancers had a last minute emergency and had to fly out of town – so I’m in the mix! This is Love Mera Hit Hit from Billu Barber:
I was also super proud of my Bollywood Medley dancers who put together this crazy long routine in just a few weeks. Even more impressive is that they practiced for weeks with a 16′ by 16′ area in mind, and then had to change it day of to 12′ by 24′. I was so glad that no one fell off the stage!
We’ll be posting the professional videos soon, so check back in – more to come!
Google Bollywood Series Success!
Teaching Bollywood at Google was a huge success!
Everyone keeps asking if we are going to have more Bollywood classes – for now all I can say is come to my other classes at Google!
Dance classes are offered every day:
Monday and Wednesday at 7 pm we have Hip Hop dance. These days there is so much hip hop in Bollywood – it almost feels the same! I even use some Hindi remixes in the music I play, so if you liked Bollywood you’ll probably like this class.
Tuesday and Thursday at 4 pm we have Around the World class. This class always features at least one Bollywood or Bhangra. We also do dances from China, Russia, Africa, Ireland, Brazil… everywhere! It’s a great workout and lots of fun.
Fridays at 5 pm we have Zumba, which is cardio latin dance (salsa, samba, cha cha, etc). Start your weekend out right with this healthy dose of exercise, great music, and fun steps. Check the internal groupfitness link for more information.
I was so impressed at the turn out that we had at Bollywood. We had between 50-85 dancers in each class, 230 dancers in all came out to class at some point. Everyone had such great energy it was like a party! It was great to see dancers of all ages, genders, races, etc. coming out to enjoy this little taste of Indian culture.
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We danced to songs from various hit movies, including:
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Twist from Love Aaj Kal
Mauja hi Mauj
Nagada, Nagada
Nach Baliye,
Khwab Dekhe
Latoo
Dance Pe Chance
Love Mera Hit Hit
Desi Girl
Raahe Raahe by Jasi Sidhu (Bhangra)
Dhoom Machale
Dard E Disco
Deewangi Deewangi
It’s hard to believe that we did all that in just 6 classes! That was a lot of
steps that everyone learned.
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A big round of thank yous to my fabulous teaching assistants who came out weeks before the class to learn all the steps. Due to them it was possible for people even in the back of the room to see someone who know what was going on and have a good time participating. Thank you to Katherine, Karina, Minya, Lan, Jatin, Sugeeti, Finnegan, Merry, and Lauren for showing up early, helping with setup, learning all those steps, and helping to make this all possible.
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I would also like to thank the IGN for working with us to throw a little afterparty after every class – you guys are awesome! Of course a big thank you to John Thomas (my contact at the IGN) who helped me week after week to arrange tasty food for everyone. We had samosas, mango lassis, a special tea tasting, Indian sweets – all different things on different weeks! I hope everyone enjoyed the party as much as I did. Also big thank you to Anuj, Neha, Angeli, Vamsi, Amit, and other IGN helpers who came out to help with food and recruiting.
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If you’d like to join the IGN head to go/IGN – they have a neat blog and lots of information on what’s coming up next.
And of course, thank you to GFit that was responsible for this class. I am so glad that the managers at GFit are flexible and enthusiastic about such crazy ideas as having a huge dance class in a Tech Talk room. Thanks to Sue Hutchinson for being so supportive of all the off-the-wall endeavors, and thanks to Sue, Josh, and Newton for helping with set up and check in.
Too bad my most favorite-est AV specialist wasn’t there for all the classes. But thank you to Heraldo for the classes that he could make before he went to Japan. It was so good to have you there to balance the mic and music and video etc. etc.! And a special thank you to Rebecca and Dave and Debra who came completely of their own good nature to move chairs, check people in, help with food setup, and general moral support. You guys are awesome.
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See you all soon in all the other GFit dance classes!
Have thoughts on what else you want to see at Google? Email sueh@google.com
Anna and Ruchita on dress up day – Thank you to Ruchita for arranging costumes for the GoogleMela performance!
Anna with two super teaching assistants – Lan and Minya – go Group Shimmy!
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Anna with the finance team (we’re in the money, the skies are sunny…) Thanks to Anuj for awesome recruiting skillz and to Karina for being a great T.A.!
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.Bollywood dancers, concentrating hard!
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Anna with the Scott, Ruchita, Prachi and Aprajita who were some of the performers at GoogleMela representing the GFit Bollywood Dance Class! They performed Love Mera Hit Hit from Billu Barber and were a grand opening to the show.
Bollywood at Google!
Bollywood has finally come to Google!
Get ready to shake it with our series of 6 classes held in Maxwell Tech Talk in Crittenden 3.
Every Class is free standing – don’t worry if you missed one, you won’t be “behind the class”.
We are working on a video setup / a stage / portable mic / more visible T.A.s so that you will be able to see me (and the T.A.s) better in next week’s class. As well, we will have fans to keep the room cooler!
*Please note the unusual schedule!*
Come Dance and Party with us on:
- 7/13, at 6:00 pm
- 7/23, at 6:00 pm
- 7/30, at 5:30 pm
- 8/5, at 5:30 pm
- 8/12, at 5:30 pm
LOCATION: Maxwell Tech Talk Room, Crittenden 3
Register at go/bollywooddance
Bollywood is a nickname for films from India that contain dazzling musical song and dance numbers. Bollywood dancing is a mixture of traditional Indian folk forms such as Bhangra with contemporary movements from jazz and hip hop. But really – anything goes as long as it’s fun!
We’ll be dancing fun and simple steps to hit songs from recent popular Bollywood movies such as Dostana, Billu Barber, Om Shanti Om, Jab we Met, and others. No dance experience necessary, anyone can do these steps. Please wear comfortable clothes that you can sweat in – and shoes that provide some cushion when you jump (high heels are not recommended). As well, please bring your favorite re-usable water bottle – good for the planet and good for you!
Even better, we will be following each dance class with a party sponsored by IGN (Indus Googler Network). The IGN will keep the music and dancing going, and you can snack on some tasty Indian treats and chat with new friends. If you are available to volunteer with the IGN to help us with set-up, food, etc. for this dance party, please volunteer here.
LOCATION: Maxwell Tech Talk Room, Crittenden 3
WHEN: The dates and times for this class vary widely. We apologize for any confusion this may cause.
Class will be held on:
- 7/13, at 6:00 pm
- 7/23, at 6:00 pm
- 7/30, at 5:30 pm
- 8/5, at 5:30 pm
- 8/12, at 5:30 pm
Party will directly follow each class.
We know the scheduling is non-ideal, but this is what was available given the parameters we’re working under.
COST: The classes and party are free, but for the class dancers must be registered with the GFit group exercise program. If you are not already registered please click here to register.
QUESTIONS? Please email sueh@google.com
EXTRA BONUS! Dancers who participate in the classes will have a chance to perform a Bollywood routine at the International Cultural Event on August 13th! If you’ve been waiting for your chance to Shakalaka Boom Boom, this is it!
General Dance Technique Videos
Hello Google Dancers,
I hope you’re enjoying the new general dance technique class at Google. If you weren’t able to make it to the first one, no worries, each week will be it’s own topic. Feel free to drop in whenever you can make it. I would recommend coming a few minutes early if possible to pick up a class entry pass – last week people were turned away when we reached the 25 person space limit (and this week we will allow even fewer as it was too crowded!)
We are using a little latin jazz routine to “Mercy” by Duffy as a platform on which to discuss various elements of technique. Although it is not particularly important that one learns the routine for its own sake, it would be useful to you if you attend class to be familiar with the sequence (although we will continue to review it – so you will learn it even if you don’t check out these videos). Within the sequence are many of the elements that we will be discussing – body isolations, spins, jumps, kicks, etc. It is best to learn technique and apply it immediately to dancing, otherwise theory does not always turn into practice!
As we go along we will also add a club dance / hip hop routine that will help people more with the kind of dancing you would do at a party.
In last week’s class we discussed posture, and I did a little video review for those who weren’t able to attend (or have forgotten what those cryptic notes mean). Hope you are practicing your posture while you work, drive, walk, etc. Then it will be natural and automatic when you come to the dance floor! There is nothing that will make you look and feel better faster than improving your posture.
We will be discussing balance and body isolations this week – very important topics, hope you don’t miss it!
