Bollywood Medley at GoogleMela
Special thanks to this awesomely fun group of dancers who dedicated so much of their time to learn this long and challenging choreography. The performance at GoogleMela was well received, and I can’t believe you learned so much in just 5 weeks.
I enjoyed laughing with the dancers as we figured out the King and Queen lifts for Marjaani, how many times to run in a circle for Aaja Nachle, helping me understand the lyrics to Desi Girl, learning how to jump and push your hands up for Mauja hi Mauja, and such enthusiasm for the ending of Deewangi Deewangi. You guys were a really fun group to work with – looking forward to many more fun evenings of poker, monopoly, movies, and food!
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.
Zumba class performs at GoogleMela
Every Friday at 5 pm I teach a Zumba class (latin cardio dance mix) at Google.
I was super proud of these 5 ladies who were brave enough to perform a cumbia from class onstage at GoogleMela! As part of this International Cultural Festival they were representing Columbia / Venezuela – the home of cumbia.
Particular thanks to Susan for dealing (repeatedly) with costumes, as well as Debby and Katie for making up a partner dance part when I never gave you one! Thank you to Minya for dancing in multiple numbers and helping keep the group together, and a particular thank you to Zhongli for being so brave to perform.
See you all in class!
Gita and I dance at GoogleMela
Gita Hodell, you’re my hero!
It’s so great to work with a professional who is such a talented dancer, choreographer, and all around fun person to work with. If you want to find Gita for private lessons, please contact me and I can get you in touch with her. Or you can find her through Cheryl Burke / Starlite Studio.
I hope you all enjoyed watching our Afro-Haitian inspired Salsa, here it is again in case you missed it:
We mixed two songs together for this number, the first is “La Medina” off of Rumbagitation by Fatal Mambo, the second is “Elegante” by Orixas.
Thanks, Gita, for rehearsing with me so that we could dance at GoogleMela!
Want to see it again? Comments below!
GFit Around the World Class Performance
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 4 pm, I have a class at Google called “Around the World”. I’ve long loved world dance, and I really enjoy this excuse to practice, learn, and choreograph lots of new dance styles. When it came to GoogleMela showtime, this class voted on which of the many dance styles they wanted to perform. The two that came out on top – cha cha and tango. We ended up doing cha cha (as it’s a little more performance friendly). We then had to pick from the four cha cha’s that we’ve learned this year. After much deliberation (actually just one class worth’s of dancing and voting), we ended up with this piece. It was originally supposed to be both guys and girls… I dunno why the guys didn’t have time to come to practice. But the class is open to guys! I swear! Please come!
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The song, “In These Shoes” by Kirsty MacColl has great lyrics. In fact the whole album, “Tropical Brainstorm” is great. Pretty rare that a whole album is good.
The ladies partner up for cha cha time – by the way, we do not do partner dancing in class. The class is meant to be fun and really good cardio workout.
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Shouts out to Karina, our costume lead, who shopped around for these great skirts. You know you’re a dancer when you dance around in the dressing room to see how the skirt will flow. =)
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A big thank you to our photographer, Rebecca Dowell Mashhadian, who knows when the crosssover break is coming. It helps to have a photographer who used to be a professional dance instructor!
We worked a lot on getting into character for this piece. I think Lei got there for this photo.
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The only problem with interns is that they go away. We miss you Kristin!
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 – 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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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!
Bohemian National Polka Performance at GoogleMela
The what what what? I remember when I first heard the name of this dance I was a wee bit confused. But it really is a special dance from Bohemia, (also known today as the Czeck Republic).
This choreography was done by local dance hero Richard Powers, based on research by the Czech dance historian Frantisek Bonus. It is intended to portray the steps and forms of the original 1830s National Style of Polka from Bohemia, ten years before “polkamania” swept the world. Pro
f. Bonus’ long and complex collection of figures was intended for stage performance by a professional company. Richard’s choreography is still challenging but is a social form danced for pleasure. In fact, it’s danced many times at Friday Night Waltz or Gaskells ball.
If you’d like to learn this dance there are sometimes classes before Friday Night Waltz, or with Richard at Stanford, or with me at various locations.
Thanks to all the awesome Googlers – Scott, Rowyn, Merry, Mike, Daniel, Tracey, Sarah and Lincoln, who took the time to practice this dance, and took even more time to get themselves dressed up to perform it (I think you took longer to get into those dresses than to rehearse!) Sarah I can’t believe how great you look in my dress – hmmm… You all looked great – extra thank yous to Tracey for making all the costuming happen.
What a fun addition to GoogleMela! Represent the WGN! Seriously though, it was great variety to have a traditional piece from a different part of the world and with such a different style – thank you all! And I hope all your feet have recovered from the very hot stage…
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!
