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
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…
Stanford Dance Weekend Videos
Hiya Dancers!
Thanks so much for a totally awesome Stanford Dance Weekend.
If you enjoyed my classes, please feel free to check out my schedule. I teach at FNW, Starlite Dance Club, Google, Oracle, Equinox, Reach, 24 Hour Fitness, Vivre… all over.
In particular, if you liked the Bollywood class, please check either by 8:30 am Wednesday class at Vivre or my 10 am Friday class at Decathlon Club (only every other week!). Both are available to drop-in dancers, you don’t have to be a member of the gym.
If you happen to work for Oracle, please come to Bollywood class on Fridays at 3 pm. If you work at Google, check go/bollywooddance for info on classes.
Here’s the video for the intro to Argentine Tango – we went over a lot of basic technique on how to lead and follow with a partner, and how to interpret the music. Here’s the basic steps we covered (walking, rocking, outside partner walking, outside partner rocking, ochos, and grapevine):
And here’s the Salsa combo we taught (slowly just the steps):
And here it is again a little faster with the music:
We then covered an introduction to dips and tricks. We included a basic dip, rag doll dip, side lean, side hip bump, and side rotational lift. Please don’t try these at home unless you were in class and understood the full instructions:
I was happy to get a chance to offer my first ever Polka Cha Cha Fusion class. As Ethan said, the opportunity for mayhem was high. But we all succeeded, despite the heat, the crowd, and doing polka in 42!!:
And my rather brain fried overheated version of turns and spins – perhaps I will redo when less brain fried and overheated. =)
Sadly we did not video any of the Bhangra class – but you guys were such a blast to work with. Let me know if you have any comments below, or you can email me with questions.
See you soon!
