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!
Welcome Waltz Dancers!
I’m really glad you’ve decided to join me for Decathlon’s June Ballroom dance series. I think in these four weeks of waltz class you will all get a chance to master the basics of American Smooth style waltz as well as learn some more intermediate variations.
Here’s a few videos of the steps we did in class last week (please excuse my lack of fancy dress – I just finished a hip hop class!).
Gentlemen’s steps, broken down:
Gentlemen’s steps, with music:
Lady’s steps, broken down:
Lady’s steps, with music:
Looking forward to seeing you tonight for more waltzing!
New Ballroom Format at Decathlon Club
If you would like to learn some ballroom dancing, come on out to Decathlon Club on Thursday evenings at 8 pm. For the past year we’ve been offering beginning level sampler series.
However, in June we are changing the format of the class. Each month will feature one dance style. You’ll have 4 or 5 weeks to work on just that dance, with lots of time to learn cool steps, review old steps, and over all “get it”!
I think this is really going to help beginning dancers turn into intermediate level dancers, and for intermediate dancers to have somewhere to grow as well!
June we will be doing waltz (got to get ready for all those summer weddings).
July we will be learning swing (All American dance for the 4rth of July).
August will feature salsa (Hot dance for a hot month).
Please email me if you would like to register, space is limited. You do not need a partner or ballroom dance experience to join the class. If you register at least one week ahead of time, I will make sure the class is gender balanced (ie I will bring in extra female or male students to balance an imbalance we have).
This is a great opportunity to have some fun, learn some cool dance steps, and meet some new friends at the Decathlon Club. You do not need to be a member of the Club to enjoy this class! So bring your friends – all are welcome!
