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
Zweifachers
Zweifachers!
I had a lovely time teaching Zweifachers at Friday Night Waltz on March 20th. Here are a few of the songs that we worked on:
Da Wampert Gust (easiest Zweifacher in existent – PPPPWW). We used this as a time to explore alternate movements besides just pivoting and waltzing.
Sommermichel (a very satisfying Zweifacher. “A” section is PPPPWW, “B” section is WWWW, “C” section is WPPWPPWPPWW. Whole song is AABAACC. Note that the second “C” you will be starting on your second foot.)
Fallen Angel (really more of a 5/4 waltz than a Zweifacher, but does have some lovely switches of 5/4 and 6/8. We did ronde runs in 5/4, regular waltz, 5/4 waltzing, regular rotary waltz, 5/4 pattycakes, regular waltz, 5/4 waltzing, regular waltz, and then a big section of “schootching” Zweifacher WP, followed by a section of truly rotating Zweifacher, WP, and ending with regular waltz. We didn’t get to it, but you can also do redowa in 5/4 time – like 5/4 waltz, and it’s quite fun!).
I did not have time to get to my favorite Polka Zweifacher in mixed 7/8 and 8/8 time. Next time, eh?