Evan Mountain and his wife, Lada Reschikova, danced the salsa, swing and merengue on Christmas morning without leaving their living room.
The owners of the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., performed their fancy footwork on a network television special that aired on Christmas morning, but was taped last month at Disney World in Orlando, Fla.
They planned to be at home watching along with the estimated 40 million other viewers who were expected to tune into the Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade Show on the ABC television network.
"I'm going to TIVO it," said Mountain, who took four of the studio's dancers to Florida last month for the performance. "It was a blast. We had a ball. I kept telling my teachers they may never get a chance to do anything like it again.
"On Christmas morning when we see it, I bet it lasts five minutes. It took hours and hours (to tape). It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun."
Tony Dovolani, a professional dancer on ABC's Dancing with the Stars, invited Mountain, his wife and their dance instructors to be among 150 couples that would dance his choreographed routine during the show.
"Tony is a Fred Astaire Dance Studio teacher and a friend of ours," Mountain said.
The ballroom dancers, with women in red and green and men dressed in black, performed on a stage at Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom. Several cast members, including some celebrities from “Dancing with the Stars,” kicked up their heels along with them.
"It was kind of surreal," Mountain said of the experience.
Dancers rehearsed from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. their first day at the park. Their second day began at 5 a.m. with more rehearsal, then cameras started rolling.
"It was quite an experience," he said. "They would tape us going through the dance and then the dance and the music and then the dance and music and pyrotechnics. They shot off fireworks around the castle. They probably had 10 cameras around, up in the air, moving around us while we were dancing."
Mountain, who began ballroom dancing five years ago, said the choreography was easy, but the dance surface – cobblestone - was hard on the feet.
"We're used to dancing on wood floors," he said.
He and his wife opened their Fred Astaire Dance Studio two years ago. Running a food brokerage company is his full-time job. He also helps his wife, who runs the dance studio.
Although most of their students are adults, Mountain and Reschikova offer a junior dance program and they plan to start teaching an enrichment program at the International Academy in Bloomfield Hills next month.
"She was hoping to get 20 kids to sign up. By the second week (of registration) 97 kids had signed up for it," he said, crediting “Dancing with the Stars” for ballroom dancing's increased popularity.
Mountain, Reschikova and teachers from their studio - Karla Pinet, Joe Coombs, Olga Agafonova and Leonid Sidorenko - all participated in the Walt Disney World Christmas Day Parade Show, hosted by Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa, which started at 10 a.m. on Dec. 25, according to ABC's Web site.
This article, written by Sharon Dargay, was found on www.hometownlife.com.
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