"Hope, Love, and Fancy Footwork"

From hometownlife.com (Birmingham, Michigan):

Dancers move for a good cause
Fred Astaire Dance Studio and Variety FAR have a dance partnership built on hope, love and fancy footwork.

This moves into the spotlight May 17 when nine of the Variety FAR dancers — including those with Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and autism — take to the Music Hall Center stage to show off their moves in their annual best-of-the-best showcase.

The dancers, ages 8 to 21, are performing a complicated five-dance number to music from Madagascar 2 with steps from the merengue, swing, foxtrot and hip hop.

Variety FAR Conservatory of Therapeutic and Performing Arts is a private, nonprofit organization in Birmingham that provides creative arts therapy and recreation services for children and adults with mental, physical and/or emotional impairments. The Bloomfield Township-based Fred Astaire Dance Studio is the only Fred Astaire franchise in Michigan.

Variety FAR and Fred Astaire Dance Studio worked together for several years but, at first, the whole concept of teaching children with disabilities complicated ballroom and Latin dances was challenging to embrace, said Variety FAR executive director Arlene Kass.

“At first we were skeptical,” Kass said. “We teach dance therapy and we know how hard it is for some of the children to learn the coordination, plus no one at Fred Astaire had ever worked with special needs kids.”
But when the children came to Fred Astaire, what happened next was “magic,” Kass said.

“Lada (Reschikova, the Fred Astaire Dance Studio co-owner) did amazing things with them, I think because she expects amazing things from them,” Kass said. “They learn coordination and self-esteem. This carries over into other aspects of their life.”

You Make Me Want To Dance!

Dancing Teen

From the Cleveland News-Herald

By Jean Bonchak

“Absolutely unheard of.”

That’s how dance professional Andrea Bisconti assessed her former student’s recent win at a competition that took place during the Dancing With the Stars national tour stop in Cleveland.

So what made the victory so incredible for Tyler Mausser, a Chardon High School sophomore, who has been delivering dance performances since he was 5?Tyler and his partner, Laura Klenz, who attends Aurora High School, were first introduced on the Friday prior to the show that took place the following Tuesday. Their pre-audition practice lasted a mere half-hour. To their surprise, the tryout was successful. But due to busy schedules the remainder of rehearsal time consisted of a couple of hours Monday night and a few more right before the show.

Bisconti noted it usually takes years of working together before a couple can provide a prize-wining performance in the precision-driven world of ballroom dancing.

Evidently a special mesh of chemistry and style occurred between the talented teens in an extraordinarily short amount of time.

As a youngster, Tyler’s dancing experiences centered on steps learned from his Austrian heritage. But his interest was piqued after he participated in an after-school ballroom dance class in eighth grade.

He began watching the television show “So You Think You Can Dance” and enrolled at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Willoughby owned by Bisconti. There, Tyler said he learned technique, style, confidence and to always have fun. Instruction at dance icon Maksim Chmerkovskiy’s studio in New Jersey taught him not to overpower his delivery and to focus on letting the body flow through movements.

“Tyler is an extraordinary dancer. … He’s amazing. … They (professional dancers) have been raving about Tyler’s talents,” Bisconti said. “You’re going to hear more about him in the dance world.”

Tyler said he was surprised to receive a call from Bisconti asking if he would be willing to partner with Andrea for a shot at the title. The competition is composed of selected area dancers showcasing their talents at each DWTS tour stop. In Cleveland, 10 couples showed off their best cha-cha moves to impress the judges, DWTS cast members Kym Johnson and Fabian Sanchez.Tyler said a case of nerves set in after being chosen as one of the final two pairs. Audience members were instructed to text their choice for the winner via cell phone. His nervousness dissipated quickly after hearing that the crowd pleasers gained 88 percent of the votes. “We were ecstatic,” he said. “We really didn’t believe it. … I thought we’re probably not going to make it, but we ended up winning the thing.” In addition to newly heightened status, the duo was awarded a trophy and two Samsung Eternity touch-screen phones.

Tyler’s commitment to seek a career in dance is strengthened as a result of the significant victory.“I’m not really concentrating on winning the world cup or world nationals, I just want to give a new voice to dance,” he said.“Really what I want to be is a choreographer. Watching other people do my movements and feel what I feel is just out of this world.”

The dancer who has received several trophies at local competitions offered advice to those who aspire to step lively. “If you’ve got the talent, it’s God-given. ... Whenever you want to dance, dance,” he said.“It doesn’t matter if it’s in the hallway, on top of a building or in the cafeteria. When you have the feeling to move, do it.”

Quick Before The Music Stops

It took Janet Carlson over a year of writing every Saturday and Sunday, eight hours each day, but the outcome was well worth it. Her recently published memoir, “Quick, Before The Music Stops” describes how ballroom dance rejuvenated every aspect of her life.

Carlson, currently a student at a Fred Astaire Dance Studio and dancing with studio owner and former Standard Dance Champion Darius Mosteika, found herself in a rut a few years ago. Although “on paper,” it seemed as if she had it all – a successful career as Health and Beauty editor for a high-end magazine, mother, and wife – there was something crucial missing from her life. She was, in her own words, in a “sleepwalking state.”

Ballroom dance changed all that. Having been a competitive ballroom dancer in her 20s, Carlson came back to life when she started dancing again in her 40s. As she rediscovered her love of dance, she also rediscovered her passion for life. While she was in the dance studio, taking notes on her lessons, she began writing down other observations on the parallels between dance lessons and life lessons, and the idea for a book was born. The result is a wonderful memoir of her midlife renewal found in dance, and how the lessons she learned in the studio transcended the dance floor.

“Quick Before The Music Stops” has been very well-received, reviewed by such notable publications as USA Today, the New York Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Bruno Collins, Fred Astaire Dance Studios National Dance Board Director, commented: "With insight and humor, Janet Carlson shares the joy, exhilaration and self-revelations that ballroom dancing has brought her. She draws the reader into her lessons, her partnerships, her life, and reveals how ballroom dancing reflects life and transforms it. Ms. Carlson captures the essence of ballroom dancing and how it intoxicates and captivates its participants like nothing else.”

How many of us, especially women, can relate to Carlson’s predicament? Trying to succeed at work while balancing the demands of family? Dashing around town after work to make sure your daughter gets to ballet on time and your son makes his football practice? Staying up until midnight making cupcakes for the third grade Halloween party? Needing to work late but knowing someone has to get home and pay the babysitter? A lot of women wonder - what happened to my own needs? My own interests? What happened to my sense of myself?

Maybe the answer is as simple as walking into a studio, and dancing out! In Carlson’s book, dancing is used as a metaphor for life, inspiring readers to find their center and balance. “It hasn’t been easy to make room in the schedule for my passion, but I have done it, because I’m certain now that it is necessary for life. This new period is rich – as rich in some ways as having my two children, because it has been a kind of birth – but it has also been painful thanks to the self-examination that dancing has provoked in me. And so, because of dance, I can say, unequivocally and gratefully, that I am alive at last,” she writes.

"Groovability" Dancers Dismiss Their Disability

A group of wheelchair ballroom dancers in Kansas City, MO have formed a nonprofit alternative dance organization called Groovability. According to a recent news article in the Kansas City Star, the Groovability dancers have given exhibitions at local studios and at able-bodied competitions from Nebraska to the St. Louis Star Ball. According to JoAnne Fluke, a 32-year-old vibrant woman with caudal regression, "I don't see my disability when I'm dancing...I see me." Click here to read the full article.