From bnd.com:
Tony Dovolani helps provide the fancy footwork on Dancing With the Stars'
By LUAINE LEE, McClatchy-Tribune News Service
STUDIO CITY, Calif. - When dancer Tony Dovolani glides through a torrid tango or hops to a lively Lindy on ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" he's just emulating what he saw as a kid.
He and his father used to watch a movie every week in his native Kosovo. "My dad found these Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers movies and Danny Kaye, Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor. Every Sunday we had movie night. And we watched musicals. It was so amazing because I was addicted to it as a kid. I couldn't wait to come to America to see some of this live."
He'd fallen in love with dancing at 4. "When I was 3 years old my dad tells me I showed interest in music and dance, so he took me to classes where I learned how to learn instruments and a dance class. In Kosovo, it's very big to do folkloric dancing, ballet but also folkloric dancing," he says in his slight accent over lunch here.
"I quickly realized I didn't want to be behind an instrument while everybody else was dancing. So I quit taking music lessons and just wanted to do dance lessons. I was 4 years old. I remember telling my dad about it," he says over the din of the lunch crowd.
"My dad is one of the most wonderful, smartest people I've ever met in my life. He encouraged this and he was always there whenever I needed him, but at the same time he always gave me tough love. If I had tough times he didn't want me to quit. He said, 'This is what makes somebody good. If you can get past the tough times then you can appreciate this later on in life.' And he was right."
When "Dancing With the Stars" returns next Monday, Dovolani will partner with model-designer Kathy Ireland. This marks his eighth season on the nine-year-old show. He missed Season 1 because he was preparing for his first world title in ballroom dancing when they invited him to join.
When Dovolani arrived in the U.S. in 1989, he was heartily disappointed that there were no musicals like he'd seen in the movies.
"I was 15. I started working as a dishwasher because they didn't accept our diplomas here, and I was already in my second year in college back home. I was one of the brainiacs. My dad majored in math. And I wanted to be like my dad."
His father, who was a CEO of a computer company and his mother, a chemist, had divorced when Tony was 14. "When I came here it was sad to see on TV there was no dancing," says Dovolani, who's wearing a rose-colored T-shirt, jeans and a red baseball cap.
"The closest thing to it was 'Star Search.' I used to look for different channels. And one time I was working at the diner till 3 in the morning and the only time I could find anything that resembled dancing in the movies was at 3:30 in the morning at Nickelodeon. One of the cooks at the restaurant where I was working got an invitation to the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. I asked him where is this? I couldn't even speak English that well. He took me to it, and as soon as I walked in, that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was 16."
He'd seen ballroom dancing contests on PBS before. The day he walked into the Fred Astaire Studio he vowed, "I'm going to win that one day. The owner of the studio said, 'Sure, sure let's get you dancing first.' In 1998 I represented the United States in the world championships and in 2001 I won my first PBS championship which was the United States title."
He kept on winning, and trained Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez for the film "Shall We Dance?" in which he had a small part.
Dovolani insists anyone who can walk can dance. "No dancer was born a dancer. Every dancer has been taught ... Even walking takes rhythm. As long as you simplify it and understand each person's personality you can actually teach them how to dance. One of the things about the Fred Astaire system is they teach you the art of teaching so each person possesses four different personalities - two being strongest and two being weakest. If you can recognize that on a person then all of a sudden you know how to teach them."
The four types, explains Dovolani, are analytical, driven, amiable and expressive. "For an expressive person there's no point is teaching left-foot-right-foot because they won't understand. You just have to show it to them and tell them about an emotion they're going to feel it. An analytical person, like an IBM person, I would teach them in a very much broken down system like 1, 2, 3, 4.
"The amiable person is a very good listener, so those people you can talk all day long and they'll never answer back, so until you stop they won't try it. Then a 'driver' you simply point them in the right direction."
Married for 10 years to Lina (he proposed four hours after they met), Dovolani has three children - fraternal twins, 1, and a daughter, 4.
"I'm living my dream," he sighs. "I'm a strong believer if you don't enjoy what you're doing now you can't think about tomorrow because you can't change the past and you can't do anything about tomorrow unless you work really hard about what happens today. My only hope in life is that my kids look at me the way I look at my dad."
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
So You Think You Can Dance - News About The New Season
From usatoday.com:
The structure of the sixth-season competition, which goes from auditions to viewers picking "America's favorite dancer," will be the same, but with new touches. Darnell says a new permanent judge will join Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, and he won't say who — but it won't be ex-Idol judge Paula Abdul.
Lythgoe, also an executive producer, plans one show where the top 20 dancers show off their specialties outside the competition. "In the past, they were just thrown straight into competition, and if they were fabulous at hip-hop we may have given them ballroom, and nobody knew how good they were."
On results shows, he wants to feature professional dance companies. "We're looking to do a group competition with all different stars of dance, not just hip-hop but ballroom, clogging, ballet, Latin-American formation-style dancing."
Dance will feature guest judges for auditions; Lythgoe would like to see more guest performances like Katie Holmes' appearance last season. Although nothing is scheduled, he has hopes for Abdul, with whom he worked when he produced Idol. "I'm still talking to Paula, and I'd still like her to come on the show."
The structure of the sixth-season competition, which goes from auditions to viewers picking "America's favorite dancer," will be the same, but with new touches. Darnell says a new permanent judge will join Nigel Lythgoe and Mary Murphy, and he won't say who — but it won't be ex-Idol judge Paula Abdul.
Lythgoe, also an executive producer, plans one show where the top 20 dancers show off their specialties outside the competition. "In the past, they were just thrown straight into competition, and if they were fabulous at hip-hop we may have given them ballroom, and nobody knew how good they were."
On results shows, he wants to feature professional dance companies. "We're looking to do a group competition with all different stars of dance, not just hip-hop but ballroom, clogging, ballet, Latin-American formation-style dancing."
Dance will feature guest judges for auditions; Lythgoe would like to see more guest performances like Katie Holmes' appearance last season. Although nothing is scheduled, he has hopes for Abdul, with whom he worked when he produced Idol. "I'm still talking to Paula, and I'd still like her to come on the show."
More Information On New Season of DWTS
The schedule for season nine of Dancing With The Stars is as follows:
- Two-hour performance shows every Monday, beginning on September 21(8:00-10:00 p.m., ET) through November 16
- One-hour results shows every Tuesday, beginning on September 29 (9:00 -10:00 p.m., ET) through November 17
- Season Finale on Tuesday, November 24 (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET)
A variety of new elements will be incorporated into routines involving all couples. Four new dance styles -- the Bolero, the Charleston, the Two Step and the Lambada -- will also be introduced. The middle stages of the competition feature the return of the "Dance Off," where contestants will perform a dance style of their choosing to fight for their spot in the competition. There will also be three consecutive double eliminations!
- Two-hour performance shows every Monday, beginning on September 21(8:00-10:00 p.m., ET) through November 16
- One-hour results shows every Tuesday, beginning on September 29 (9:00 -10:00 p.m., ET) through November 17
- Season Finale on Tuesday, November 24 (9:00-11:00 p.m., ET)
A variety of new elements will be incorporated into routines involving all couples. Four new dance styles -- the Bolero, the Charleston, the Two Step and the Lambada -- will also be introduced. The middle stages of the competition feature the return of the "Dance Off," where contestants will perform a dance style of their choosing to fight for their spot in the competition. There will also be three consecutive double eliminations!
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
"This Is My Sport"
By Catherine Brill, Copywriter
Joe Tafuri hated to dance. He only entered the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Mamaroneck, New York to purchase a gift certificate for his wife’s birthday, choosing that studio because of its convenient location a few minutes away from his house.
Two and a half years later, he’s hooked.
An Inspirational Student
After beginning his lessons with his wife, Beth, he decided to take some individual instruction from Meg Sommers, the owner of the studio, in order to strengthen his technique and become a stronger lead. He now competes in the pro/am division four times a year. Beth and Joe also compete as an Amateur couple. Joe dances at the studio Monday – Friday with both Meg and his wife. "There is never a time when I don’t look forward to working with her [Meg]," Joe says. This year, Joe attended the Atlantic City competition in March and the Astaire Awards Championships in July. At the AAC, Joe and Meg won the American Smooth A division and placed 6th in the B division. According to Joe, "Meg always makes me look good."
In turn, Meg credits her student as "inspirational" and "fabulous." "One of the great rewards of teaching is meeting someone like Joe. He constantly surprises me as he deals with the challenges and frustrations of learning how to dance," Meg states.
Joe is not someone with a lot of free time on his hands. With 25 years of experience in the advertising business, he is the Vice President, Advertiser Sales at the Tennis Channel and a former senior executive at SONY. But even with the constant high pressure and hectic nature of his job, he keeps his dedication to dance and ballroom competition.
The Challenge Of Dancing
For Joe, dancing is a sport. With a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in both knees, he had to stop playing tennis in recent years but now that he is ballroom dancing, he is able to get the exercise that he needs."Competing is a great way to challenge yourself," he believes. He prepares for each event in the same way an athlete trains, committing himself to each lesson with focus and intensity. The second he steps out onto the dance floor, the pain in his knees fades as he gets caught up in the rush and excitement of competing.
Something For Everyone
During his time with the Fred Astaire Dance Studios organization, he has grown to appreciate our system of teaching. Although preferring the individual attention and level of detail that comes with private lessons, Joe understands that our studios offer a wide range of services and programs for everyone – from the enthusiast looking for a social past time to the competitive dancer eager to win titles. "There is something here for everybody."
The Power Of Dance
Joe’s experience is a wonderful testimonial to the power of dance. We thank you for your commitment to dance and wish you the best in all your future performances!
Joe Tafuri hated to dance. He only entered the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Mamaroneck, New York to purchase a gift certificate for his wife’s birthday, choosing that studio because of its convenient location a few minutes away from his house.
Two and a half years later, he’s hooked.
An Inspirational Student
After beginning his lessons with his wife, Beth, he decided to take some individual instruction from Meg Sommers, the owner of the studio, in order to strengthen his technique and become a stronger lead. He now competes in the pro/am division four times a year. Beth and Joe also compete as an Amateur couple. Joe dances at the studio Monday – Friday with both Meg and his wife. "There is never a time when I don’t look forward to working with her [Meg]," Joe says. This year, Joe attended the Atlantic City competition in March and the Astaire Awards Championships in July. At the AAC, Joe and Meg won the American Smooth A division and placed 6th in the B division. According to Joe, "Meg always makes me look good."
In turn, Meg credits her student as "inspirational" and "fabulous." "One of the great rewards of teaching is meeting someone like Joe. He constantly surprises me as he deals with the challenges and frustrations of learning how to dance," Meg states.
Joe is not someone with a lot of free time on his hands. With 25 years of experience in the advertising business, he is the Vice President, Advertiser Sales at the Tennis Channel and a former senior executive at SONY. But even with the constant high pressure and hectic nature of his job, he keeps his dedication to dance and ballroom competition.
The Challenge Of Dancing
For Joe, dancing is a sport. With a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in both knees, he had to stop playing tennis in recent years but now that he is ballroom dancing, he is able to get the exercise that he needs."Competing is a great way to challenge yourself," he believes. He prepares for each event in the same way an athlete trains, committing himself to each lesson with focus and intensity. The second he steps out onto the dance floor, the pain in his knees fades as he gets caught up in the rush and excitement of competing.
Something For Everyone
During his time with the Fred Astaire Dance Studios organization, he has grown to appreciate our system of teaching. Although preferring the individual attention and level of detail that comes with private lessons, Joe understands that our studios offer a wide range of services and programs for everyone – from the enthusiast looking for a social past time to the competitive dancer eager to win titles. "There is something here for everybody."
The Power Of Dance
Joe’s experience is a wonderful testimonial to the power of dance. We thank you for your commitment to dance and wish you the best in all your future performances!
Who Wears DanceLife Shoes?
Some of the top dance couples in the world today are wearing DanceLife Shoes when they dance:
Andrei Kazlouski & Kate Kapshandy, Blackpool Latin Amateur Finalists
Artem Plakhotnyi & Inna Berlizyeva, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Chris Germain & Simona Polomova, Rising Star Finalists
Decho Kraev & Bree Watson, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine & Liana Churilova, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Eric Luna & Georgia Ambarian, US & World Champions
Gherman Mustuc & Iveta Lukosiute, World 10 Dance Champions
Ilya Ifraimov & Amanda Reyzin, Open Pro Finalists
Joe & Leisa Howard, US 9 Dance Champions
Pavlo Barsuk & Natalia Baranteva, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Peter & Alexandra Perzhu, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Slawek Sochachi & Marzena Stachura, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Thomas Lewandowski & Isabella Lewandowski, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Urs Geisenhainer & Agnes Kazmierczak, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Andrei Kazlouski & Kate Kapshandy, Blackpool Latin Amateur Finalists
Artem Plakhotnyi & Inna Berlizyeva, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Chris Germain & Simona Polomova, Rising Star Finalists
Decho Kraev & Bree Watson, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Emmanuel Pierre-Antoine & Liana Churilova, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Eric Luna & Georgia Ambarian, US & World Champions
Gherman Mustuc & Iveta Lukosiute, World 10 Dance Champions
Ilya Ifraimov & Amanda Reyzin, Open Pro Finalists
Joe & Leisa Howard, US 9 Dance Champions
Pavlo Barsuk & Natalia Baranteva, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Peter & Alexandra Perzhu, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Slawek Sochachi & Marzena Stachura, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Thomas Lewandowski & Isabella Lewandowski, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Urs Geisenhainer & Agnes Kazmierczak, Open Pro Finalists (US Finalists)
Ballroom Bash In Indianapolis
Join the gang from Fred Astaire Dance Studios in Indianapolis, IN for The Ballroom Bash, a city wide showcase where all Indianapolis dance schools are invited on Friday, September 18. Students and professionals from Fred Astaire Dance Studios will perform. Tickets are available at the studio. Call the studio at 317-291-6500 to reserve your ticket today!
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Determination Is His Partner
From the Chicago Tribune:
Dancer with cerebral palsy refuses to be led by lifelong disability
By Patrick Ferrell
September 2, 2009
When 22-year-old Brent Sapit stepped onto the dance floor, his shoes may have been the only indication he wasn't quite like the other ballroom dancers.
"To accommodate the [ leg] braces, I wear size 15 shoes," Sapit said, "which makes it very, very hard to try to be graceful on the floor."
Yet Sapit, whose cerebral palsy was diagnosed when he was just months old and who walks with a cane, moved just as fluidly as the others in a competition for those new to dancing."
You put him next to everybody else and it looks exactly the same, like they're really having fun," said Shannon Konczal, one of Sapit's instructors and partners at the recent competition at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Hoffman Estates.
His dancing caps a journey that started when doctors told his mother 20 years ago that her toddler may never be able to walk."At that point, Brent was still commando crawling," Linda Sapit said. Doctors warned that he likely would need a wheelchair."
He could advance far beyond anything," she remembers them telling her, "but you're going to have a lot of physical therapy and surgery with him."
His parents credit Brent's mobility -- and his ability to dance without a cane -- to his attitude and a then-groundbreaking surgery called selective posterior rhizotomy he had at age 2 1/2 . Doctors cut the spinal cord nerves that cause muscle tightness and spasticity in the legs of patients with cerebral palsy, according to Dr. Deborah Gaebler-Spira, a pediatric physiatrist who oversees the cerebral palsy program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Gaebler-Spira, who has treated Sapit since he was 21 months old, said he was an ideal candidate for the surgery because of his quest for mobility. The surgery requires years of physical therapy to be successful."
They do have to reinvent themselves as far as how they move," she said.Linda Sapit said her son had a breakthrough less than three months after the surgery. She still gets excited when she recalls what happened."
He was watching this little boy walking on a walker, and he said, 'Mom, I really want to walk,' " Linda Sapit said. "Dr. Gaebler got this excited look on her face ... and I looked at them and said, 'What do we do?' They said we give him a moving walker and see how he does."They give him this moving walker ... [and] he pushes himself up on this walker -- and it was this walker with wheels -- and he starts walking."
There wasn't a dry eye in the house," she said. "Here is this little kid walking, and it was so amazing. He had this smile on his face like you wouldn't believe."
Through the years, Brent Sapit has progressed to using two four-pronged canes, then one pole cane.The Orland Park resident and 2005 graduate of Sandburg High School became enamored with ballroom dancing after watching the first season of the TV show "Dancing With the Stars."
"They were so balanced and graceful, and I thought, well, I need to work on my balance," he said. "It was really just something to see the contestants gliding across the floor, and I really fell in love with it."
But Sapit became truly hooked in 2007 when Heather Mills, a former model and ex-wife of Paul McCartney, competed on the show."Halfway through the season, I found out she had an artificial leg and I thought, darn it, if she can do it, I can too. And I've got both legs," Sapit said.
So, he enrolled in the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Tinley Park. The competition in Hoffman Estates was a chance for the studio's newest dancers to pit themselves against others. Sapit had won a gold medal in Special Olympics swimming, but never competed against those without disabilities.His team placed third.
Now, Sapit has decided that his next challenge will be dancing without his cumbersome leg braces.
"I'm going out next week to get a regular pair of dancing shoes," he said.
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Dancer with cerebral palsy refuses to be led by lifelong disability
By Patrick Ferrell
September 2, 2009
When 22-year-old Brent Sapit stepped onto the dance floor, his shoes may have been the only indication he wasn't quite like the other ballroom dancers.
"To accommodate the [ leg] braces, I wear size 15 shoes," Sapit said, "which makes it very, very hard to try to be graceful on the floor."
Yet Sapit, whose cerebral palsy was diagnosed when he was just months old and who walks with a cane, moved just as fluidly as the others in a competition for those new to dancing."
You put him next to everybody else and it looks exactly the same, like they're really having fun," said Shannon Konczal, one of Sapit's instructors and partners at the recent competition at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Hoffman Estates.
His dancing caps a journey that started when doctors told his mother 20 years ago that her toddler may never be able to walk."At that point, Brent was still commando crawling," Linda Sapit said. Doctors warned that he likely would need a wheelchair."
He could advance far beyond anything," she remembers them telling her, "but you're going to have a lot of physical therapy and surgery with him."
His parents credit Brent's mobility -- and his ability to dance without a cane -- to his attitude and a then-groundbreaking surgery called selective posterior rhizotomy he had at age 2 1/2 . Doctors cut the spinal cord nerves that cause muscle tightness and spasticity in the legs of patients with cerebral palsy, according to Dr. Deborah Gaebler-Spira, a pediatric physiatrist who oversees the cerebral palsy program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Gaebler-Spira, who has treated Sapit since he was 21 months old, said he was an ideal candidate for the surgery because of his quest for mobility. The surgery requires years of physical therapy to be successful."
They do have to reinvent themselves as far as how they move," she said.Linda Sapit said her son had a breakthrough less than three months after the surgery. She still gets excited when she recalls what happened."
He was watching this little boy walking on a walker, and he said, 'Mom, I really want to walk,' " Linda Sapit said. "Dr. Gaebler got this excited look on her face ... and I looked at them and said, 'What do we do?' They said we give him a moving walker and see how he does."They give him this moving walker ... [and] he pushes himself up on this walker -- and it was this walker with wheels -- and he starts walking."
There wasn't a dry eye in the house," she said. "Here is this little kid walking, and it was so amazing. He had this smile on his face like you wouldn't believe."
Through the years, Brent Sapit has progressed to using two four-pronged canes, then one pole cane.The Orland Park resident and 2005 graduate of Sandburg High School became enamored with ballroom dancing after watching the first season of the TV show "Dancing With the Stars."
"They were so balanced and graceful, and I thought, well, I need to work on my balance," he said. "It was really just something to see the contestants gliding across the floor, and I really fell in love with it."
But Sapit became truly hooked in 2007 when Heather Mills, a former model and ex-wife of Paul McCartney, competed on the show."Halfway through the season, I found out she had an artificial leg and I thought, darn it, if she can do it, I can too. And I've got both legs," Sapit said.
So, he enrolled in the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Tinley Park. The competition in Hoffman Estates was a chance for the studio's newest dancers to pit themselves against others. Sapit had won a gold medal in Special Olympics swimming, but never competed against those without disabilities.His team placed third.
Now, Sapit has decided that his next challenge will be dancing without his cumbersome leg braces.
"I'm going out next week to get a regular pair of dancing shoes," he said.
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
One Last Waltz
Click on the link to watch a charming story about a life long dancing wish coming true!http://www.newschannel5.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?clipId1=4079810&flvUri=http://flash.video.worldnow.com/wtvf/WTVF_2708200917580129395_6082232B.flv&at1=News&vt1=v&h1=Life-Long%20Dancing%20Wish%20Comes%20True&d1=119033&redirUrl=&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=flv&rnd=10691115
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dancing Tips: Connection in Latin and Ballroom Dancing!
By Stanley McCalla, Fred Astaire Dance Board Member and Examiner. Hello there! I hope that you all are enjoying a wonderful summer dancing and otherwise.
After many years of experience performing, teaching, and coaching, I’d like to share with you today a subject that I sometimes cover in some of my lectures.
After many years of experience performing, teaching, and coaching, I’d like to share with you today a subject that I sometimes cover in some of my lectures.
"What creates a great performance, and what creates a dynamite couple?"
There are many parts to this answer, but one of them is connection.
There are many parts to this answer, but one of them is connection.
CONNECTION IS TOUCH…
VISUAL, EMOTIONAL & RHYTHMICAL
VISUAL, EMOTIONAL & RHYTHMICAL
Touch Connection
• The push and pull technique (body weight forward, toward one another with a left and right hand connection or double hand hold). It is a bracing action first and then a release.
• Centrifugal connection (with a left to right hand connection or double hand hold and counterbalancing each other by pulling the core of the body away).
Visual connection
• Consciousness and awareness of each other’s minute movements, including partner’s body weight.
• Being able to use this awareness to the couple’s advantage and responding to each other in this fashion (kind of a question and answer session).
Emotional connection
• Whether in Closed or Open position, each party of the partnership is completely emotionally open to communicate their sense of movement and music. It is a high form of communication where usually the man initiates this emotion and the woman responds by first embracing that feeling, then, in a harmonious fashion, expresses it even further by adding her own colorful passion.
• When this type of emotional union is coupled with rhythmical connection, the couple will experience a dynamite performance and will surely touch their audience in so many positive ways.
All the types of connections mentioned above can be achieved. First, it takes understanding and knowledge, and then practice, practice and more practice.
Make sure to practice these exercises with or without the supervision of your teacher.
Until next time, happy dancing! §
• The push and pull technique (body weight forward, toward one another with a left and right hand connection or double hand hold). It is a bracing action first and then a release.
• Centrifugal connection (with a left to right hand connection or double hand hold and counterbalancing each other by pulling the core of the body away).
Visual connection
• Consciousness and awareness of each other’s minute movements, including partner’s body weight.
• Being able to use this awareness to the couple’s advantage and responding to each other in this fashion (kind of a question and answer session).
Emotional connection
• Whether in Closed or Open position, each party of the partnership is completely emotionally open to communicate their sense of movement and music. It is a high form of communication where usually the man initiates this emotion and the woman responds by first embracing that feeling, then, in a harmonious fashion, expresses it even further by adding her own colorful passion.
• When this type of emotional union is coupled with rhythmical connection, the couple will experience a dynamite performance and will surely touch their audience in so many positive ways.
All the types of connections mentioned above can be achieved. First, it takes understanding and knowledge, and then practice, practice and more practice.
Make sure to practice these exercises with or without the supervision of your teacher.
Until next time, happy dancing! §
"I Am Going To Dance For The Rest Of My Life"
From the Groton Times (CT):
To the Editor:
I started dancing a little over a year ago, and honestly I don’t know where I would be today without it. It changed my life in many different ways—my posture has improved, my breathing is deeper, my gait is more graceful, and my general outlook is brighter.
I’ve danced many other styles of dance, and I would have to say out of all the different types of dancing, ballroom would have to be my favorite. Dancing works every single part of your body, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. Ballroom dancing also combines many different styles of dancing. It’s critical, strict, on point. You have to be on time, with the music and with your partner.
Within ballroom dancing there are many different genres, so there are many opportunities to try a variety of dance styles. I can almost guarantee that if you try it, you will find at least one that you will like. I wish that more people, especially younger kids like me, would just give it a chance. It may look boring, but you will be very surprised how ballroom challenges you and keeps you coming back for more.
Timing is especially important when it comes to dancing, because the slightest bit that you are off from the music makes a huge difference. Being in sync with your partner and the rhythm is definitely one of the most challenging aspects of ballroom dancing. I take pride in being a ballroom dancer because it is so uncommon, especially for teenager, and it’s so beneficial in all aspect of my life.
Competing is also very thrilling. Last November I entered my first dance competition, the Tri Regional Ballroom Dance Competition. There are contestants from various different dance schools and more than 300 entries. My partner and I danced in 16 heats in the rhythm division dancing to the cha-cha and swing. We placed first in all 16 heats. I was completely shocked and had no idea that this good news was coming our way. I was not expecting to hear our names be called time after time.
If it wasn’t for my supportive family and my wonderful instructor Olga Golubko at the Fred Astaire dance studio in Mystic, I would not be the person that I am today. I am going to dance for the rest of my life.
Olivia Pentell
Groton
To the Editor:
I started dancing a little over a year ago, and honestly I don’t know where I would be today without it. It changed my life in many different ways—my posture has improved, my breathing is deeper, my gait is more graceful, and my general outlook is brighter.
I’ve danced many other styles of dance, and I would have to say out of all the different types of dancing, ballroom would have to be my favorite. Dancing works every single part of your body, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. Ballroom dancing also combines many different styles of dancing. It’s critical, strict, on point. You have to be on time, with the music and with your partner.
Within ballroom dancing there are many different genres, so there are many opportunities to try a variety of dance styles. I can almost guarantee that if you try it, you will find at least one that you will like. I wish that more people, especially younger kids like me, would just give it a chance. It may look boring, but you will be very surprised how ballroom challenges you and keeps you coming back for more.
Timing is especially important when it comes to dancing, because the slightest bit that you are off from the music makes a huge difference. Being in sync with your partner and the rhythm is definitely one of the most challenging aspects of ballroom dancing. I take pride in being a ballroom dancer because it is so uncommon, especially for teenager, and it’s so beneficial in all aspect of my life.
Competing is also very thrilling. Last November I entered my first dance competition, the Tri Regional Ballroom Dance Competition. There are contestants from various different dance schools and more than 300 entries. My partner and I danced in 16 heats in the rhythm division dancing to the cha-cha and swing. We placed first in all 16 heats. I was completely shocked and had no idea that this good news was coming our way. I was not expecting to hear our names be called time after time.
If it wasn’t for my supportive family and my wonderful instructor Olga Golubko at the Fred Astaire dance studio in Mystic, I would not be the person that I am today. I am going to dance for the rest of my life.
Olivia Pentell
Groton
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
New Rules On This Season of DWTS
From eonline.com:
The medical bills at Dancing With the Stars may not be as high this upcoming season as they have been in the past.
Producers of the hit reality-competition show have finally implemented safety measures that they hope will reduce the number of injuries that have plagued many of their celebrity contestants.
"There's a rule now that we're not allowed to train for more than five hours a day for the first two weeks," professional hoofer Cheryl Burke told me last night at the Anna Faris-hosted Malibu-Reef Check event in Beverly Hills.
And there's more…
"After every two hours, you have to have a 30-minute break," Burke said. "And we have to have one full day off a week."
If you remember last season, things over at DWTS started to look more like an emergency room rather than a fun-loving reality show. Among the bruised and battered were singer Jewel, who dropped out when doctors diagnosed her with fractured tibia in both legs. The singer was replaced by E! reality star Holly Madison.
Access Hollywood host Nancy O'Dell also left before the competition began because of a torn meniscus that required surgery. Jilted Bachelor star Melissa Rycroft took her place.
Sex and the City star Gilles Marini first hurt his groin and then ended up under the knife for a shoulder injury. Apple computer guru Steve Wozniak found himself wobbling around in a cast because of a foot fracture.
Even Steve-O, who made a career of torturing and mutilating his body in Jackass, waltzed away with nerve damage in his back.
The list could go on and on and on...
Burke praised the producers for the changes, but thinks the five hour daily limit at the onset of training doesn't go far enough.
"I think it should be a four hours," she said. "Your body still needs to get into it."
Training for season nine, which premieres Sept. 21 on ABC, begins in less than two weeks.
The medical bills at Dancing With the Stars may not be as high this upcoming season as they have been in the past.
Producers of the hit reality-competition show have finally implemented safety measures that they hope will reduce the number of injuries that have plagued many of their celebrity contestants.
"There's a rule now that we're not allowed to train for more than five hours a day for the first two weeks," professional hoofer Cheryl Burke told me last night at the Anna Faris-hosted Malibu-Reef Check event in Beverly Hills.
And there's more…
"After every two hours, you have to have a 30-minute break," Burke said. "And we have to have one full day off a week."
If you remember last season, things over at DWTS started to look more like an emergency room rather than a fun-loving reality show. Among the bruised and battered were singer Jewel, who dropped out when doctors diagnosed her with fractured tibia in both legs. The singer was replaced by E! reality star Holly Madison.
Access Hollywood host Nancy O'Dell also left before the competition began because of a torn meniscus that required surgery. Jilted Bachelor star Melissa Rycroft took her place.
Sex and the City star Gilles Marini first hurt his groin and then ended up under the knife for a shoulder injury. Apple computer guru Steve Wozniak found himself wobbling around in a cast because of a foot fracture.
Even Steve-O, who made a career of torturing and mutilating his body in Jackass, waltzed away with nerve damage in his back.
The list could go on and on and on...
Burke praised the producers for the changes, but thinks the five hour daily limit at the onset of training doesn't go far enough.
"I think it should be a four hours," she said. "Your body still needs to get into it."
Training for season nine, which premieres Sept. 21 on ABC, begins in less than two weeks.
Tony Dovolani Lands Another Movie Role
From onlineprnews.com:
DWTS pro and Fred Astaire Champion Dancer Tony Dovolani will appear in Stock's Eye and Angel Light Pictures upcoming Sci-Fi/Thriller, "Blood Cauldron," an independent film to be shot late this year in Granby, Massachusetts.
The story revolves around six diverse scientists that are given the chance of a lifetime – 1 million dollars for 6 months in a secret underground research facility dubbed "The Cauldron." Dovolani would portray Dr. Martin Toldani, one of the top genetic researchers who has a love interest with one of the female scientists in the lab.
DWTS pro and Fred Astaire Champion Dancer Tony Dovolani will appear in Stock's Eye and Angel Light Pictures upcoming Sci-Fi/Thriller, "Blood Cauldron," an independent film to be shot late this year in Granby, Massachusetts.
The story revolves around six diverse scientists that are given the chance of a lifetime – 1 million dollars for 6 months in a secret underground research facility dubbed "The Cauldron." Dovolani would portray Dr. Martin Toldani, one of the top genetic researchers who has a love interest with one of the female scientists in the lab.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Who Is Favored To Win Next Season's DWTS?
From nationalledger.com:
Who is the Favorite on Dancing With The Stars?
By Sophie Eager
Aug 22, 2009
ABC just released the new line up for this season of the network reality TV hit show. Who is the Favorite on Dancing With The Stars? Pop star Aaron Carter has been tabbed the favorite to win the new season of Dancing With The Stars before the show has even started.
Bodog.com's odds for who will win see Carter with odds of 3:1, with singers Mya, Macy Gray and Donny Osmond coming just behind. However, actress Debi Mazar and reality star Kelly Osbourne are at the lower end of the scale. with odds of 19:2 and 20:1 respectively, with Tom DeLay being the least favourite with odds of 25:1.
Who is the Favorite on Dancing With The Stars?
By Sophie Eager
Aug 22, 2009
ABC just released the new line up for this season of the network reality TV hit show. Who is the Favorite on Dancing With The Stars? Pop star Aaron Carter has been tabbed the favorite to win the new season of Dancing With The Stars before the show has even started.
Bodog.com's odds for who will win see Carter with odds of 3:1, with singers Mya, Macy Gray and Donny Osmond coming just behind. However, actress Debi Mazar and reality star Kelly Osbourne are at the lower end of the scale. with odds of 19:2 and 20:1 respectively, with Tom DeLay being the least favourite with odds of 25:1.
From Dancing With The Stars to Dancing On Wheels
Brian Fortuna, a former professional dancer on both the US and UK versions of Dancing With The Stars, will be part of a new BBC show, airing in January 2010. The upcoming show is called Dancing on Wheels and Brian will be the lead choreographer. Competitors will be put through intense training to compete for a chance to represent the United Kingdom at the Wheelchair Dance Sport European Championships. Brian is an American DanceWheels Foundation 2006 graduate and a certified American DanceWheels Foundation teacher.
My Golden Dancers
From the book of Psalms
By Elita Sohmer Clayman
Weeping may remain in the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. What a lovely phrase, line, saying or whatever you want to name it. I heard this on my soap opera the other day and say what you may about soap operas, they come up with some excellent expressions among the provocative story lines. This is from the Book of Psalms.
How can we as mortals explain this saying? I think of it this way. Many times we have sadness and it seems to escalate in the evening hours. Sometimes in the early morning when we awaken and are refreshed from our sleep, we take time out to rejoice in our blessings.
Many people on their answering machines will end their message to the caller with, “Have a blessed day.” That sentiment is particularly relevant in this rush-rush society we live in. Times are tough now for many people without jobs or losing their homes, etc. So we who are blessed with having these things can look upon ourselves as being particularly favored and fortunate in our good happenings.
I myself some days wake up and think, “This will be a special day.” I sit down at my office desk in my home where I write these articles for magazines and online websites and blogs and write a list of my blessed things that we all take for granted. I also write down what pleasant things I wish to happen today. Pleasant could mean receiving a package I have waited for or going to get my hair done. It can mean writing a new and inspiring article. It can mean getting a good report about a test I may have taken for medical reasons. It can mean thinking about going back to my ballroom dancing and maybe competing next year with my professional coach. It could mean going to see my grandchildren or taking my two older grandsons to dinner. Lists can be important in making the day happy and anticipating a good many hours.
So if there is weeping in the night, then certainly we shall rejoice in the a.m. hours when we count our blessings and anticipate our good happenings for that day. Good friends and delightful family members are what we have to rejoice about and if we can feel the happiness and celebrate and revel in these moments then we are surely having a blessed day. That day will be remembered when maybe something goes wrong on another day.
Dear friends of mine via the email and reading my dance columns in dance magazines made me two glass paintings. They painted on thick glass with acrylic-type paint pictures of dancers dancing the Waltz and the Samba and shipped them to me along with special hooks to hang them. They appear in a place of honor on my living room wall and every week when I dust them off during cleaning time, I rejoice in their friendship.
So peace and tranquility and rejoicing can be had in many ways. Another thing we do that gives us pleasure and joy is our ballroom dancing that we have done since November 2, 1977, which is almost thirty-two years now. The happiness I derive from competing with my coach, to doing showcases in the studio, to keeping my mind active and functioning and to just plain social dancing is certainly a plus for happiness. Ballroom dancing gives me a boost and makes life interesting and happy. I could not imagine my life without it now.
Weeping may remain in the night, but rejoicing surely comes in the morning and, may I so boldly add, it comes in all day long too.
Elita Sohmer Clayman
Baltimore, Maryland August 1, 2009
Weeping may remain in the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. What a lovely phrase, line, saying or whatever you want to name it. I heard this on my soap opera the other day and say what you may about soap operas, they come up with some excellent expressions among the provocative story lines. This is from the Book of Psalms.
How can we as mortals explain this saying? I think of it this way. Many times we have sadness and it seems to escalate in the evening hours. Sometimes in the early morning when we awaken and are refreshed from our sleep, we take time out to rejoice in our blessings.
Many people on their answering machines will end their message to the caller with, “Have a blessed day.” That sentiment is particularly relevant in this rush-rush society we live in. Times are tough now for many people without jobs or losing their homes, etc. So we who are blessed with having these things can look upon ourselves as being particularly favored and fortunate in our good happenings.
I myself some days wake up and think, “This will be a special day.” I sit down at my office desk in my home where I write these articles for magazines and online websites and blogs and write a list of my blessed things that we all take for granted. I also write down what pleasant things I wish to happen today. Pleasant could mean receiving a package I have waited for or going to get my hair done. It can mean writing a new and inspiring article. It can mean getting a good report about a test I may have taken for medical reasons. It can mean thinking about going back to my ballroom dancing and maybe competing next year with my professional coach. It could mean going to see my grandchildren or taking my two older grandsons to dinner. Lists can be important in making the day happy and anticipating a good many hours.
So if there is weeping in the night, then certainly we shall rejoice in the a.m. hours when we count our blessings and anticipate our good happenings for that day. Good friends and delightful family members are what we have to rejoice about and if we can feel the happiness and celebrate and revel in these moments then we are surely having a blessed day. That day will be remembered when maybe something goes wrong on another day.
Dear friends of mine via the email and reading my dance columns in dance magazines made me two glass paintings. They painted on thick glass with acrylic-type paint pictures of dancers dancing the Waltz and the Samba and shipped them to me along with special hooks to hang them. They appear in a place of honor on my living room wall and every week when I dust them off during cleaning time, I rejoice in their friendship.
So peace and tranquility and rejoicing can be had in many ways. Another thing we do that gives us pleasure and joy is our ballroom dancing that we have done since November 2, 1977, which is almost thirty-two years now. The happiness I derive from competing with my coach, to doing showcases in the studio, to keeping my mind active and functioning and to just plain social dancing is certainly a plus for happiness. Ballroom dancing gives me a boost and makes life interesting and happy. I could not imagine my life without it now.
Weeping may remain in the night, but rejoicing surely comes in the morning and, may I so boldly add, it comes in all day long too.
Elita Sohmer Clayman
Baltimore, Maryland August 1, 2009
Dancing With The Stars Fall 2009 - Full Partners Revealed
Aaron Carter & Karina Smirnoff
Natalie Coughlin & Alec Mazo
Mark Dacascos & Lacey Schwimmer
Tom DeLay & Cheryl Burke.
Macy Gray & Jonathan Roberts
Ashley Hamilton & Edyta Sliwinska.
Melissa Joan Hart & Mark Ballas
Kathy Ireland & Tony Dovolani
Michael Irvin & Anna Demidova
Joanna Krupa & Derek Hough
Chuck Liddell & Anna Trebunskaya
Debi Mazar & Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Mýa & Dmitry Chaplin
Kelly Osbourne & Louis van Amstel
Donny Osmond & Kym Johnson
Louie Vito & Chelsie Hightower
Natalie Coughlin & Alec Mazo
Mark Dacascos & Lacey Schwimmer
Tom DeLay & Cheryl Burke.
Macy Gray & Jonathan Roberts
Ashley Hamilton & Edyta Sliwinska.
Melissa Joan Hart & Mark Ballas
Kathy Ireland & Tony Dovolani
Michael Irvin & Anna Demidova
Joanna Krupa & Derek Hough
Chuck Liddell & Anna Trebunskaya
Debi Mazar & Maksim Chmerkovskiy
Mýa & Dmitry Chaplin
Kelly Osbourne & Louis van Amstel
Donny Osmond & Kym Johnson
Louie Vito & Chelsie Hightower
Dance Has No Age Requirement!
From The Connecticut Post:
Trumbull woman still stepping lively at 89
89-year-old winning dance competitions right and left
By Noelle Frampton, Staff Writer
Updated: 08/24/2009
TRUMBULL -- Kathleen Wander is a prodigy, but not in the usual sense. In fact, she flips the typical concept on its proverbial ear. Then she twirls it, dips it and waltzes off with it.
Embodying grace in motion, Wander has won first place in her bracket at all but five of 44 separate ballroom dance contests and placed second in a regional tournament earlier this month.
But the town resident had been dancing only two years. And she's 89.
In the embrace of a waltz, she glides across the polished wood floor at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Trumbull, her eyes shining, her head held high, her feet twinkling in silver dancing heels. She laughs when she messes up and tells a reporter with a slight English accent, "Look away, dear," then goes right back to work.
Her sparkling blue eyes are wide with mirth, fun and zest for living as she says she's in love with her 28-year-old dance instructor, Kristofer Speer, "who refuses to marry me."
"Everybody knows I'm crazy about Kris, and he says he's waiting for me to grow up," she said during her lesson Thursday.
Wander wasn't always so comfortable at the White Plains Road studio, however. After spotting an ad and recalling how she'd always wanted to learn ballroom dancing, she tried calling four times before she got the courage to come in.
"I thought they'd think I was too old to start dancing," she said.
Speer said initially he was careful not to do anything too fancy or "let her go" in a twirl. But soon, he said, he found Wander strong and up for a challenge -- combining true enjoyment with patience and persistence.
"I push. I might as well have a bullwhip, but she sticks with it," he said. "She's beaten people who are in their 60s at tournaments." Turning to Wander, he told her that she exudes the gliding grace of a bygone time: "The grace of a woman from the golden era of movies."
"I love Kathleen," Speer added. "She puts smiles on people's faces when she walks through the door. People naturally want to walk over and talk to her. She has a certain magnetism."
Wander has competed in three regional Fred Astaire-sponsored competitions and another national contest in Florida. Her performances include dances such as the cha cha, fox trot, rumba, swing, tango and Viennese waltz with Speer.
At the most recent competition in Mystic, over the first weekend in August, she danced all weekend and was awarded 39 firsts in her age bracket of 76 and up, four seconds and one third, she said.
An avid skier until age 84, Wander won first in one tournament, where the age bracket widens to include 61 and up, and second in two others. Even in the national arena, she took several firsts, Speer said, adding that most competitors have been dancing longer than Wander.
Already looking forward to her next competition in November, also in Mystic, Wander plans to keep dancing "till my legs give out." Wander, a widow of four years, finds the competitions to be good social outlets.
"One of the nicest things about being old is that you can flirt like hell and nobody cares," she chuckled. "I've never flirted before in my life -- I'm having a ball. Nobody gets fresh with anyone else. They're there for the pure joy of dancing " and loving every minute of it. It's the most marvelous thing in the world that you could do. It's exhilarating, the music is beautiful. If you're fit, I don't think age matters. I want to be the best I can."
For all her spunkiness, Wander said, she's "amazed" each time she is awarded first place.
She was interested in writing and art in her younger years, but dropped out of high school in England at 16 to care for her sick mother, went to business school at night and became a secretary out of necessity.
Later in America, she looked after her ailing husband, who passed away after 40 years of happy marriage.
When the woman who has spent most of her life caring for others thought of how healthy and strong her body is, she shook her head.
"I am really blessed," she said. "I don't know anybody my age who's as lucky as I am. I don't know why God is so good to me, but he is. I think he likes to watch me dance."
Trumbull woman still stepping lively at 89
89-year-old winning dance competitions right and left
By Noelle Frampton, Staff Writer
Updated: 08/24/2009
TRUMBULL -- Kathleen Wander is a prodigy, but not in the usual sense. In fact, she flips the typical concept on its proverbial ear. Then she twirls it, dips it and waltzes off with it.
Embodying grace in motion, Wander has won first place in her bracket at all but five of 44 separate ballroom dance contests and placed second in a regional tournament earlier this month.
But the town resident had been dancing only two years. And she's 89.
In the embrace of a waltz, she glides across the polished wood floor at Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Trumbull, her eyes shining, her head held high, her feet twinkling in silver dancing heels. She laughs when she messes up and tells a reporter with a slight English accent, "Look away, dear," then goes right back to work.
Her sparkling blue eyes are wide with mirth, fun and zest for living as she says she's in love with her 28-year-old dance instructor, Kristofer Speer, "who refuses to marry me."
"Everybody knows I'm crazy about Kris, and he says he's waiting for me to grow up," she said during her lesson Thursday.
Wander wasn't always so comfortable at the White Plains Road studio, however. After spotting an ad and recalling how she'd always wanted to learn ballroom dancing, she tried calling four times before she got the courage to come in.
"I thought they'd think I was too old to start dancing," she said.
Speer said initially he was careful not to do anything too fancy or "let her go" in a twirl. But soon, he said, he found Wander strong and up for a challenge -- combining true enjoyment with patience and persistence.
"I push. I might as well have a bullwhip, but she sticks with it," he said. "She's beaten people who are in their 60s at tournaments." Turning to Wander, he told her that she exudes the gliding grace of a bygone time: "The grace of a woman from the golden era of movies."
"I love Kathleen," Speer added. "She puts smiles on people's faces when she walks through the door. People naturally want to walk over and talk to her. She has a certain magnetism."
Wander has competed in three regional Fred Astaire-sponsored competitions and another national contest in Florida. Her performances include dances such as the cha cha, fox trot, rumba, swing, tango and Viennese waltz with Speer.
At the most recent competition in Mystic, over the first weekend in August, she danced all weekend and was awarded 39 firsts in her age bracket of 76 and up, four seconds and one third, she said.
An avid skier until age 84, Wander won first in one tournament, where the age bracket widens to include 61 and up, and second in two others. Even in the national arena, she took several firsts, Speer said, adding that most competitors have been dancing longer than Wander.
Already looking forward to her next competition in November, also in Mystic, Wander plans to keep dancing "till my legs give out." Wander, a widow of four years, finds the competitions to be good social outlets.
"One of the nicest things about being old is that you can flirt like hell and nobody cares," she chuckled. "I've never flirted before in my life -- I'm having a ball. Nobody gets fresh with anyone else. They're there for the pure joy of dancing " and loving every minute of it. It's the most marvelous thing in the world that you could do. It's exhilarating, the music is beautiful. If you're fit, I don't think age matters. I want to be the best I can."
For all her spunkiness, Wander said, she's "amazed" each time she is awarded first place.
She was interested in writing and art in her younger years, but dropped out of high school in England at 16 to care for her sick mother, went to business school at night and became a secretary out of necessity.
Later in America, she looked after her ailing husband, who passed away after 40 years of happy marriage.
When the woman who has spent most of her life caring for others thought of how healthy and strong her body is, she shook her head.
"I am really blessed," she said. "I don't know anybody my age who's as lucky as I am. I don't know why God is so good to me, but he is. I think he likes to watch me dance."
They Seem To Find The Happiness They Seek
From The New York Times:
August 16, 2009
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY
When people fall in love, they opt for an experience that others have had before. Very often that’s what they have in mind: they would like to share some of what happened to Romeo and Juliet, or Lizzy and Darcy or maybe just their parents. One of those archetypes of romance was born 75 years ago, with the release of “The Gay Divorcee,” starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
The cinema has had many classic couples: several, in fact, in 1934, the year of “It Happened One Night,” “Twentieth Century” and “The Thin Man.” But it has never had another couple who enshrined romantic love so definitively in terms of dance.
Dancing together, Astaire and Rogers expressed many of love’s moods: courtship and seduction, repartee and responsiveness, teasing and challenge, the surprise of newfound harmony, the happy recapture of bygone romance, the giddy exhilaration of high spirits and intense mutual accord, the sense of a perfect balance of power, the tragedy of parting and, not least, the sense of love as role playing. It’s startling how many of those shades are already present in “Night and Day,” their first romantic duet together, in “The Gay Divorcee.”
The story has often been told. Astaire (1899-1987), after years of partnering his sister, Adele, broke through to a new romantic seriousness in 1932, when partnering Claire Luce onstage in London in Cole Porter’s “Gay Divorce,” particularly in the number “Night and Day.” He went to Hollywood as a fully grown star in 1933. When he and Rogers (1911-95) were given fifth and fourth star billing in RKO’s “Flying Down to Rio” that year, their brief fling in the “Carioca” number became its biggest sensation.
“The Gay Divorce” was promptly adapted for the screen as “The Gay Divorcee” for the new star team. Astaire and Rogers went on to make seven more RKO movies together in the 1930s. Astaire choreographed, and the specifications he made for how the camera should follow him set unsurpassed standards: Film the dancers full-frame, without close-up; keep reaction shots to a minimum; run the dance in as few takes as possible, preferably just one.
He went on to partner many other women. (Astaire aficionados like to debate who, after Ginger, complemented him best. Rita Hayworth? Cyd Charisse? Eleanor Powell? Gracie Allen?) But though he developed the artistry of his solos in the 1940s, his screen chemistry with Rogers has never been matched.
Watching “Night and Day” as danced by Astaire and Rogers in “The Gay Divorcee,” we can’t tell how much Astaire adapted it since performing it with Luce, and Rogers is not yet as supple and skilled a dancer as she would be two years later. Yet we see the Astaire-Rogers alchemy in full force. Much of it has to do with Rogers’s multifaceted reactions to Astaire.
Her face is riveting because it has such restraint. Among the breathtaking aspects of her performance are her sudden stops to address him (as if acknowledging the force field between them); the suggestions that at one point she is helplessly sleepwalking but that, at another, having great fun; the very sweet way she implies that love (and dancing with a partner) is something she is happily learning as she goes along; the ripples that pass at different moments through her spine and pelvis; the huge, determined strides she takes to break away from him at one juncture, and then, when he stops her, the mysteriously fluent near-slap she gives him (and the soft way she watches him as he reels back across the room). Astaire leads throughout and is compelling. But her responses, from face to foot, give this duet its depth.
Two years after the “Gay Divorcee” Rogers reached her apogee in “Swing Time” (1936). By now she has a dancer’s body as beautiful as any the screen has ever seen. The glimpses of her legs in their “Pick Yourself Up” number (her calf-length skirts fly as they tap) are enough to make you gasp. Her spine can now arch and bend in many ways, all apparently full of feeling; the slenderness of her waist is always ravishing.
Yet she never looks rarefied or trained. For that matter, she doesn’t behave like a great beauty and isn’t presented as one. Her ordinariness and spontaneity (just watch her arms and hands) are central to her attractiveness. While she always retains these qualities, there are parts of “Swing Time” (and other Astaire-Rogers movies of their prime) in which she and Astaire become divinities and, together, epitomize glamour, love and dance.
Perhaps the high of highs is the “Waltz in Swing Time,” filmed in one take. Astaire is in black tie, Rogers in full-length white. This dance is a novelty number, like several others in their films (“The Carioca,” “The Continental,” “The Piccolino,” the tap dance on roller skates, “The Yam”) and probably the most miraculous in terms of pure dance. They’re moving fast and percussively, yet the impression is of an unbroken slow-traveling legato flow. They’re combining swing and waltz rhythms (it feels like riding two horses at once), yet the impression isn’t of rhythmic virtuosity so much as of impulsive rapture.
It’s my impression that Astaire and Rogers have become even more classic than ever. Now that ballroom dance has been repopularized by “So You Think You Can Dance,” the Astaire-Rogers image is often invoked. (“Burn the Floor,” the skillfully repellent stage musical currently on Broadway, which features 16 stars of “So You Think,” has an episode in which one couple and then another appear dressed as Astaire and Rogers, with the music quoting their “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” number from the 1936 “Follow the Fleet.”)
Only in the 1960s did the Astaire-Rogers duets first receive serious critical attention as great choreography. In 1965 Arlene Croce, who until then had been best known as a film critic, founded Ballet Review magazine (which flourishes still), and one of her two remarkable contributions to the first issue was the essay “Notes on La Belle, La Perfectly Swell, Romance.” (It was republished in 2008 in Robert Gottlieb’s “Reading Dance” anthology.)
In 1972 Ms. Croce followed this with one of the best-loved works in dance literature, “The Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers Book.” In prose that perfectly rises to the thrill of these classics, she herself produced a classic. It has been quoted and cited in innumerable books on Astaire and Rogers, on Astaire, on film musicals and on romantic comedy. It’s out of print now, but since it has been reissued in the past, it’s fair to hope it will be reissued again.
In the 1960s and ’70s you had to wait for Astaire-Rogers movies on television or in revival houses. In the case of “Roberta” (1935) you often had to wait years. Ms. Croce rightly calls this “their most ebullient film.” But MGM (which remade it in 1952 as “Lovely to Look At”) tried to bury it for decades. Now you can get a DVD boxed set of all 10 Astaire-Rogers movies and watch “Roberta” to your heart’s content. The “Swing Time” DVD can be watched with a commentary by John Mueller, whose 440-page study “Astaire Dancing” (1986) is as indispensable to Astaire studies as Ms. Croce’s book.
Ms. Croce’s taste and eminently quotable prose and Mr. Mueller’s detailed analysis hang over two recent books, Hannah Hyam’s “Fred & Ginger” (Pen Press Publishers) and Joseph Epstein’s “Fred Astaire” (Yale University Press). These are, however, diametrically opposite writers. Mr. Epstein casually remarks, “I cannot remember whether I’ve watched ‘Top Hat’ five or six times, but I continue to find new little things in it,” whereas Ms. Hyam, no less casually, says about the “Waltz in Swing Time” that “it is necessary to watch it at least a dozen times before we can even begin to grasp the wealth of detail in which it abounds.”
I don’t need to read 191 pages on Astaire by someone who has watched “Top Hat” only six times at most (“dull as the script is,” Mr. Epstein writes of it) and relies heavily on references and quotations from the writing of others. At one point Mr. Epstein tells us that “Astaire probably overrehearsed,” at another why he needed to rehearse so much.
After quoting from Edwin Denby, Ms. Croce, Mr. Mueller and Charles (Honi) Coles, he gives us this aperçu of his own about “Top Hat”: “You have this pretty girl and this far from handsome yet smoothly attractive guy, and the two of them join together to dance like nobody else, before or since, and some terrific music is playing much of the time, so what the hell, but wouldn’t it be great if life had more such moments: glamorous, romantic, elegant, yes, and uncomplicatedly happy.” By the way, “Top Hat” seems to be the Astaire film Mr. Epstein has watched the most.
Ms. Hyam, by contrast, is an Astaire-Rogers nerd. She has little sense of context outside their movies, she scarcely attends to the music, and too much of her writing consists of plodding exposition. Some of the best points occur in the notes at the back. (In the main text she finds the script for “Top Hat” to be “clever, witty.” You have to turn to the notes to see how she points to the symmetry with which Astaire says, “If I ever forgot myself with that girl, I’d like to remember it,” and Rogers, 20 minutes later, says, “I’ll make him remember me in a manner he’ll never forget.”)
But her book is as knowledgeable as it is loving. When she disagrees, seldom, with Ms. Croce (in “Top Hat,” for example, she finds Ms. Croce misses the point of the “several dreamy backbends” — Ms. Croce’s phrase — in “Cheek to Cheek”), she makes you see why. (This spectacular duet probably isn’t as moving as it should be, not, I think, because of the choreography but simply because this is their least spontaneous performance. Its filming was notoriously complicated by the way Rogers’s stunning dress kept shedding feathers all over the set; even after revisions and multiple takes, a few feathers are still falling on screen.)
As Ms. Hyam proceeds, she makes points that send you back to watch the films again. Of the “Waltz in Swing Time” she quotes both Ms. Croce and Mr. Mueller to good effect before adding, “One astonishing sequence among the so many: when Rogers, facing Astaire, joyfully curves her body for him to vault over it, twice, and a third time presents her slightly inclined back for him to repeat this most intimate maneuver — just before they both rush headlong, in each other’s arms, into the final stage of the dance.” When you check it out, you find that you love the number even more as a result.
Neither book refers to another classic, James Harvey’s “Romantic Comedy in Hollywood: From Lubitsch to Sturges,” which perceptively sets Astaire and Rogers in full film context and gives us much more to see and consider. And neither reflects on the baroque intricacy of the numerous shows within films and dramas within dramas with which these movies abound.
The sense that Fred and Ginger keep playing roles (roles within their roles) ought to make them in these films more artificial, more tongue in cheek; but instead it gives them — and the different aspects of love they express — depth and complexity. Often when they’re doing a dance scene that (the plot tells us) they have rehearsed and that they are performing for an audience (which applauds) they turn out to be at their most spontaneous and piercing, and their love seems at its most real. Ms. Hyam is right: We need to keep returning to these movies. Hilarious and entrancing as they often are, they endlessly repay close study.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
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