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On Friday, January 28, 2005, I will be performing at the Viennese Opera Ball in New York. I will be part of a 15-couple choreographed group waltz. The choreography is very beautiful and fast-paced, whipping around the ballroom with lots of turns and twirls in costume. Besides our waltz performance, there will also be opera singers, and ballet dancers. Our waltz performance was choreographed by Teddy Kern, the co-owner of Dance Manhattan Dance Studio. She's been the choreographer of the Viennese Opera Ball in New York for 27 years. To participate in the performance one needed to audition for the Viennese waltz skills. The audition took place on November 7th, 2004. Since then we had rehearsals on weekends lasting from 2 to 4 hours.
The day before the ball the dress rehearsal took place at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. The actual ball will take place in the Grand Ballroom, but the dress rehearsal was held in the Astor Room because the Grand Ballroom was occupied by another event. The dress rehearsal was open to the public free of charge. It was supposed to start at 8:30 PM, but we had to arrive to the hotel by 7 to have plenty of time to put on our costumes.
Although Kerrie and I were not partners for this performance, we killed some time by practicing in the hallway and videotaped us to see what it would look like:
As usual, the guys were dressed before the girls and while waiting Mike told us about the performance back in 2001 when both American and Austrian couples were dancing together. BUT... they only rehearsed together on the day before the ball at the dress rehearsal. Before that the Austrians were practicing the choreography from a video tape that was sent to them. Here is an excerpt from the narrative: Finally the girls dressed in "marshmellow" dresses came out and we proceeded to the Astor room for the rehearsal:
First the opera singers did their number, followed by the ballet couple and then it was our turn. While we were waiting out in the corridor there were a bunch of photographers who were assigned to take photos at the event in the Grand Ballroom, but they found it much more interesting to take photos of us dressed up in gowns and tails. Several of us showed off our moves infront of the cameras.
The Astor room was full of spectators. There were even not enough chairs for everyone. Both the ballet couple and us ran through our routines twice. Here is the video of our performance: Then we hung out for a little while with our friends who came to see us. At the end we took a group photo of everyone in the cast.
Photos
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