Dance

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Articles(5)
Balls(13)
Cha Cha(6)
Competitions(14)
Hustle(16)
Links(5)
Modern Jive(1)
Performances(16)
Raphael(20)
Rumba(1)
Salsa(7)
Samba(2)
Swing(5)
TV(8)
Videos(33)

Category Competitions

Sunday, February 25, 2007

New York Dance Festival

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This dance competition took place right across the street from where I live, so I had to go and check it out. Also this gave me a chance to check out Roseland Ballroom to which I have not been before. Thanks to Bill, into whom I bumped into when walking back home, for reminding me about the event.

This was a two-day event taking place on both Saturday and Sunday. Today they had amateur, pro-am and professional international Latin championships in both youth and adult categories as well as one round of professional American ballroom. It was so cute to see the pro-am youth division competitors like this. I was very impressed by the youth amateur division. They were so good, pretty much as good as the adult professionals!

Out of all competitors that evening the only one that I knew was Mica. I've known her for years but it was my first time to see her dance at a competition and wow, now I can see how good she is! I took a bunch of photos of her starting from this one. Unfortunately a bunch of photos in semifinals were taken at 640x480 resolution. Somehow I switched my camera to that mode by mistake. The final round was shot at 8 MP though. Click on the photo to see the rest of them.

Saturday, February 4, 2006

Dancing With The Stars - Season 2

Well the size of this blog entry has exceeded the maximum allowed by the Fotki blog feature, so I created a separate blog dedicated to Dancing With The Stars. The blog has a separate entry for each eposode so you can leave comments just for that episode.

Please update your bookmarks with the URL of the blog: dwts.info

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Dancing With The Stars: Dance Off

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The videos from the Dance Off have been posted here. Scroll down to Dance Off section.

October 1 Update: Added professional performances from the Results Show.

Saturday, September 3, 2005

New York Salsa and Hustle Congress

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During the Labor Day weekend was the annual New York Salsa Congress which was held at the Hilton Hotel. The format of the event was similar to last year - every night there was a salsa show and general dancing. One difference was that the shows took place in the main ballroom instead of in a separate smaller room. Although there was no social dancing at the same time as the shows took place, the good thing was that there were plenty of seats for everyone to see the show and the view of the stage was much better than last year. After the shows were over at around 11 PM, they cleared all the chairs and made the giant ballroom available for social dancing to the sounds of live bands. Here are some photos that I took during the show on Friday. Some people who wanted special attention danced on the carpet in the foyer of the ballroom. They were surrounded by the crowed of people with camcorders. Here are my video clips:
Here is a cute Salsa Pas De Trois:

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The other good thing about the shows being held in the main ballroom is that the room that was used for the show last year served a different purpose this year. It was used for the first annual New York Hustle Congress. It was great to be able to go back and forth between the Salsa and Hustle. I am also glad that Hustle was being exposed to the Salsa crowd who may have never heard about it. The Hustle Congress consisted of general dancing, shows and competitions.

Here is the video of the winners of the Theater Arts division - Kelvin Roche and Lori Ann Greenhouse:
The second place was taken by Louie and Ann Rosa. Here is the video:

Friday, January 14, 2005

Manhattan Amature Classic

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Official MAC 2005 postcard designed by Elaine Tin Nyo
In photo: Inna and Pasha from MAC 2004 by Igor Ofenbakh.


Links:
Manhattan Amature Classic (MAC) is an annual ballroom dance competition held in (you guessed it) Manhattan. This year is the 15th anniversary of this competition. It was held at Lerner Hall at Columbia University. It is a three-day event. I went to the first two - on Friday and Saturday.
Photos

Videos:

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

International Hustle and Salsa Competition 2005

IHSC 2005 is going to be held at a new hotel. Below is the information. Check out hustleandsalsa.com for more information.

IHSC 2004 Videos

Tuesday, April 6, 2004

International Hustle and Salsa Competition (IHSC)



Click on the photo above to see more photos.

I had a fabulous time at the 5th Annual International Hustle and Salsa Competition held in Deauville Resort Hotel in Miami, Florida. I arrived on Thursday, April 1st and stayed there until April 5th. Every day except for the last I was dancing. I was competing on Friday and did social dancing on other days. I have never danced so much before. I really think my dancing improved a lot just from such an intense practice. The weather was beautiful compared to New York City. While taking a break from dancing I enjoyed my time in the hotel's pool and jacuzzi as well as swimming in the ocean and relaxing on the beach.

Videos

Professional Hustle

Professional Hustle Jack and Jill

Cabaret Division

Salsa

Amature Jack & Jill

Social Dancing

Scores

Monday, March 15, 2004

Amazing Floorcraft


During the rumba finals at the German Open Championship 2003 Franco Formica trying to reunite with his partner Oksana Nikiforova performed the funniest floorcraft I have ever seen. The video below would definately fit "Dancesport Funniest Videos" category :)

Stream Download (1 MB)

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Discussion of this clip on ABC Dancing With The Stars Message Board

Monday, January 19, 2004

1st Place in New York Regional Hustle Competition (Amature Division)

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This competition was held at DanceSport dance studio and was sponsored by IHSC and Van McCoy Music, Inc. in recognition of Van McCoy for his contribution to hustle through his music. The competition consisted of two divisions - amature and professional. Each group had to perform a group dance, followed by a solo performance and finally another group dance. The 2nd and 3rd place winners received medals and the 1st place winners received plaques and free registration to the 4th Annual International Hustle and Salsa Competition held in Miami in April.
Video Clips

Amature Division:
Raphael & Mihoko - group: Stream Download (3 MB)
Raphael & Mihoko - solo: Stream Download (3 MB)

Professional Division:
Group: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #1: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #2: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #3: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #4: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #5: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #6: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #7: Stream Download (3 MB)
Couple #8: Stream Download (3 MB)

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Saturday, November 1, 2003

DC Dance Inferno (DCDI)

DCDI is the annual collegiate dancesport competition held at the University Of Maryland. This year it was a two-day event with plenty of dancing. Me and my partner Jaime got placed in 3rd through 6th place depending on the dance.

Here are the photos from the competition: http://ballroom.fotki.com/competitions/2003/dcdi/

More information about the competition: http://ballroomatmaryland.com/dcdi/

Friday, October 10, 2003

1st Place at Stepping Out Jack and Jill Grand Slam

One more dance competition today. This time Stepping Out Studios invited all of their past 1st place Jack and Jill winners of 2003 to compete with each other at the Jack and Jill Grand Slam. Jack and Jill competitions are where you don't know in advance what partner you are going to dance with. The names of the partners are pulled out from the hat right before dancing starts. This time, not even the partner was unknown until the event, but so were the dances. Three random dances were chosen from the hat and they turned out to be Swing, Cha cha and Rumba. Me and my random partner ended up taking the first place.
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I guess now that I got the total scholarship of $150 from the studio, I'll take some classes there.

Saturday, October 4, 2003

1st Place in Bronze Latin at Stepping Out Octoberfest Mini-competition


On October 4 Stepping Out Dance Studios held it's 2nd Collegiate Big Apple Octoberfest. I did not plan to compete and just came there to watch. But before the competition started I was approached by one of the teachers there and she asked me to dance with this girl I have never seen before. Ofcourse I agreed and danced couple of practice dances. She was pretty good and we competed in Bronze Cha Cha and Rumba. The funny thing is that we ended up taking 1st place out of 4 couples. Well, some things are best done on a spur of a moment! Here are some photos and videos at the comp that I took with my camera. There was someone else taking pictures. I hope to get a hold of this guy and ask him to give me copies so I can see what I looked like.

Saturday, April 26, 2003

My First Ballroom Dance Competition

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Well, believing or not, I did it! For years I have been avoiding dance competitions, but finally I participated at the Rutgers University Dancesport Competition held on April 26. Me and my partner from the NYU ballroom team Katherine Herink did pretty well, considering we have not been practicing that much. We got the 7th place in International Waltz, 6th places in International Tango and Quickstep, and the 2nd place in “Mango” which is a “fun” dance – a combination of Mambo and Tango where they switched the music from one to another and you had to make smooth transitions from one to the other. Katherine and I competed in Bronze level. We did all dance types: American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin. The competition went from 8:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night! That was a lot of dancing! As much as I like social dancing, I have to say that dance competitions are fun as well. They give you a chance to really show off and look your best!