Raphael Pungin's Blog

Dance

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

Listed in category: Competitions, Videos

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Friday, March 12, 2004

New Opera Ball In New York

Saturday, March 6, 2004

3:19 PM Launched dancenyc.info

Since ballroom dancing is one of my hobbies, I am signed up for many mailing lists with announcements on various dance events happening around New York City area. I decided to create a website and post that information there to share with the other fellow dancers. Although there are many other websites with various dance event calendars, those websites typically focus on certain dance style. My website is meant to be one-stop place to find information on events with all kinds of partner dancing. Also on my website anyone can submit an event to be included in the calendar. The website URL is dancenyc.info. I also integrated it with my own website.

Listed in category: Links

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Saturday, February 28, 2004

Waltzing In Vienna

Click here for an article published in January/February 2004 issue of Amature Dancer magazine.

Listed in category: Articles, Balls

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Saturday, February 21, 2004

Blue Hill Troupe Ball

The Blue Hill Troupe Ball took place at the Union Club located at 101 E. 69th Street. In photo we are posing with Emery Davis.

Photos

Video:

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Listed in category: Balls, Videos

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Monday, January 26, 2004

Quadrille Ball Article in New York Sun

Click here for the article published in New York Sun newspaper about The Quadrille Ball.

Also click here for the photos and videos from Quadrille Ball 2004.

Listed in category: Articles, Balls

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Saturday, January 24, 2004

Quadrille Ball 2004

More info in the main blog.

Listed in category: Balls, Raphael

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Monday, January 19, 2004

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

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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Listed in category: Competitions, Hustle, Raphael, Videos

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Sunday, November 23, 2003

James' and Clayton's Performance with the Folk Dance Theatre

Below are the movie clips taken at the concert.

QuickTime 6.0 required.
Click on the links below to download and play the movie clips.
Clip 1 Clip 2 Clip 3 Clip 4 Clip 5 Clip 6 Clip 7 Clip 8 Clip 9 Clip 10 Clip 11 Clip 12

Click here for photos

Listed in category: Performances

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Monday, November 17, 2003

Pangaea International Dance Showcase

A friend of mine is organizing this event at Columbia University:

Click here for photos

Listed in category: Performances

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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/

Listed in category: Competitions, Raphael

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Igor and Polina Pilipenchuk performing at DCDI

Igor and Polina Pilipenchuk, who have been U.S. Professional 10-Dance Champions, did a splendid performance at the DC Dance Inferno dance competition held at the University of Maryland.

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Listed in category: Performances, Videos

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Sunday, October 26, 2003

Launched ballroom.fotki.com

I decided to open a separate fotki account for the ballroom dance pictures.

Listed in category: Links

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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.

I guess now that I got the total scholarship of $150 from the studio, I'll take some classes there.

Listed in category: Competitions, Raphael

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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.

Listed in category: Competitions, Raphael

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Saturday, April 26, 2003

My First Ballroom Dance Competition

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!