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"I can't miss any of the hot dances...zzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzzz.... "
Jim Harvey arrived early so that he would be there for the first song.
"Hello and welcome to my workshop. So glad you could drop by. Have a seat and I'll be right with you".
Jo Kinser has a unique style when doing her workshops.
Nobody was more surprised than Glen to see his new "Chain Reaction" dance being done with actual Chains.
Kathy H decided a new look was in order for her upcoming Florida move.
"Damn, I gotta remember to ditch my switchblade before I hit the dancefloor."
Eve Yeaton shares some important tips with the dancers.
Not all of the pics turned out perfect, but photographer Dodee tried her best to fill in for CJ.
Larry Harmon always has a couple glasses of wine before all of his workshops. It helps him deal with all of those pesky questions the dancers ask such as "How many counts are their left?" and "What's the name of this dance?"
Many of the dancers also love to have a few drinks before attending Larry's classes.
"I can't miss any of the hot dances...zzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzzz.... "
Jim Harvey was already there waiting for the 2005 workshops to begin....Pictures courtesy of Dodee Davis
Captions courtesy of Mark.
Tri-State Dance Fest
Rockford, IL.
March 26 - 28
EVENT DIRECTORS:
Deb Bodven & Gale Erksine
Event
Directors Debi Bodven & Gale Erksine
The Tri-State Event has been around for many years, but this time around, the event has moved to a brand new location with brand new event directors. Deb Bodven & Gale Erksine have taken the event over from the previous now bankrupt event directors. Improvements became apparent immediately with the new event directors, who have a vast amount of experience participating and organizing events. (The Can-Am event and the Cancun event are two other examples.)
The line dance instructors are very close to the lineup from last year with a few new additions:
| Scott Blevins | Peter Metelnick | Max Perry |
| Kathy Hunyadi | Mark Cosenza | John Robinson |
| Larry & Tracy Harmon | Jo & John Kinser | Garth Bock |
| Junior Willis | Glen Pospieszny | Eve Yeaton |
| Sandee Skelton |
Instructors Max Perry, Kathy
Hunyadi, Mark Cosenza & John Robinson
There were three workshop rooms with two of them being dedicated to the line dancers and a third room for the handful of couples dancers that came to the event. (This I hear will not be happening next year and there will be three line dance rooms.)
With all of this great talent, there was bound to be some excellent new dances for me to take back and to be honest, the number of excellent new dances was overwhelming! But nevertheless, I had to narrow down to a few excellent dances to potentially take back and teach.
Listen To The Rhythm - Peter Metelnick & Alison Biggs: This was the most popular event dance as it was played plenty of times and packed the floor. We have already taught it to our Thursday night class.
8, 9, 10 (Let's Do It Again) - Peter Metelnick & Alison Biggs: Easy dance and a must teach for both beginner and intermediate dancers.
Possibility Foxtrot - Max Perry: Loved the music, couldn't take the lesson because I was slotted up against it. But the folks doing it looked like they were having fun and the music was awesome.
Again - John Robinson: Wonderful dance that already has been taught in our area. Not too easy or tricky and the music is wonderful.
3am - Guyton Mundy, Joey Warren & Cody Stevens (Taught by Scott Blevins): Taught at our Wed night class already, this one had a nice following.
Other dances taught that were already mentioned in previous reports were as follows:
Cha Cha Tonight - Scott Blevins
Imagine - Bryan McWherter (Taught by Jo Kinser)
Any Nite Club - Jo & John Kinser
Brickhouse - Junior Willis
On The Rocks - JP Potter (Taught by Kathy Hunyadi)
Fork In The Road - Michele Perron (taught by Scott Blevins)
Turning Up The Heat - Peter Metelnick
For a list of all of the dances taught, check out the workshop schedule.
Most of the dances taught at this event, I would like have liked to have gotten to, but only we only have so many dances and so little time. My teaches were as follows:
Blindsided (Lucy Strack & Betty Maddox)
No More Excuses (Mark Cosenza)
Sway (Mark Cosenza)
Superstar (Mark Cosenza)
Gotta Have Faith (Shabeda)
It was great to see such a nice representation for all of these in open dance! Step Sheets for these and others mentioned can be found on my current playlist or new choreography pages.
Open dancing was such a vast improvement this year thanks to the addition of Louie St. George! Friday night was particularly good because Louie played all of the dances taught that day in order of workshop time (if two dances were done during the hour, he played them the second time around so that folks who didn’t attend would have to sit out two in a row.) Personally, I loved this because there were only two workshops and not an exorbitant amount of dances taught so everyone got to participate in some of these over the first hour when these were played.
On Saturday, there was a charity request thing going on that had me sitting out for awhile. Many of these were old and forgotten dances so even though someone may have paid big bucks to hear them, I’d rather not touch open dance time with these dances. A better charity solution would have been a 50/50 raffle. This was such a minor inconvenience, I am sure no one would have left this event not intending to return next year.
The dinner show was short and just featured Louie playing a bunch of challenge dances to see who knew what along with some nice routines by Junior Willis and Sam & Judy Wright. Since there was no dinner, I think most people would be content with no show as well, but maybe I’m wrong here. MC Eve Yeaton kept things moving and fun with both the dance demos and the dinner show. And since this couldn’t have gone more than 30 minutes, I don’t think anyone was disappointed with what they saw and having to wait.
Overall, this event was wonderful and I hear that it will once again be in Rockford next year (although the weekend will most likely be in April due to Easter falling on this weekend next year.) Check out the Dancalot website for further updates and mark your calendar for it. This one is definitely an event worth traveling for!!
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