The Las Vegas Dance Finale was pretty much a last minute decision for Glen and I to attend due to the lucky coincidence of a business trip that pretty much paid everything for us, so we really weren't sure what to expect. We certainly didn't expect that we would find ourselves in the position of providing music for the event, but it was something that turned out to be a lucky break for us since the hotel had been booked up, but somehow Jayme managed to finagle a room for us at the host hotel making life much easier for us. (Thank you again, Jayme!)
From the first moment I registered and noticed many of the familiar faces from events popular for couples dancers (many from my hometown of Chicago), I knew that this one was going to be a couples' paradise. I also knew that at this point, I shouldn't get overly optimistic about the line dancing.
While the instructors hired to teach line dances were not as plentiful as other events, they definitely were all of high quality and they included:
Max Perry
Kathy Hunyadi
Michael Barr
Michele Burton
Rob I
& last minute addition Pedro Machado
Dances Taught (Choreographer in parenthesis when not the instructor):
Max Perry:
You Can Get It
A Single Moment (Aiden Montgomery)
Runaround Sue (Mark Cosenza/Glen Pospieszny)
Rockin' Little Christmas
Short But Sweet (Heather Frye)
Kathy Hunyadi:
Hot Shot
Green Onions
Derailed (Peter Metelnick)
Take A Ride (co-choreographed w/ Jo Thompson)
Cha-Cha Sumoi
Living On A Prayer (John Robinson)
Michael Barr:
Join The Queue
Shania's Moment (Nathan Easey)
This Woman, This Man
I Love This Town
Michele Burton:
Callin' From The Heart
Cha Cha Ruleta (Scott Blevins)
Ohhh Behave
Rob "I"
Swingin' R's
Trilogy
Pedro Machado
Wonderful Crazy
Scooby Snax (Chris Kumre)
Fine Day (Charlotte Oulton)
Of the workshops I attended, potential teaches in our area included:
You Can Get It - Brand new and has fun music - watch for this one!
Trilogy (co-choreographed with Tom Mickers and others….) - This is strictly a showcase dance, but we happen to have dancers who like those (they love Sensual - Jeremy Doss). The music is Faded by Soul Solution and we are currently teaching the dance by Heather Frye called Making My Move, however, this one can be a very advanced alternate for those who like advanced dances.
Callin' From The Heart - Michele Burton - I really enjoyed doing this one done to the Manhattan Transfer tune Operator. We were one of the first classes to learn this one (if not the first) and I think it has potential. A little tricky but fun - Michele always adds some great unique touches to her dances that I personally enjoy. Michele likes to find music that is out of the norm (anyone who knows me understands how I can really relate to that!) - so I always enjoy checking out her dances.
Swingin' R's - OK, so I am already familiar with this one, but just never got around to teaching it. It's a fun dance, especially if you use Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock. If your class doesn't like to be challenged quite so much, then might I suggest the next dance instead…
Hot Shot - I think the reason I am so wild about this dance, is because it is a throw back to the dances done prior to Country Music line dancing. (Yes, line dancing does exist before country). I could very easily picture John Travolta doing this one in Saturday Night Fever and since the music is equally 70's (Karen Young's Hot Shot), the dance and music I find to be a wonderfully enjoyable combo.
Living On A Prayer - Choreographed in my home by Mr. Robinson - I must say that my favorite part of the dance is the right foot touch out, hitch a 1/4 left and touch out again move.
Ones I already was familiar with and we already do:
Runaround Sue (Best dance of the weekend - he, he)
A Single Moment
Join The Queue
Ohhh Behave
Short But Sweet
Take A Ride
Now, as expected, the line dance crowd was small with very few of the line dance locals from Vegas opting to come to this event. The sole exception were my former Chicago friends Martha and Jake Yago (thanks for your support!). One of the reasons I have come to believe the locals avoided this one was because the workshops for Line Dancers were put on the same payment plan as with the couples with all of the "Intermediate" and "Advanced" dances slotted as "paid workshops". As it turned out, nobody was charged for these but noone was told that prior to registration. This should be straightened out by next year. The main line dancers that did attend the event seemed to be from the New York area - where Max had done some active recruiting! Thanks Max! Also, I heard comments that this event was not advertised well to the local area line dancers - I'm sure this will also be addressed next year. It also doesn't help when two major dance events are held only two weeks apart…..next year, that will change as well since the other event will be moving up two weeks to the first weekend in November.
I am always a firm believer in NOT utilizing the couples pricing methodology for those who strictly come to Line Dance. Line Dancers should come to expect a one price weekend pass that includes admission to all of the workshops! They also should not be paying as much for rental of a larger and more expensive room that they get very little use of - as opposed to the Couples dancers. A weighted scale (or equal rooms) needs to be considered if you expect and want to have both groups involved in the event.
The dinner show included a performance by Ronnie Beard and it was pretty obvious that the line dancers were scarce as he performed his popular Bump-N-Grind and Por Ti Sere.
Fire N Ice, a phenominal line dance team, also wowed the crowd with their routine, as did many of the superstar line dancers that included that hot couple of Pedro Machado and Rob I, who performed together.
I really can't do my usual commenting on the open dancing as I was the main DJ in the Line Dance Ballroom. OK, I guess I can and say it was great, but I'm sure you will note the bias. However, I did play every request except for the songs I didn't have. I really felt bad for the couple from Sweden who kept on requesting Wonderful Crazy - I didn't have the music, but I was hoping that Pedro, who taught the dance and did have the music, would have made an appearance sometime during one of the nights to at least do the dance with them. Maybe next year.
The dance floor was great though (both in the main dance room and Line Dance ballroom) and it was a shame that there were not more line dancers there to enjoy it - considering the many events I've attended with scores of line dancers there that were stuck with much worse dance floors. It turned out that this was among the best dance floors at any event.
My only small annoyance during the weekend came during Pedro's class on Sunday when some woman (who I believe to be a staff member) stood on the sidelines and continually interrupted the lesson with her comments to Pedro while we were trying to learn. Maybe I am just a bit sensitive, but this woman had never stepped foot into the line dance room the rest of the weekend and I got the feeling she thought we were all invisible as she kept throwing her comments at Pedro. I would like to know if she would have done the same thing if a couples pattern class were being taught? (If so, then at least she's not showing any bias in her rudeness.) I guess it just comes down to the whole respect thing that I still think is lacking from some of the dancers from the couples' community.
Anyhow, on the plus side, Max & Kathy were wonderful by sticking around the entire time on both nights to help keep the party rolling along with Michael & Michele who were present during the open dance on Saturday. It's always a plus when you have some of the Line Dance instructors actually showing support for Line Dancing outside of their classroom.
The Choreography competition was tough and included Rob I's new "Trilogy" as well as Morgan Radcliffe's first place dance from Desert Sands called "7 Digits".
Unfortunately, things got so far behind, I wasn't able to stick around to hear the choreography competition results live. (I have since posted them underneath the photo captions) This brings me to my final suggestion and that is announcing the line dance results on Sat night during Open line dance (of course this would mean having the line dance competition on Sat instead of Sun.)and announcing them at an earlier time so that more people could be present. (This was recently done at the FaastCountry event in Oct as well as the the Cherokee Rose event last April.) At this event, all of the dance awards were given after 4 or maybe even 5pm on Sunday. For anyone who traveled a significant distance, it would require an additional overnight stay just to hear the results.
Fortunately, for this event as a whole, I have a lot of confidence in Rhonda Shotts, who was instrumental in putting together this nice program for the line dancers and also was very receptive to suggestions on how to make this an even better event for everyone in 2001. Given the above suggestions, with a bit more advertising and a few more instructors, this event has a lot of potential. I look forward to seeing what transpires next year.
