Windy City Line Dance Mania
Oct 4 - 7, 2007
EVENT DIRECTORS: Mark Cosenza, Glen Pospieszny & Eve Yeaton

Year 5 has been completed!  The best way for me to remember how many events we've done is to recall the different T-Shirt Colors that we've had each year.   Black, Red, Blue, Maroon and this year's color, Purple.  What color should we have in 2008?  Let me know everyone!

So.... what can I say that hasn't already been said by others.  Things were awesome again this year and I have a terrific staff to thank! 

2007 Windy City Instructors

It's one thing to come up with a concept, but when you see all of the hard work put in by all of the above individuals to carry it thru is really something special!

As for the rest of the crew,

Floor Volunteers: Michelle Long, Megan Houchins, Jocelyn Crouse, Melissa Daum, Marcia Rizzo, Jacquie Harloff, Sharon Carlson.

Registration Desk: Tina Veloitis (our right hand), Peggy Hall & Amy Zack took on full time duties along with additional assistance from Cody Bahr, Elaina Speas, Debi Pancoast, George Winnegar and Craig Moran. 

Your behind the scenes work set the tone for a wonderful weekend!

The schedule of dances taught can be found here.

Neville Fitzgerald was one of our welcome new additions to the event!

Michael Barr pointed out that he was also a new addition to Windy City.

Each year we vow to cut down on instructors but we have found it to be impossible at this point given the talent our there.  Also, there are so many different dancers to please and we feel that our current mix of instructors is worth the investment for everyone and most of the rooms were always full.  Expect not too much to change next year in terms of our staff, but we plan to rotate a few new ones to our mix just to keep things fresh.

The Thursday night party kicked things off and this year we were fortunate enough to have the main ballroom once again ready with DJ Louie at the helm.  Louie continued to please the crowd with his knowledge of what's gonna fill the floor.

For the second year, we held our Professional Team Instructor Choreography Competition.  Our two teams consisting of the reigning champions from last year, (Team 1) John Robinson, Junior Willis and Bryan McWherter vs. three new challengers (Team 2) Barry Amato, Jackie Miranda and Maurice Rowe were both challenged to create a dance in approximately a day and a half.  They had both selected from five pieces of music on Thursday night and presented their creations to the dancers on Saturday afternoon. 

Team #1's dance was Meet Me At The Playground and Team #2 came up with a dance called Sexy Oreo's. 

The dancers rated both dances on a scale from 1 to 5 with 5 being tops.  Just like Dancing With The Stars, our dancers accounted for 50% of the vote and our Saturday Night Panel of Instructor/Judges accounted for the other 50%.  When all was said and done, the dancers had their say by picking up Team #2's dance by a large enough margin to just beat out the judges selection of Team #1's dance.  In actuality, the dancers chose Team #2 by an average score of 4.6 to 4.0.  The judges offset that narrowing the margin to only .1 difference.  Eek!  Personally, since the dancers actually walked through and did both dances (113 of them filled out score cards for each), I am glad that their selection won out since that's what this is all about! 

Congratulations to both of our teams, but there could only be one winner and Barry, Jackie and Maurice each got to split the $600 Jackpot prize.  And look for Sexy Oreo's to be taught in November at the Tampa Bay event.  So that means that our Champions will be returning next year to Windy City to defend their crown against a brand new team.  Who will it be?  Stay tuned to find out.


Jackie Miranda, Maurice Rowe and Barry Amato took 1st place in the Professional Choreography Challenge.

Our other Choreography Competition was also a huge success with many wonderful dances coming out it.  Even though there could only be one winner, I suspect that many of these dances have received some terrific exposure and will be taught over the next year.  Congratulations go to our second place winner, Scott Schrank, whose dance More Than Life took second place and a $100 prize along with passes to most of the major 2008 events.  Our first place winner Will Craig, whose dance Clothes Off won narrowly by a split decision, is sure to get a lot of exposure over the next year.  We definitely have this one on our teach list and again will be taught in Tampa and I'm sure many other events!  Will won $250, the event passes and an invitation to teach at next year's event. 

We are careful not to change too much each year with this event because the dancers really seem to enjoy themselves and we don't want to mess with a good thing.  But one change was that the food this year for the dinner went from Buffet to Sit Down style and I've gotten nothing but rave reviews from the dancers.  (Although I did read one report from someone with a diet that didn't include Chicken - please note that special requests can be made for special diets,  just send me a note before the event or when registering!)  So our sit down dinner going to stay as a permanent change for next year.  We also increased the space of the main ballroom by moving many of our vendor tables outside of the ballroom together so we had more room for chairs and less clutter.

As in 2006, there were 5 rooms of workshops going on with the fifth room dedicated for beginner dances. Judy McDonald lead things off each day with some great technique beginner classes for our newcomers.

 

 

Judy McDonald taught the beginners the basics.

 

 

The 8000 square foot main ballroom not only included some terrific and popular workshops during the day, as well as an hour dedicated to Open Dance during the lunch time on Friday and in between workshops.

DJ Louie gets a visit from Barry Amato, Bryan McWherter and Dari Anne Amato

The demos were held on Friday morning for the Friday dances and on Friday night for the Saturday ones.  The demos were done in order of each hour going from left to right (Ballroom 1 to Ballroom 5). Sunday workshops were reserved as a second teach for some of the instructors more popular dances.  Also provided was a listing of all of the dances (as well as the songs/artists used for each of them) in alphabetical order so that folks can reference the time or times each was being taught.

As with last year's report, instead of just going over and describing my list of favorites, I am going to be posting some video clips over the next few weeks so that you can see a lot of the great creations that came from this event.  Right now though, you can see our latest dance Under My Umbrella as well as my class favorite, My Heart Is Dying on my video link page.  Be sure to come back and visit http://countryedge.com often to check for all of the rest.  As always, Bob Bahr instruction videos and dinner show videos are available

Order your 2007 video of all the dances taught here! 

Guyton Mundy and Barry Amato enjoy some pre-show Antics.
 

Doug Miranda has some fun with Barry & Dari Anne Amato (aka Barbie & Ken)



Joey Warren as "GI Joey"

Brian Barakouskas and Rachael McEnaney performed their amazing solo acts on Saturday night!

We had two Open Dance rooms over the weekend with Louie St. George playing the national favorites and Jill Babinec playing the special requests which included a lot of newly taught dances along a mix of favorites and lesser known dances that people enjoyed watching and considering for future teaches in their areas.  With Jill's room showing so much popularity, we plan to expand her to two rooms next year alongside Louie's two rooms.  

Another popular feature was the nighttime reviews held in Ballrooms 4 and 5.  I was able to post this on the Master Schedule as well as on the rooms so that everyone knew the instructors time slots. This allowed everyone to review every dance taught over the weekend.  And for the first time, because the dinner show started earlier, we actually began both nights on time! 

This event also offered all the dances taught on a computer disc that acted as a paper step book for all of the dances taught. This alleviated having to lug around a lot of paper. Many opted for these and we will continue to offer this in many years to come. If you’d like to order your dances on disc, click here. For an alphabetical listing of all of the dances included, click here!

Gerard Murphy explains the meaning of life.

The dinner show was wonderful as always!  We received so many positive comments on it and thanks to everyone who participated.  Bob Bahrs video includes this show that was hosted by co-director Eve Yeaton.  Once again all of the acts were phenominal including Rachael McEnaney's new solo routine, a "surprise" visit from Brian Barakauskas, Joey Warren and friends, and our Toy Story finale MC'd by Doug Miranda (funny as always) that featured great dances from Guyton Mundy, The Amatos and Joey Warren. 

Our total numbers are somewhere around the 600 mark as we continue to keep people coming back as well as welcome brand new dancers to our event.  There is always room for more at with the large dance rooms offered a this fabulous hotel!

 
Jill Babinec Takes a break from DJ Duties to visit with the dancers.

What’s on tap for next year? Well of course your feedback is always welcome and keep on sending me those suggestions! 

 

 

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