Nov Newsletter

With another successful Windy City Linedancemania Event completed, I’m pleased to see so many fantastic dances out there that I am looking forward to introducing as many as I can to our class.  Reading the newsletters out there, I am always so fascinated as to how people list so many dances each week that are being taught.  I lose track as to if they are new ones or as to how long they’ve been teaching them, but it really confuses me as to just how many new dances are being introduced.  Our class really is challenged when we try to introduce one new dance per week.  Each week we teach 3 dances, with 2 being repeats from previous weeks.  But even this pace is a bit too much for most so we have to have at least one week of all reviews.  So that leaves about an average of only 3 dances per month that we can introduce without burning people out.   And if you consider how many 64 count intermediate dances are out there, I have to wonder just how many can really be taught into an average schedule unless the dancers are total diehards who practice nightly.

But for those who average more than this, I have to wonder just how many people really attend these classes?  I doubt more than 10 to 15 from what I’ve seen during my visits across the country.  I think it’s more fun to just keep the mix with more 32 count dances that won’t kill the brain cells and not focus on trying to cover every single “popular” dance. 

So that being said, we’ve introduced a few from Windy City already last month.  We seem to be drawn to dances starting with the letter B. 

Battlefield from Junior Willis is highly recommended and doing well with our class.  At 32 counts, only one restart, (that you quickly get over with after the 2^nd wall), this can be viewed here.  Junior will be teaching this at the upcoming Tampa Bay Classic this month. 

Booty Music from Team USA was champion at this year’s Professional Choreography Competition and was choreographed by Jo Thompson, Jackie Miranda and Judy McDonald.  Glen taught this to the class and they seem to enjoy it so far.  The shoulder shakes are a bit much for me personally, but I’m glad to see them enjoying it.

Break The Dawn from Team International was a well done entry at the Professional Choreography Competition that was choreographed by Paul McAdam, Peter Metelnick and Neville Fitzgerald.  I’ll be teaching this one in Tampa and it’s definitely more challenging than the 48 counts would suggest, but once you get used to it, the dance flows well. 

Bad Influence from Jo & John Kinser and Mark Furnell is just a great fun dance that I can’t see getting sick of any time soon.  I only kick myself for taking so long to get around to doing this one.  Perhaps now enough hype out there to get my attention (ha, ha).  Well anyhow, this one is a must teach for everyone and we’ll be teaching this one as well in Tampa.

Best Wishes from Juliet Lam was a beginner dance I threw in for one week.  I don’t think we’ll be doing this one regularly even though it’s a nice dance.  We just don’t have the time to play everything and we’re overloaded with dances each week so I think this one will be put to pasture, however, if you have a class that wants more beginner dances, I highly recommend this as it was very well received at Windy City when I taught it there.

As for existing dances, this month we dropped the following:

Issues – Maggie Gallagher, this dance had a few that just loved this one but the floor, even after tons of reteaches, never filled for it.

Insomnia – Shaz Walton, another dance that had everyone out there for a few weeks and then more and more seemed to tire of it quickly.

Am I – Cato Larsen has run its course, although it had a nice long run with this class.

Toes – Rachael McEnaney perhaps was too beginner and too country for everyone but it didn’t survey very well (and our class was not offended by the lyrics).

Moonlight Kiss – Maggie Gallagher is not going to be completely dropped but will be reduced in play because it didn’t survey that well but there are enough who still enjoy it.

Other dances of note:

Guyton’s Hey Hey Goodbye continues to have our class struggling but they seem to want to keep it on the playlist but I will have to again review this based on the feedback I got.

Bossy is going to continue to be played but we can now drop it from the survey as it is one of the rare dances that scored for an entire year!  Congrats to Michele Perron for achieving the rare feat of keeping the class interested in one dance for an entire year! 

And on that note, another newsletter has run its course.  Hope to see many of you at The Tampa Bay Classic and the Las Vegas Explosion.

Peace,

Mark 

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