Sorry for the late arrival this month for this newsletter.  I was on vacation during the last week in February and it took some time to get back to the normal swing of things.  The Windy City Event signups are in full swing again this year as is Summerlinedancemania which will be featuring Simon Ward!  Why go all the way to Australia when you can hop a quick plane ride here.  And John Robinson will make sure that this is one high energy weekend extravaganza! 

So last month, we introduced some great new dances – Only Girl turned out to be much tougher of a teach than I originally expected, but I’m hoping that the class is up for the challenge and embrace this one.  It will take a few weeks for this one to stick.  The music is so infectious though.  Crossing my fingers that this Simon Ward and Neils Poulsen dance gets a thumbs up.  Peter and Alison’s What Happens On The Dancefloor is also on the 50/50 odds for success here.  The music is great and the dance fits well so we’ll see. 

Our survey results are in and Hollywood from Craig Bennett managed to crack our Top 10 this week.  This happening as another of his dances, Wild, gets to go on our Classic list of dances that we’ve done for over a year.  Based on the lack of people doing this dance at Windy City last year, I have to conclude this one was definitely overlooked by the US instructors.  (I could be wrong and maybe everyone but our class liked it.)  I do think that this most likely was the victim of being overshadowed by two other hits of Craigs, Hands Up and Playing With Fire.  Sometimes, when you come out with a number of dances at the same time, this is bound to happen.  This year, both Hollywood and Pack Up (which we have taught and are scoring on our survey) are taking a back seat nationally to Box It Up.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing as people tend to want to pull their dances from a variety of choreographers.  I’d personally recommend spacing out the releases a bit more instead of throwing out a gaggle of dances at one time to see which stick.  Some good stuff gets lost in the shuffle.  As Mr “Flash Mob” proved, marketing is key to line dance success! 

Our new number one this month is Jacob Ballard’s Walk On The Wild Side, which also won the Choreography Challenge at Windy City.  It might seem odd for me to say this, but my experience over the years from many types of Choreography Winners is that the winning dance doesn’t always equate to a popular dance, but with our class, this broke that rule.  You’re Amazing from Guyton Mundy debuted in the number 2 position and Maggie Gallagher’s Walking In The Rain was at Number 6.   Disappearing this month after 9 months on the chart was the underrated Cry Me Out, which still fills our floor as well as has I Like It after 5 months from Raymond Sarlemijn, Daniel Trepat, Pim van Grootel and Jose Miquel.  

I expect to learn some great dances this weekend at Judy McDonald’s Canadian Line Dance Classic going on March 18^th.  Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter for my feedback on that.  (It’s not too late to sign up – unless you are reading this after March 18^th….) 

 Thanks!

Mark Cosenza

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