RACHAEL WORKSHOP

October 26, 2019

Another great Rachael Workshop! 6 dances taught: 10,000 More (Shane), Choose Joy, Half Past Tipsy (with Maddy), Honestly (my favorite of the day), She Will Be Loved (classic), Teeth (Guillaume).

Just the 4 of us here this trip - me, Deb, Nancy, & Brenda. Rare to only have 1 car here! Next workshop is April 4 - we’ll probably have more here then.

More new teaches.......

SIMON WARD - ORLANDO 9/28/19

The Simon Ward workshop was exceptional! Five dances taught: two from Nashville: Moves & Reminiscence; a classic - Show Me The Love; and Rolling In Love (with Heather Barton) and Up In The Air (with Rachael).

First teaches will be Reminiscence (me), Show Me The Love (Nancy), Up In The Air (Valerie), and Rolling In Love (Annie).

WINDY CITY 2019

Chicago - Windy City 2019

Another excellent weekend in Chicago! Many thanks to Mark & Eve for putting on such a great event, to all the staff and volunteers that help make it amazing, and the choreographers that bring their “A” games to teach us the best dances!

Thursday night was open dance.

Friday’s schedule was jam-packed with 43 different dances! I took one new teach - “Unforgettable” by Darren Bailey and two repeat teaches (from Nashville) - “Take A Look At This” by Joey Warren & “Party In The HIlls” by Fred Whitehouse (with Joey Warren & Shane McKeever). And more dancing Friday night.

Saturday’s schedule included the professional choreographer competitions - and I was in the ballroom for both. The returning champions debuted “Chicago Gold” - which is a really fun dance; and the challengers debuted “Cherry On Top” which was the winning choreography - an excellent dance! I learned them both and will be teaching each of them! There were several classes held during the day that I had the best intentions of attending - but... didn’t. LOL!

Saturday night’s show was a wonderful display of such amazing talent! We are so lucky to have these folks as the creators of all the awesome dances we enjoy! And congratulations to the amateur choreographers who competed during the day on Friday! The winners of Heat 1 (Chris Jacques) and Heat 2 (Rob Holley) competed Saturday night and each are winners in my book! Congratulations to Chris Jacques who was the overall winner!

With our flight schedule on Sunday, the opportunity to dance was pretty limited... I did make it to Dance Monkey Dance (Roy & Fiona) before heading to the airport. Crazy fun!

Again - thanks to everyone who worked so hard to bring together such an amazing event!

Xperience Nashville 2019

Xperience 2019 - Nashville

We came early so we could tour! Nashville Cultural Tour (some history and a thoroughbred plantation) & Music City Tour (Ryman Auditorium, Country Music Hall Of Fame, legendary Studio B); spend some time on Music Row (both during the day & at night); generally get a feel for Music City USA. Well worth the time!

The Xperience began for me with registration & social dancing (until 2am) on Thursday. 

Classes began on Friday. I took all 6 teaches! These are all intermediate & above dances - six in a day is a little more than my brain can handle... I fixed that on Saturday! LOL!

Friday classes:

Rachael - “A Little Swing”

Fred - “Down For Your Lovin’” (with Shane) - phrased - will be great once I hit the timing in C.

Joey - “Take A Look At This” - Joey says “easy 32 count with just 2 tags and a tiny little restart” LOL!!!

Simon - “Moves” (with Shane) (https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/moves-ID136160.aspx)

Debbie - “About Last Night” - probably my favorite of the day!

Maddy - “Woke Up Late”

Saturday classes:

Fred - “Limelight” - LOVE IT!

Maddy - “Danny’s Song” - Very nice!

Rachael - “I Can Do Hard Things” - AWESOME! (https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/i-can-do-hard-things-ID136090.aspx)

Watched:

Joey - “Party On The Hill”

Simon - “Reminiscence” (https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/reminiscence-ID135565.aspx)

Debbie - “Juicy Fruit” (by Shane) (https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/juicy-fruit-ID136044.aspx)

Sunday:

Maddy - “Bobby McGee” (I didn’t wake up in time)

Debbie - “Tiny Voice” (I watched)

Joey - “Oceans Deep” - Really like the way this hits the beat of the music

Simon - “Nothing to Hide” (with Chris Watson). Great country dance.

Fred - “Gettin’ A Rush” (I watched)

Rachael - “Legends Tonight” (by Mark Furnell, Chris Godden, Matt Lewis and Ray Jones - winner at Worlds) - I enjoyed this one! (https://www.copperknob.co.uk/stepsheets/legends-tonight-ID135521.aspx)

Friday night social dancing - gave it up at midnight. Too tired to continue. Saturday night opened with a live country band - fun!!! And Sunday night closed with dancing all night - left the dance floor in enough time to catch a nap, change my clothes, grab luggage, and head for the airport at 4am.

Many thanks to Sandy & Diane for another awesome event; all the choreographers for bringing fabulous dances to us (thank you, Debbie Rushton for filling in for daddy Shane - but Shane, you were missed!); Big Dave and Pauline - the BEST!; Kelly & Kellie for all the hats they wear; and all the volunteers behind the scenes who help make this the magnificent event that it is! Bring on 2020!!!

FITS 2019

FUN IN THE SUN (FITS) 2019

Another great dance event! Many thanks to Jen Cameron & JC Dance Productions, staff, and volunteers for all their time and effort in putting together a well run event! As always, thanks to Kelly & Kellie for all their work with the floors, pictures, videos, live streams, and everything else they do that we don’t even see! All the choreographers brought their A-games - a real treat to see Jackie & Doug Miranda! And fun, as always, to learn from Roy & Fiona! And to have little Mason White crawling to the dance floor! Cute!!! Rachael & Paul have their hands full!

For me, the weekend was a more “relaxed” event - meaning I didn’t need to be in a class every hour of every day! I was able to take just a few classes and brush up on some technique & styling on some I already know/have taught.

Classes I took included:

Trevor Thornton - Sunshine 365

Roy & Fiona - Dance On The Weekend, Made For Now, People Help The People,  Look At You, We Love It

Jackie Miranda - No Matter What

Looking forward to seeing these on a dance floor soon!

Niels - 7/20/19

Niels Poulsen Workshop

July 20, 2019

GREAT!!! day of dance!!! Many thanks to Sandy & Diane for another spectacular day! So fun to have Niels join us for a day! Great to see him again! And Dottie!!! OMG! FANTASTIC cookies!!! I was sugared-out all the way back to Naples!

Niels taught us 6 dances - one of which was released in October, 2018 - “Right Now”. How did we miss that one? Cute as can be!!! It’s going to be one of my first teaches!

Swing Train (cute beginner - my class is gonna love it!)

Right Now (fun, “samba-ey” - can’t wait to teach it!)

Thorn In My Side (higher improver, very manageable)

Wanna Know (rolling 8 - like it!)

Obsession Cha (oooooohhhh! Love it!)

Thousand Times (super cool nightclub)

I’m leaving on a 2-week vacation so many of these will be taught to my class and in the classes I attend while I’m gone - but very excited to be able to dance them when I return.

Thanks for another super day of dance!!!

MARATHON 2019

The Line Dance Marathon

May, 2019

Home from a great time in Raleigh! As always - the venue was fantastic! Decorations, staff & volunteers, the hotel, amazing attention to detail... just fantastic! Thank you to Scott & Jean for another great year!

Day 1 -

Darren Bailey - Something That You Want (with Amy Glass). Great cha cha!

Guillaume Richard - Fire On Fire by Romain Brasme & Marlon Ronkes. Very pretty dance!

Rebecca Lee - Calm Down Buddies (with Jose Miguel Belloque Vane, Roy Verdonk, JP Madge). This is fun!

Fred Whitehouse - Shot Of Tequila

The good news? I almost even remembered them all on the floor that night!!!

Day 2 -

Shane McKeever - Fall So Fast (Kerry Maus & Jo Thompson Szymanski). Had a lot of fun dancing this with Kerry right behind me and the Minnesota dancers surrounding me! Top of the favorite list for today!

Scott Blevins - Apple Juice (with Paul James). Great waltz!

Fred Whitehouse - I Can’t Stop. Phrased, funky, fun!

Maddison Glover - Get Wild (with Jo Thompson Szymanski). Right up there with the top of my favorites of the day!

Shane McKeever - Baby Madda. It might be labeled High Intermediate but it really is an easy dance - just a little “peppy” (not allowed to use the “f” word...)!

Choreography Comps - congratulations to the finalists: Rob Holley & Jason Takahashi! And more congratulations to Jason for winning the overall competition. Well done!

Day 3 -

I had such high expectations for Saturday’s classes... after the first 3, I was toast! LOL!

Shane McKeever - Reverse (with Jessica Devlin). OMG! How fun was this!!!

Scott Blevins - Boys (with Joey Warren). Easy intermediate. Great dance!

Scott Blevins - Down To The Roots (with Fred Whitehouse). I only had to do A twice. You’d think 32 counts could be done without much difficulty. Well, you’d be WRONG! So much work I need to do on this GREAT dance!!! LOVE it! And... this is the one that put me over the edge. After REVERSING and the going DOWN TO THE ROOTS, I hit my wall. There was absolutely nothing left! The true sign of an amazing event!

The ones I watched (attempted to learn from my chair!):

Darren Bailey - L.I.L.Y.

Fred Whitehouse - Life Is Worth Living

Darren Bailey - Gorgeous

The one I completely missed:

Shane McKeever - Burden

The ones that someone else attended since I couldn’t be in 2 places at the same time:

Rebecca Lee - Wonderland

Fred Whitehouse - Give Me Love

Guillaume Richard - The Show 

With earlier-than-we-wanted flights leaving on Sunday, no more classes for me. That’s OK. My students will be plenty exhausted with everything I bring back - and it’s only 6 weeks until FITS and we can do it all again!

Joey/Gary Weekend 2019

We had a social with “the boys” Friday night with lots of great dancing! We danced from 7:30-11:30 Friday night. That playlist had lots of our favorites like Watch The Tempo, Come Home, To The Moon & Back, Talkin to the Moon, Revolution, Uphill Battle, Don’t Think About You, and Change Your Mind. Of the 62 dances on the playlist, I didn’t know or had forgotten 13! We danced all night!

On Saturday, Gary and Joey each taught 3 dances. The first four we learned were my favorite. The last two were my second favorite.

Gary taught first with “All I Need To Know”; Joey was second with “When You Walk In.” The 3rd teach was Gary’s “Dance On My Island” and the 4th was Joey’s “Wiser & Older.” And the final two - Everything I Have (Gary) and Break The Internet (Joey).

New Web Link to check out!

Here’s a new website/link you might want to check out:

https://vineright.com/yourdances.php?instructor=Jamie-Leick&h=date&le=