Burrito West Blog

Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts

TU Ball 2016

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Every ball at a royal palace deserves its own post!

Going to Vienna to dance is an extravagance, but man oh man is it nice. This year going to Vienna from Vancouver we were much more charmed by the old European architecture than when we went from Poland, so it had a new veneer of specialness to it all.

First, the dress.
I spent a ridiculous amount of time dress hunting online. Searching for something really affordable, ideally not made by child labour overseas. Impossible, you say! And you'd be right, I think. So I started checking thrift stores, hoping for something I could take to a local designer to make acceptable. And I got lucky. Found this satin ball gown as good as new for $20 and it fit almost perfectly. I actually left it at the thrift store, went home, realized I was being stupid and went back to get it.

I went to local designer, Shelley Klassen of Blushing Boutique and together we modified the dress to be 1) not strapless, and 2) a bit more dramatic with a gathering of lace falling from my shoulder and trailing down the back.

Here are the before photos - not bad for $20, right?

Here's the after:

So for the second time I got to go to a fancy event wearing a custom-made one of a kind gown that cost me less than $300. I was very pleased. Here's a link to last time, if you're curious.

This time I made sure to have it hemmed short enough for ballroom dancing! Win!

The Ball.
We went to the TU Ball (technical university ball) again this year. It's one of the more affordable balls held in the royal palace and we enjoyed it last time. Also there's a race car parked in the lobby of the palace, so that's a bonus.

My sister and her boyfriend joined us from London and attending the event with other people was fun - that's what was missing from our first event for sure.

Arriving at the palace is a bit surreal - walking up to a place that would otherwise be a tourist attraction and getting to walk right in. After getting tickets and coat/shoe check taken care of, we headed up the grand staircase (red carpet included).

We skipped the opening performance because you really can't see anything of it unless you have a table in the main ballroom. I have heard other balls put screens up in the other rooms so more people can watch, so maybe one day we'll see what happens. Sadly we showed up late enough that we also missed the photographers they have stationed on the stairs taking souvenir photos. My cellphone photos would have to do.

We toured the palace, checked out all the rooms. Kicked people out of our reserved table in the Wintergarden room and had some drinks. Spent our evening alternating between dancing and recovering at our table. Michelle brought her GoPro and I did a few dances holding it on Peter's shoulder so you can see what it looks like from my perspective when doing the viennese waltz - see below for a hastily - assembled video.

Dancing in these beautiful, grand spaces is amazing. I can't really put it into words.

The 2:30am quadrille (formation dance) was insanely crowded and a gong show. I think maybe 30% of people actually know what they're doing. Watching the quadrille is a highlight; very entertaining. Here's a video I took of the quadrille in 2014 (the one in the video was less of a gong show, for reference).

Michelle and Nathan were very good sports, being non-dancers. They left at 3:30am and Peter and I only lasted another hour. The dance floor gets wonderfully open starting at about 3am. Maybe next time we'll show up very late and stay until closing at 5am to maximize our dancing fun. I'm curious to see how they get everyone out of the palace at closing.

The Photos. (The rest are on flickr here)

Peter and I dancing around 3:30am. I am holding a go-pro. You can see the blue in my hair matches my dress. ;)

The video
I put together some of the clips so you can get a feel for the dancing. Included is gopro footage of what a Viennese waltz looks like from my perspective (answer, dizzying).

Pressing questions I know you must have:

Were we able to do the viennese waltz this year?
Kind of? We were definitely more prepared than last time (practice and many lessons) and we did do better, but it's still very challenging. The dance floor is sooo crowded for most of the night and the music is sooo fast. And traffic jams on the dance floor happy so easily. A few more years of practice and I think we'll nail it.

Think you'll go again?
Probably. We really like Vienna, it's a relaxed place to visit and the ball is really fun for us - a chance to use all the dance skills we've aquired. It's surprisingly hard to find opportunities to waltz and foxtrot in regular life. We might try to join this Waltz Week thing to meet other dancers, it sounds fun: http://www.waltzweekinvienna.com/

How hot and sweaty was it?
Dancing in formal wear is very hot and sweaty. All those images of civilized people being all proper at balls back in the day - erase those now, everyone must have been incredibly hot and sweaty.

Pro tip if you ever go to a ball - dancers who know what they're doing will rotate around the outside of the dance floor. If you can't keep up with that, you want to hang out in the centre of the dance floor so you aren't in the way. Traffic jams during a viennese waltz are awful.

Posted by Lisa at 5:05 PM | Labels: dance, travel | 2 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

NYE

Thursday, January 01, 2015

Peter and I broke with our new year's eve tradition of staying in. We find NYE events to be over-hyped and over-priced so we usually don't bother. This year, a bunch of people from our dance studio were going to a dinner dance event at a casino way out in the burbs and we decided to join them. It's hard to find opportunities to social dance, so we're trying to take advantage of what there is.

We got there a bit late and just caught the tail end of the buffet (no line!). We were sitting at a different table than our fellow dance studio people but we met some lovely folks as a result, Particularly Dennis and Glynis, a couple that has been married for 55 years and have led very interesting lives (he was in a parachute regiment in the military back when England had required military service).

We danced a lot, watched some great dancers (and one very animated couple whose dance style was very.... different). It was fun! This going out thing might be okay.

As a side note, the casino was packed, which I find horrifying - to gamble as a way to end/start a year. Also, none of the people in the casino seemed to be having any fun (I always find this to be the case in casinos). There was a club downstairs that we tried to check out because the DJ advertised was "DJ Hashtag" which is so terrible, we wanted to hear him. No luck though.

Hope everyone spent their NYE doing something pleasant. Here's hoping for all good things in 2015!

Posted by Lisa at 12:08 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Check in

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Look, two posts in one month! Amazing, isn't it?

Needless to say, I'm still adapting to this full time work + trying to have a life thing. It's a struggle.

But many good things are happening.

Game nights with lovely friends are happening semi-regularly, which is awesome - part of my need-to-spend-more-time-with-friends plan that I concocted while in Poland.

We went to our dance studio holiday dinner dance event at a country club and it was tons of fun. I am rocking the salsa lately (especially when led by a professional instructor).

Friday was a costume party at our dance studio - Casino Royale was the theme so Peter put on his tux and I put on this floor length velvet dress with thigh-high slit that I found in a thrift store over a year ago (and had to buy because it fit so well and was so dramatic). It was perfect for this James Bond theme party. Another very fun night. Hilariously the thigh-high split is a bit higher now due to some overly-large waltz steps. Will have to repair that before the next fancy party.

My Persuasion project is still playing out over on halfhope.blogspot.com. Wentworth has arrived on the scene so things are tense. I'm having some fun interactions on Twitter (as Anne with her readers). Getting about 100 hits per day on the blog, which isn't bad. I hope people are enjoying it!

My desire to weave has returned. I sold my small floor loom a while ago because I just didn't use it enough to warrant the amount of space it took up in our tiny apartment. (I fantasize about having an apartment big enough for all the indoor hobbies I want to dabble in.) I was idly looking on craigslist thinking I might find a small rigid heddle loom - something much more compact than a floor loom that would still let me do a project. Instead I accidentally found someone selling a table loom with stand for about 1/6 of retail price (for a pretty new loom). It's such a steal I'm struggling to resist buying it - I don't think it's the right loom for me right now, but it's such a bargain! Instead I've asked to borrow a friend's table loom so I can do a project over the holidays and get this weaving itch

out of my system for another year!

It snowed in Vancouver Friday night and has been below zero ever since. Like -5C. I'm dying every time I go outside, it's pathetic. I can't handle the cold. Not sure how I lived through Ottawa and Wisconsin winters for so many years, but this really shows that I can't ever move to any other part of Canada again. I wouldn't survive a full winter. I'm pretty sure I don't have to leave the apartment today - fingers crossed.

Posted by Lisa at 12:34 PM | Labels: dance | 4 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Going to a Ball in Vienna

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Going to a ball in Vienna deserves it's own blog post - so here's a long one!

This event was always marked on our calendar as the thing we were not going to miss while in Europe and living so near Vienna. There are many balls in Vienna, mostly in January and February (ball season) - we selected the TU Ball (Vienna University of Technology – TU Wien), thinking there would be a good, young crowd, and we would feel comfortable surrounded by engineers. Most of the balls are open to the public, you can go to which ever one suits your fancy.

I fretted over my dress for some time. I read the dress code guidebook that is put out to help us hapless non-ball going people avoid making fools of ourselves. I knew I needed a floor-length dress, but aside from that I was free to pick what I liked. I stalked some dresses on ebay and won a raw silk dress from the UK for $60. It was pretty ugly but I thought I might be able to find a tailor who could transform it. I got really really lucky because very close to our apartment in Wroclaw is the studio of a young designer (Le Blakk) who was willing to take on the challenge of making my dress ball-worthy. For $130 she transformed it and fitted it for me. I ended up with a silk and lace, one of a kind, custom-fitted gown for less than $200 and it didn't involve child-labour in China! My only regret with the dress would be not having them hem it shorter to make dancing easier (lesson learned).

We must pause here for a before and after photo so you can admire the work Le Blakk did.

Peter bought his tux in Poland (buying being only slightly more expensive than renting for a week). We spent some of our time in Prague and Vienna shopping around for proper tie-it-yourself bow ties and elbow-length black gloves; both of these are surprisingly hard to find, but we succeeded and it gave us a good excuse to wander to strange areas of town.

The night of the ball we got ready and our hotel called us a cab. We weren't sure where, in the vast complex of palace buildings, one goes for the ball and were counting on the taxi driver knowing, which he did. We said "Hofburg Palace" and he just nodded. Because it's totally normal for people to request to go to the palace (it's essentially convention space, I guess). He dropped us off at the correct entrance where there was a buzz of activity as other formally-dressed people arrived. It was like what you imagine prom will be but what prom fails to be. (My prom was held in a school gym. This was better.)

We walked up to the table in the entrance to collect our tickets (no line), and went in! Note that there are long queues for the coat check. I used this time to change out of my boots (it's winter, remember) into my dance shoes. I noticed lots of other ladies doing this, which was a relief. Standing in line was a great chance to appreciate where we were and admire the tuxes and dresses of all the other people. Along with our coats we checked a bag that contained our change of shoes.

(I mention all these details because these were the things we wondered about that no one explained before hand. Perhaps this info will be useful to others going to their first ball in Vienna.)

Once we were rid of our coats, we made our way up the grand staircase - the ceremonial arrival, complete with red carpet. This is where I learned that I don't know how to go up stairs in a floor-length evening gown. I had some technical difficulties. But we made it! Mental note: practice navigating stairs! There are photographers on the stair landing to take photos as people arrive. We skipped it initially and went back later and posed. (The prints are on tables by the coat check area at the end of the evening - a nice souvenir.)

The main ballroom was packed - the opening ceremony/show was starting just as we arrived (the debutantes were entering). It was hilariously impossible to see anything, so we went to get a drink and tour the rest of the rooms. It is possible to buy seats at tables in the main ballroom but they are very very pricey. We bought seats at a table that was just a room with tables, which turned out to be a nice way to get a break from the music and chaos of the dance floors. It is possible to order drinks and sausage at your table. Definitely get a table, otherwise you will not be able to sit down (unless you temporarily borrow someone else seat while they are dancing).

We did find a vantage point for the very end of the ceremony when they open the floor for dancing. I still don't know how anyone managed to do any part of a Viennese waltz on a dance floor that crowded!

Debutantes only....

Everyone!

After the main ballroom (Festival Hall, started in 1908, finished 1923), the most impressive one was the Ceremonial Hall built in 1803 with 26 chandeliers that once held 1300 candles; it's a beautiful, beautiful place to dance - exactly the kind of thing I've been dreaming of since we started ballroom lessons 5 years ago.

There was an orchestra in the main ballroom, a band in the Ceremonial Hall, and a band in another, small room with tables. Downstairs was another room with a band (salsa/latin, I think - we completely forgot to visit this room!). The music played was a mix - Viennese and slow waltzes, foxtrots, chacha, rumba, swing mostly (where we were). It was a mix of people who know how to dance really well, others who kind of know what's going on (like us), and people winging it. The dance floors were generally pretty crowded and there were collisions, unavoidably. Later in the evening it thinned out a bit. I suspect if we had stayed another hour it would have been even less crowded.

At some point in the evening, we sat at our table to rest and Peter ordered a sausage (the traditional Vienna ball food, I've read). It was simple and tasty and kept us going for a few more hours. Gotta be careful not to get mustard on anything. :)

At midnight they do the first Quadrille (set figure dances done in lines). We missed the midnight one but caught the 2:30am one (as spectators). I would love to know these figures and to dance them with others who know them, it looks like fun! I read advice before going that said to jump in and participate in the Quadrille even if you don't know it, but I disagree. Since you dance it with several people (the person across from you, the person diagonal to you, etc), if you don't know it, you'll kind of ruin it for them. They do call out the patterns (in German) and there are couples on stage doing it as a demo, but I say if you don't know it, just stand back and watch; it's very funny to watch. I posted a video of it here. And to contrast, here's what it looks like done by people who know it.

Here's a video I took of a Viennese Waltz. This is a very very crowded dance floor to try to do any waltz, much less a Viennese!! We tried a few times, but it was just too crowded! We need to practice a smaller, more compact version before the next ball.

We left the ball at 3:40am, though it continued on until the last waltz at 5am! There was a line of cabs waiting outside, we were whisked away immediately and were tucked in our hotel room in no time. We had a fabulous time, it's an incredible way to spend an evening. The only thing that would make it better would be having friends there - so next time we are determined to rope some people into going with us. How could they say no?

Vienna is a wonderful town - full of history and architecture and fabulous cafes - and in winter you can enjoy it all without mobs of tourists, plus, you can pop into a ball in the royal palace. I highly recommend it.

Even more photos here! More info on attending balls in Vienna is here and here.

Summary of tips for your Vienna ball:

- make sure your dress is hemmed a bit short so you can dance easily
- buy seats at a table somewhere; I would recommend the Ceremonial Hall so you can watch dancing while you relax.
- it is not unusual for people to change into proper dance shoes upon arrival. Simply check your extra shoes with your coat.
- unless you have seats in the main ballroom, you have to arrive very early to nab a spot to stand and watch the ceremony. It's probably a nice show, but not the end of the world if you miss it. The real fun is dancing yourself.
- they won't bar you from entry if you don't meet the dress code, but try to. We saw men with non-black bow ties and a few ladies with mid-calf (rather than floor length) dresses, so you can do it and get in, but better to be respectful of the traditional dress code, I think.
- be sure to pose for photos at some point with the official photographers
- wear comfortable shoes you can dance in - this is not the night for new shoes or 4in heels, not if you mean to dance!

For those wondering how we got photos - we had intended to drop our camera off in our bag at coat check (if you can't trust coat check at the royal palace, who can you trust?), but in the end Peter offered to wear it cross-body while dancing so we could document the whole evening. It was mildly inconvenient. Now that I've documented a whole ball, I think next time I'll go camera-free so we can enjoy the dancing more; but I am very happy to have these photos of our first ball.

Posted by Lisa at 1:37 PM | Labels: dance, sabbatical 2013, travel | 5 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Hips

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

I feel like it's been at least a blog post since I mentioned dance. Like I said before, Peter has been battling his weird disease that won't go away so last week I went to our private lesson alone. We do this only very occasionally, so it's kind of special to get our instructor all to myself for 45 minutes. He didn't bat an eye when I told him it was just me, he immediately started me working on my latin hip motion as though he'd been waiting for just this moment. We started the lesson standing in place slowly rotating hips and bending knees in the very particular way that is cuban motion. The way to know if you're doing this right is that you will sweat profusely from the effort. Apparently I did something right because at the end he was practically giddy and said I increased my cuban motion by 1000% and random other people in the studio complimented me afterwards. The trick is getting it to stick - and doing it at full dancing speed. I feel like if I could just take a good few months - pause all the other stuff in life (you know, like work) - and just devote some serious time to dance, I could nail all this stuff down and just be left with details/patterns. Trying to learn on the side, in the margins, it's just so slow!

First world problems, I know.

In less dance-related ramblings - this post is possibly the best example of why I love The Bloggess. She is crazy and awesome to a degree that is impossible to convey with mere words.

Concluding with a random photo of a cool house down by a park in Delta that I took last month. Something about the bright blue sky captures what I'm longing for right now.

Posted by Lisa at 9:36 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Argentine Tango Inspiration

Sunday, January 15, 2012

In dance Peter and I are still working on Foxtrot. That's one beast of a dance to learn, fyi. But we're starting to get it, which is awesome. We've also been dabbling a bit in Argentine Tango, which is the ultimate dance for lead-follow because there isn't really any pattern, it's all freestyle and if you don't have a good lead-follow relationship, it's just not going to work, at all. really, not at all.

In our early days of dance we looked at videos of real dancers, to see what all this stuff was supposed to look like, and we came across this terrible-quality video of an amazing, magical tango. At the time we didn't realize it was Argentine Tango, but it was always, in our minds, the perfect example of the kind of dance we were interested in: it's not flashy with big moves, it's just technically amazing and showcases such a perfect conversation between two dance partners. I find it mezmerizing.

Not to dimish the lead - but I think the magic here is on Natacha Poberaj's part. Watch her footwork, it's perfect. You don't even need to know anything about dance to appreciate the precision with which she moves.

Here's another, better quality video of another routine that's a bit flashier, but still has the same qualities.

Obviously Peter and I aren't here yet, but we're having a lot of fun on the road.

Posted by Lisa at 3:35 PM | Labels: dance | 2 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Thursday, December 22, 2011

So the downside to having a smoking hot young dance instructor teach your cha-cha group class? She can move her body in amazing ways that just... aren't replicable by mere mortals! She's amazing and makes it look so effortless. Makes you realize how much more there is to learn. Partly inspiring, partly crushing. ;)
[This is not my instructor, but it's a great example of the kind of cha cha my instructor does.]

Tonight I'm off to my first Hanukkah party ever! I vaguely recall playing with dreidels in school once as we learned about various non-christmas holidays, but that's about all the experience I have with Hanukkah.

Posted by Lisa at 11:02 AM | Labels: dance | 1 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

We've been participating in an extra dance class every week for the past few weeks at our studio. It's the owner of the studio teaching a special salsa course. I love salsa and the owner of the studio both, so this is pretty fantastic. It means that our weekly schedule is Tuesdays: private lesson & studio party, Wednesdays: 2 group classes, Thursdays: special salsa group class. This means I miss a lot of time cuddling with cats and crafting in my cozy apartment and I instead spend a lot of time at the dance studio. But I feel like we've been dancing long enough that we're at a point where it's super fun. It was always fun, but in the early days that fun would be laced with

frustration at not being able to do more, or follow stuff, or turn correctly. Now, I feel like my base is solid enough that I can really enjoy myself in any situation; I'm picking up new things faster, I'm
starting to spin properly, I can follow better, etc. It's fun!

This post is neither here nor there but to share my happiness with dancing. And to say that learning new skills is awesome - especially if you stick with it long enough to get good. We've still got loads to
learn and improve, don't get me wrong, but we're having fun.

Now I just need to travel back in time to the 40s/50's when supper clubs with proper dancing still existed.

Posted by Lisa at 5:39 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

It's the first day of school!! This doesn't actually impact me at all, except some bus routes will be fuller now. But boy do I remember the first day of school. I've got 20 years of school under my belt so the simultaneous feelings of 'yay, fresh start' and 'scary new' will always be associated with September. Also, new notebooks and pencils.

As a younger sister I remember watching my sister go off to school and I was so jealous! She got homework! I wanted homework! So when I finally, finally got to go off to primary class, I came home after the first day absolutely devestated. They didn't assign any homework! All that waiting, I was so disappointed. I think I thought I would learn to read novels on day one. School was magical like that. I'm pretty sure Mom spoke with my teacher because eventually she started giving me homework. I recall very clearly that that is how I learned to spell cookie - and look how well that has served me in life! Thank you Mrs. McDonald. I pretty quickly learned that homework was not something you needed to ask for for long, but I was always pretty much a nerd. Though I definitely wasn't asking for homework by the time I hit university!

In any case - hope the first day of school went well for everyone!

Posted by Lisa at 5:04 PM | Labels: cats, dance, life, Maked, planning/design | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Thursday, September 01, 2011

So I was thinking about dancing the other day. I do that a lot, since we dance kind of a lot. (Apparently I also blog about dance a lot.)

I actually started by thinking about yoga, which I only do once a week but love. We have a great lunch time yoga program at work and the Monday instructor is fabulous. I struggle in yoga (like most people) to get my brain to shut up. This is also why I love yoga, because I am able (eventually) to quiet that constantly running inner monologue - the one they say is part and parcel of us being a sentient species but that can get annoying at times. It occurred to me that dancing is the other time I can quiet the hamster wheel in my brain. As a follower in dance, especially when dancing something you don't know or with someone way more advanced, to succeed, you must stop thinking about the dance and think about the moment - it's the ultimate way to practice 'being in the moment'. You have to constantly stand at the ready to receive signals on what will happen next. They are usually subtle signals and if your mind wanders, you may miss them.

I spend most of my time not in the moment. My job is usually about the exact opposite - planning for the future, spending a LOT of time thinking about the future and the impacts of our present decisions on the future. So I'm discovering that I really value activities that quiet my mind and let me just enjoy the NOW. Who knew that such a physical activity like dance could be so much like meditation? Quiet the mind and work the body, not a bad way to spend an evening.

Posted by Lisa at 9:53 PM | Labels: dance | 2 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Sunday, August 28, 2011

We went to a Vancouver Canadians baseball game today. I'd post a photo but it was waaaaaay to hot to think about taking out my camera. Here are some photos you can enjoy instead. Even though we were seated under the stadium awning, we were full on in the sun with no breeze at all the whole time. I think it was 47 degrees C. That's my estimate. I nearly died. I love baseball games, but not when I'm literally feeling sweat dripping down my body. That's not the mental image you wanted, I know, but I have to convey to you somehow how very very hot it was. It was so hot I forgot the rules of baseball. I forgot which team was ours. I forgot that having a rootbeer float, even if the money is for charity, is a bad bad idea.

And we lost.

But I still love baseball, especially when tickets are $12.50.

Posted by Lisa at 8:05 PM | Labels: cats, dance, life, Maked, planning/design | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

Have I mentioned how much I love the summer dance series going on at Robson Square? It's pretty fabulous. Friday nights are for ballroom/latin and Sunday afternoon is salsa. This used to go on every year but has been put on hold for a few years while they renovate Robson Square - but it's back - yay!

The ice rink surface is nice and slippery, great for turns. The organizers play some good tunes, and loads of people turn out to dance. It's fun!

This was one of the things I kind of daydreamed about when we started dancing - being able to walk around a city, stop in a public square and do a few dances and then continue on. Something about dancing out in the open air just seems right.

There are dancers of all skill levels and it's neat just to spend some time people watching there. The only thing lacking really, is a gelato place nearby. :)

Posted by Lisa at 7:52 AM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Friday, April 15, 2011

Last night Peter and I went out to a casino in New Westminster. Seems out of character for us, doesn't it? Yeah, we skipped the slots and went to the Redbar Lounge where there was a dinner + salsa dancing event. Buffet dinner and dancing for $18? I'm in! Turns out there is a cute lounge there - exactly the kind of old-school set up I've been yearning for - with booths that overlook the dance floor and stage.

We got there a bit late, getting a bit lost on the suburban highways, but still made it in time to nab the last table and get some grub. The food wasn't anything fancy but it was good and there was chocolate cake for dessert, so what more do you need, really?

There were two dance instructors who did a short performance of some salsa and bachata, then gave lessons in merengue and salsa, then it was open dancing. Peter and I had fun - it wasn't crowded at all (salsa dance floors are often packed) and they mixed in some chacha, swing, merengue with the salsa (I get bored fast if we do just salsa).

Apparently it's a new thing the Lounge is trying - Thursday night dinner + dance (with lessons). Next week is swing dancing. I'm pretty sure we'll be back there again at some point! It's always nice to find new dancing venues - even if they are annoyingly located far away. Even better if they include all you can eat chocolate cake.

Posted by Lisa at 10:57 AM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Monday, February 07, 2011

It's kind of funny that we ended up at the Snowball Classic DanceSport BC competition last night. Right before I was at our Cuban Salsa class (Peter skipped, being sickly). I find our salsa classes so infuriating, they actually make me kind of angry. I really have been spoiled by our regular studio - they have given a lot of thought to HOW to teach dance, whereas the salsa classes just tend to show you a move and are like "do this". Uh huh. Could we get more specific on the "this" you're referring to? I mean, seriously. This current salsa class seems to be teaching the leads a few moves and the followers nothing. I just get two hours to blindly follow my partners. Dudes, I could do that at a salsa club, I don't need to pay for it.

To contrast - at our regular studio, they have things called "school figures" which are particular dance steps that they test you on and you have to be able to dance them alone, with no partner. This means you have to actually know the step (including how much to rotate). As a follower, it's easy sometimes to not think about it and just.... follow. There was one tango figure which had three rotations/direction changes in it - that school figure took forever for me to learn because I wasn't used to thinking about how much I rotate (I rotate however much my partner rotates me). But our studio makes sure I know it. I can't pass to the next level without showing I know the school figures. Meanwhile, in the salsa class, I couldn't show you any of the steps if my life depended on it, because I'm not being taught them!! I want to be taught them, but that's just not how the class is run. I tend to leave the class very frustrated and annoyed.

So the moral of the story is, if you're thinking of learning to dance - seriously find a good studio and instructors that don't just know how to dance but know how to TEACH dance.... because those are totally different things.

We'll survive the salsa - only one more class to go, then we'll get to dance for real in Cuba. Oh, did I mention we're going to Cuba at the end of February? My first time anywhere tropical!!

Posted by Lisa at 9:27 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Dude, we just got back from an evening of ballroom dance competition (watching, I mean - we're not crazy) and it was nutz. Seriously, these people are intense and amazing.

The outfits are over the top, the dance moves are insane fast, it's all just very impressive to see in person.

A few photos, to try and give a sample of the colours and sparkle and speed. More later, if I find any that are not blurry.

(First photo is the under 21 Standard finalists - that means waltz, foxtrot, paso doble, etc., they were particularly colourful.)

Posted by Lisa at 11:23 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Monday, January 03, 2011

Happy New Year!

Our new year's eve was interesting in that we stayed home and made nachos and watched the original Tron (which neither of us had ever seen). The reason we stayed home was because the lovely house party we were to go to got cancelled because the hosts got THE call about adopting a baby!! They have only been waiting a few months but got a call on Dec 30th about a baby that had been born on Christmas day. They spent new years eve in the hospital with him and took him home on Jan 1st! Best reason to cancel a party ever! Also - can you imagine becoming parents with only 2 days notice?

I'm super excited for them, and can't help but think that there are some interesting benefits to adopting that I hadn't thought of before - like the fact that both of the new parents are equal partners in this - compared to a birth situation where the mom goes through nine months and intense labour and the guy just supports/observes. In adoption, both of them are in the same situation, no one has any bonding advantage. And, since the mom isn't breastfeeding - they can equally split the burden of feeding through night/day. It just generally seems more balanced and fair.

Here's a photo of me and the little guy - I think this is the newest person I've ever held, he was conveniently small and sleepy.

Fingers crossed for them that the 30 day period the birth mom has to change her mind passes quickly and in 6 months their application to adopt is approved!

Posted by Lisa at 11:43 AM | Labels: cats, dance, life, Maked, planning/design | 4 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Peter and I passed our Bronze II dance exam last week. whoo! So now we're Bronze III which I'm sure will be very exciting. We went to our first bronze III class on Friday night and I was totally lost. So, yay for a challenge?

In technology-related news, my love for my smartphone and my ebooks have collided. I downloaded the Kobo app for my Palm phone and now I have books on my ebook reader AND my phone. Because sometimes I don't bring my ereader with me, but I always have my phone with me. It's nice being able to read snippets here and there, since I don't seem to have much dedicated reading time.

We just booked our last night of our vacation - we fly in and out of vegas so we've scheduled a night in vegas on our way back to see the sights. I was playing with priceline's name your price feature for about a week before I snagged my deal. We'll be staying in a fancy 4 star hotel on the strip. Sweet. So everything is booked and ready for us!!

Posted by Lisa at 10:21 PM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The 5 week salsa course Peter and took ended last week so this week we decided to go out to a salsa club to see if we could hold our own yet. This meant we had to peel ourselves off our couch on a Friday night and go out into the world.

We went to the Polish Hall which has 2 floors of salsa on Friday nights. We arrived as they were finishing the complimentary lesson - it was reassuring to see a ton of people there for the lesson, meant there were lots of relatively new salseros, which made it less intimidating. The night started off okay - but as it got more and more crowded, it just started to be annoying. Not enough space to do much, constantly getting slammed by other dancers. And we're used to dancing 6 different dances - if you go out ballroom dancing, you'll be doing foxtrot, tango, waltz, swing, chacha, rhumba - so I found it kind of boring to be doing 90% salsa with the occasional bachatta and very rare chacha. (Also, I hate bachatta - witness the terribleness.)

We were just about to leave when we saw people going downstairs (we had been told the downstairs wouldn't be open that night). We decided to check it out. It was cool and refreshing and uncrowded and we sat and watched people dancing for a bit. I liked the music better and it was neat to see guys dancing on their own - as though there were there to dance rather than skeeve on ladies. Cuban salsa is different from the salsa we've learned, so we were just watching. This one guy with crazy moves asked me to dance - that was an adventure, but it went well! When he handed me back to Peter he said "your girlfriend dances like a latina" which I believe is a pretty nice compliment for a super white girl like myself.

So, we ended on a high note and perhaps discovered that we like cuban salsa more than latin salsa. We'll have to ask our instructor to show us the difference one day.

Sometimes it pays to leave your couch. Not always, but sometimes. =)

Posted by Lisa at 9:52 AM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Warning: long ramble about dance below!

Peter and I are currently taking a 5 week long salsa course, in addition to our regular dance schedule, because we're hard core like that. We thought this would be a good way to boost our salsa skills, as it's not a dance we do a lot of at our ballroom studio and salsa is one of the few dances you can find in clubs. We went to our first salsa class at the new place on Friday night and then on Sunday the group lesson at our regular studio (Arthur Murray) happened to be salsa too, so it was an interesting comparison. Our regular studio is waaaaay better, I think.

Our previous attempt to dance, years ago in Wisconsin, was a disaster compared to when we started at the fancy Arthur Murray studio in Vancouver. The big difference? In our studio group classes they teach the guys how to lead and the ladies how to follow. In the other group class in WI they just showed everyone the step and let us go at it. So the guys weren't told how to lead and the girls weren't told how to follow. Inevitable disagreements arose and things got ugly.

This new salsa class we're enrolled in is just like the previous class in Wisconsin (although this time they make you rotate partners, which is an improvement). I think that Peter and I have come along enough that we can figure things out without arguing - but I feel bad for all the other people who haven't experienced a real studio where learning to dance is not frustrating and hard! The telltale sign, if you're ever shopping around for a dance class/studio (most dance places let you drop in on one or two classes for free to check them out): in a group class, they should separate the men and women occasionally and show each their parts separately. Everyone should get a chance to do the step/pattern on their own before trying to do it with a partner. If you're paired up right at the beginning and spend the entire time dancing with partners - you may find that really really hard and frustrating.

As a lady, I find it particularly frustrating in these less structured group classes because even if I know what the step is supposed to be (or think I do), I don't necessarily ever get to dance it if I'm always with a partner, because I have to dance whatever he leads. If he leads it wrong/differently, I have to do that. If he turns me early, I have to turn. So, it may well be that I don't get to practice the footwork shown by the instructor at all, because all my partners are leading it wrong because they haven't been shown how to lead it correctly and they don't realize they're causing me to do weird things. This is the hard part of being a girl in dance - you don't get to pick what you do! [On the up side, you don't have to decide what to do.]

Anyway. Just another lesson that it really is worth it to pay a bit extra and go to a place that is really good at what they do. This salsa course is dirt cheap, but I can see why. It's too bad because the instructor is great and clearly knows his stuff. I'm sure we'll learn lots, but it will be despite the structure of the class rather than because of it.

Posted by Lisa at 11:45 PM | Labels: cats, dance, life, Maked, planning/design | 4 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Peter and I had a great private lesson at dance yesterday. Rather than our regular instructor, we had someone else which is interesting, especially because our normal instructor is a woman and yesterday's was a guy. So we got a different style/perspective. It was fun and he fixed some stuff in our chacha so that it feels much better. We still hope to go back to our regular instructor, but it's good to shake things up now and then.

January is an interesting time at the dance studio - you see lots of new people coming to check things out, new people joining. Peter and I did the same thing, started in January, two years ago! Funny to think back to how scary it was, going to group classes and dancing with strangers, going to parties and having people who actually know how to dance ask you to dance.... all so intimidating. But we could see what the experienced people could do and that motivated us to stick with it - the promises of what could be. So we see the new people and we know what they're going through and we just encourage them to stick with it, it really does get easier. Except for waltz, that just gets harder. ;)

We also finally got a few photos of us dancing at some of the events that our studio puts on - some kind of evidence for you that we do dance. It's hard to get a good picture of people dancing, apparently - generally you look quite goofy. Also, we only have pictures of Peter from the back so you'll have to take my word that it's him. =)

Things have been busy and good at work, but also weird because my manager left the city on Friday which is too bad for the city because she was a fantastic manager and her departure leaves a gaping hole in our group. It's going to be rough until they figure out how to fix it. In addition to regular work, a lot of us are getting ready for our Host City roles (what we'll be doing during the Olympics). We got our uniforms (rain pants, fleece, rain jacket) and everyone is starting to get excited! I'll be working at one of the City's Live Sites which I'm looking forward to. Things are going to be crazy awesome here starting Feb 11 (when the torch arrives)!

Posted by Lisa at 9:56 AM | Labels: dance | 0 comments | Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook |

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