Note: Updated June 16 NBC’s new World of Dance set a rough road its first two weeks for fans of ballroom; similarly, the genre’s had more downs than ups on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance, with the last real gasp in its last adult-focused season coming when Latin champ and SYTYCD Canada winner…
Tag: Wednesday Watch
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Blues Meets West Coast Swing
Fusion is a topic in the debut issue of our magazine, and so is blues and social dance instructor Campbell Miller. And here she is, along with Tommy Schwegmann and Taletha Jouzdani, demonstrating a fun and rhythm-driven pairing of blues’s close hold with West Coast Swing’s turns and passes.
Dance, Ice Dance, Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: The Last Tango and the Joy of Rehearsals
We’re still on a tango kick (so to speak) so for this week’s Watch, enjoy this 2015 backstage performance of “La Cumparsita” from Flavia Cacace and Vincent Simone: I have a strong affection for performance executed outside of the official trappings — rehearsal footage and demos in practice wardrobe, away from the eyes of a…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Strictly Seasonal
For this last Wednesday Watch before Christmas, why not pass the time with a few festive picks from Strictly Come Dancing‘s annual Christmas special? (And take a further moment to ask just why its American counterpart can’t mount a similar gala event?) Harry Judd and Joanne Clifton, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (American Smooth, 2015) Great…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Tango Nuevo With a Twist
As a teaser for the next analysis on Step Sequences, today’s Watch features a special look at Tango Nuevo — or, rather, many looks in one, as Tango Krakow explores the subtle differences across couples in a single simultaneous dance:
Dance, Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Twyla Tharp’s Sinatra Suite
For this post-World Ballet Day Wednesday Watch, enjoy Twyla Tharp’s efforts to integrate the feel of social dance and a little retro style into the world of balletic technique, with this 1984 broadcast of her 1983 Sinatra Suite — a truncated version of the previous year’s longer Nine Sinatra Songs, which calls for casting a…
Quick Steps
A Thursday Watch: Amy Purdy, Paralympics Opening Ceremony
Dancing With the Stars season 18 runner-up Amy Purdy demonstrated an exceptional command of rhythm and musical detail — impressive for an amateur and even moreso given the physical circumstances within which she, a double amputee, and partner Derek Hough (as well as one-off partners Mark Ballas and James Maslow) had to work. Her dancing…
Dance, Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Balboa
A little of lindy and a little of blues, the Balboa (born in Jazz Age California of a bit of dancefloor pragmatism) and its Bal-Swing variant can in some ways be the best of all worlds: closed hold and connections, quick tempo and (in the swing style) a few flourishes — and even, perhaps, a…
Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Four Quicksteps
In the spirit of dance as a bit of joy in the midst of darkness, one traditional mood-lifting quickstep — and three in variation. 1. 2010 Blackpool British Professional Final, Quickstep Your standard-bearer. 2. “Ballroom Blitz,” Iveta Lukosiute and Nick Young (So You Think You Can Dance) In its later original-recipe seasons, So You Think…
Dance, Quick Steps
Wednesday Watch: Celebrating the US and Canada
In honor of two upcoming national holidays — the Fourth of July in the U.S. and Canada Day on July 1 — this Wednesday Watch is dedicated to some truly North American treasures. Few composers are more quintessentially connected with America than Aaron Copland, and Martha Graham’s choreography for his Appalachian Spring is a foundational…
