My Blue Heaven

Dance dance dance

1:21 pm Tue, 5th October 2004

I had the most AMAZING weekend of dancing, dancing and more dancing! I must have clocked up about 16 hours of dancing. 6 hours on Saturday & 5 hours on Sunday at the International Dancers Workshop, and then another 5 hours at the afterparty (SoulTrain @ Hunter). I actually stayed at the afterparty until the club closed – and got home at 7am!! Had myself quite a big night. And I even dreamt about dancing when I went to sleep on mon morning.

To spare those of you not interested in dance, I’ll put my ravings about the details of the workshop in the extended entry area (just click on “more” at the end of this post). But in brief, I had the best time at the workshop. It was very much hiphop/funk – and was really hard. Even the beginners level was very difficult and fast. And adv/professional was just insane. But by the end, I knew that I’d improved HEAPS as a dancer, and had really challenged myself with this hip hop style straight from the US. (Though not all the routines were hip hop.. some were more funk, some even slightly jazz/funk).

Here’s a photo I took at the end, with our teachers Kevin Maher and Teresa Espinosa.

Over this weekend, I got a glimpse of the joy and freedom in hip hop dancing. I really understand why ppl love it so much. It was definitely an amazing experience for me. And I have soooo got the dancing bug now. I really really want to dance more. To learn more hip hop… do my usual jazz classes… and just dance. Wanna go clubbing again too. Heh. At the afterparty, I danced the best I ever have before in a club. It was like my body & limbs took on a mind of their own, and just moved of their own volition. Even when I wanted to rest, my body just kept moving with the music.. kinda like that fairytale about the red dancing shoes.

Current listening :: “Lets Get Retarded” – Black Eyed Peas

The Workshop

Ok so, the dance workshop was just incredible. When I was there, I thought about nothing but dancing. My whole focus and concentration was on learning & dancing the routine, and well, getting it right! And let me tell you, that took A LOT of concentration.

I guess the experience was kind of an escape for me – to just forget about everything else in life and dance. I suppose this quote from Teresa Espinosa sums it up rather well: “5,6,7,8. Let’s go, and dance. That’s why we are all here, right? You can feel it when it clicks. Your body and spirit become ONE. There are no thoughts. No worries. No pain. It’s pure FREEDOM, LOVE and EXPRESSION. We are so blessed to be able to experience TOTAL BLISS, even if it’s only for a moment.”

Anyway. I can’t even remember most of the routines anymore, but I’ll be getting the DVD (they video’d us during the workshop, so I’ll probably appear on the dvd!!) which will contain all the routines, and show them teaching it to us (so I can learn em all again!) But for now, the songs we danced to and details of the class (that I can remember, & not in order) include:

• “Dirrty” – Christina Aguilera (Kevin – beginners)
• “Yeah!” – Usher (Teresa – intermediate)
• “All For You” – Janet Jackson (Kevin)
• “She wants to move” – N.E.R.D (Teresa – adv/professional)
• “King Of The Dancehall” – Beenie Man (Kevin – intermediate)
• “Free” – Mya (Teresa – beginners.. this one was a partnered routine!)
• “Runaway” – Janet Jackson
• “Milkshake” – Kelis (Kevin)
• “Caught Up” – Usher
• “Cry Me A River” – Justin Timberlake (Teresa – adv/professional)

Er.. yeh, thats all I can remember for the moment! Once I get the DVD (when its done in a few weeks/months time), I’ll be able to fill in the blanks. 🙂

The Afterparty

I really wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle going to the afterparty after such an intense and gruelling two days of dancing. But suprisingly, on Sunday night, my body must have gotten somewhat used to the intense exercise (where Saturday night was a killer… I was in so much pain!). So I decided to go. It was held at SoulTrain @ Hunter Bar, and it was so worth it to go. I had the best time just dancing all night – it was even better than my usual clubbing experience, because half the people there were from the workshop, and they could ALL dance spectacularly well! Makes quite a difference to the club atmosphere. I met up with some friends I met at the workshop, and met their friends too. That was pretty cool.

The highlight of the night for me (other than dancing at the club), was the dance off’s. Must have been about 2am.. when some of the core ppl from the dance workshop had formed a circle near the DJ and had started a sort of dance off, where one person would dance in the circle, then another would, and sometimes they would challenge each other – guys and girls. It was really cool to watch, coz these people were absolutely amazing dancers! But the best part was watching Teresa Espinosa dance – she was INCREDIBLE. I’ve only ever seen that level of dancing on DVD’s (like Britney’s live concerts), and never in real life. *sigh*

Anyway, there’s my rant. Congrats if you’ve read up to here! If you have, leave a comment, and maybe I’ll buy you a drink sometime. Heh. 😛

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