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Imagine with me, if you will… You and your partner are experienced professional dancers with successful careers, who have been dancing together for a long time, and you both have that unique ability to transition from one style of dance to another, because you are dancers, first and foremost, and not strictly Ballet or Modern…

I remember my very first Student Showcase like it was yesterday: the extra lessons and coaching and hours of rehearsals; the time spent trying on gowns and having fittings at a Ballroom dress rental shop; the spray tanning; and last, but not least, the extreme nervousness. Now, however, with years of competing under my belt…

In New Book, Champion Pro/Am American Smooth Dancer, Darla Davies, Chronicles How She Fought to Recover and Regained Her National Title after Undergoing Hip Replacement   Used by Permission   For years, we had fun running into United States Pro/Am American Smooth champion, Darla Davies, along with her professional dance partner, Jim Maranto, both at…

  Things got just a bit crazy for us from Thanksgiving to Christmas, between the usual shopping for presents, attending holiday parties and family gatherings, not to mention getting ready for the Yuletide Dancesport Championships. Nevertheless, the holiday season would not have been complete without at least one trip to see The Nutcracker; although, it wasn’t…

When I was six or seven years old, many of my friends were in gymnastics, but putting me into a class was not really on my parents’ radar then; and, besides, we lived in an area where opportunities of that kind were limited anyway. So instead, my friends would show me the things that they…

So You Want To Be A Theater Arts Dancer: What It Takes Disclaimer: I am not a professional Theater Arts Dance competitor…yet; however, I have been working on this style for a few years, now, in a Pro-Am partnership, so I wanted to share a few things that I have learned or come to believe…

If You Could Just Lead Me… Or the Importance of Really Learning How to Ballroom Dance     Since the start of my Ballroom Dancing journey, I don’t know how many gentlemen I have observed, who expressed amazement over how quickly the ladies (in group classes) or their partners (in private lessons) seemed to pick…

-A Primer on What to Wear in the Studio and out Social Dancing

Let me tell you, while this outdoor-loving-girl-turned-ballroom- and theater-arts dancer had the good fortune to spend the better part of her childhood only miles from Yellowstone National Park, I am also a huge fan of the arts and am grateful now to be living in the DC metropolitan area, where there is so much easy…

Facial Expressions: Do You Have to Smile, When You Dance?     I will never forget. A few years ago, we had just finished our Latin rounds and were getting ready to leave the competition, when an older woman approached me out of nowhere, pinched my cheeks like an annoying relative (1), and said, “You…