Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Dancing in the Boogie Wonderland

Here they are! My journey through New York City posts...In parts

Part 1: Taking class

The entire reason for my going to NYC with the Scholarship group was to improve-in as many ways as possible- my dancing abilities. I went to Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway, two open class organizations letting anyone dance if they had the will, guts, and $17. From these places I took Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Contemporary, Jazz Funk, Theatre, Yoga, and Pilates...also combinations of the two such as Contemporary Jazz. I had so much fun in every class and absolutely loved the teachers (such amazing people) and learned so much. Here is the line up of favorites as far as teachers:


  • Ballet: 
    1. Koppel- sweetest little lady, with wonderful center combinations
    2. Salmon- amazing critiques to keep the progress coming, awesome analogies
    3. Silantyev- cutest little old man I have ever seen, with a very traditional class.
  • Contemporary:
    1. Slam- most amazing warm up ever, beautiful choreography with very in-depth breakdowns of how he wanted it.
    2. TIE Mousset- very attractive with great choreography,,, Stanfield sub- lovely combination that we did and crazy warm up
    3. Ginger Cox- hard warm-up, probably would've gotten 2nd if I had taken her class earlier in the week. She taught so fast, but had very different challenging choreography.
    4. Huggins- felt extremely good doing his combination, with amazing flow, pretty hard warm-up.
  • Theatre: 
    1. Marquette- choreographed warm-up that was ridiculously tiring but fun after learning it. Great critiques, and super fun combinations, that were stuck in my head the rest of the day.
    2. Skinner- very old theater MGM style choreography that just felt good. I wish I had taken his class more, but he was only there one week. (Basically should be in a different category since the two are so different in style)
  • Jazz:
    1. Roshe- Her class felt like a time machine back to the nineties with Brittany Spears and old Beyonce music. So upbeat and crazy though, I loved it so much.
    2. Rigg- only took her once and the class was more simple than others, but very sultry Jazz choreography, I have to admit a lot of the fun of that class was watching others do the choreo, shameless I know but comical.
  • Classes that win because it was the only one of that genre I took, or they were beyond amazing:
    1. Yoga with Amber Paul- she was such a sunny happy person with challenging poses in every class. I loved taking her class in the early morning for an awesome start to the day.
    2. Pilates with Kerr- I got so sore from that pilates class, and she focused on the strength of dancers in the exercises, a whole lot faster paced than others which I preferred.
    3. Pilates with Laticia- also a very sunny person and made my body ache in a good way afterwards
    4. Tap with a Sub- not your ordinary tap class, warm-up of course but we focused on four specific steps, with one of them being a combo of the other three. One of these was the Bandolino, which was a traveling time step but not THE traveling time step <<<(for those who take tap). I really wish I had taken more tap classes.
    5. Jazz Funk with Murakami- craziest lady I have ever taken a class from, the choreography made you feel so awesome and sexy it was ridiculous. The only poop thing about her class was how crowded it was, which tells you something about how awesome the class is.
  • Overall Favorites:
    1. Murakami- I just loved her class so much, and want to take it again and again.
    2. Slam- his warm-up and choreography (warm-up especially) are addicting.
    3. Koppel- great ballet class in every way.
    4. Marquette- super duper fun, but very hard working class.
Other things I did for dance.
Yoga in Times Square, called Solstice. It was totally a super awesome experience feeling that calm in the middle of that high energy, high pace place. Who knew you could basically fall asleep in Times Square.

Love and cupcakes to you lovely people,
Madimoo

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