Let us dance for you

In life it always helps to have a motto or a Disney-packaged life lesson to get you through the week successfully. You know like 'Hakuna Matata' which, in case you've been living under a rock and didn't know, means no worries. 

However, great as it is, Disney can give you a little bit of a toothache, because the films never show you what happens AFTER ever after:

Thus here at Dance Station we've decided it's far safer to be guided by these two insider-coined sayings:

1. Werk Now  - Work Later @MlleGinger
2. Bang Bang Bang LET'S DRESS UP @KatyMillsLondon 

We've chosen these as our guiding principles for life, for the simple reason that when they come together pure MAGIC happens.

This was illustrated once again on Thursday night by the 'Chorus line Waack.' 

Starting with some mad on the floor, floor-ownership skills, feeling the music, feeling the moves and channeling our inner Cassie-passion "We, oh people of Richmond, we are dancers!"  we got into the zone .... deep into the zone (not that we ever really need that much encouragement, let's be honest) and that's it we were off! 

The studio mirrors (so artistically playing the character of 'unidentifiable man of dreams'  that a Tony Award is almost certainly on its way) never knew what was coming for them - faced with all that lycra and all that drama they never stood a chance, I'd almost feel bad if it wasn't so much fun! 

This all building to the Pikachu moment with full on fierceness flying in all directions - and given some of the moves I'm very glad it was only fierceness flying believe me (I'm not sure loss of limb is covered in the insurance policy)! 

Everyone was going full out to convince ..... someone  ..... that they deserved .... something. A time for the word 'werk' to be banded about freely if there ever was one. 

In short it all became simultaneously totes emosh and totes amaze and, just like in a Disney movie, a happy ever after was reached .... with @MlleGinger and @KleioBows showing us how it's done (see in the video below). 

The concern is, of course, that when we leave the studio we forget to leave the zone that we enter whilst in it ... call it method waacking if you will. This can be potentially problematic out in the real (and very much more boring world) where I, for example, am constantly told in appraisals at work to be more assertive and immediately want to respond by entering all meetings in full on floor ownership mode.

This wouldn't have been such a problem last week but now it includes actually hitting the floor, something which is very hard to do in a pencil skirt and heels. 

At least it is for those of us with only elementary level skills in floor ownership, like myself. For experts like @MlleGinger and co. it would be a piece of cake I'm sure. Therefore, the solution to the problem must be to up my skill level. How to do this I wonder .................

........ no idea, I'll just have to keep thinking I guess (or get the name of a good doctor ;D ). 

Ah ha! I've got it: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT so come on Ginge, when's the next one?!!?!?!?!?!?! 

Until it occurs, enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WiFh93Fiys

Werk IT!

Ok so our role as professional 'cheerers' is one that is very well established and (if I do say so myself) we're pretty damn good at it.....but what happens when we're the ones on the stage and not the ones screaming in the audience?!?!?!

Well on Saturday 20th April, we decided to find out.

Over a series of four rehearsals we put together an ab-fab set choreographed by @Kleiobows to a rather eclectic soundtrack that reflected our rather erratic natures with the aim of performing at the annual RichDance festival, this year being held in Hampton School. 

What did we learn from this experience? 

For one that none of us were born with an internal compass. In fact pretty much every single one of us has an absolutely dreadful sense of direction. Indeed the number of times we had to run through the 'traffic' report so we could all get from A to B without taking anyone out made me seriously question my resolve to get behind the wheel of a car - seriously if collisions are that dangerous on two feet why on earth would you risk getting in one on four wheels!!!! 

Having said this, public transport became rather equally dangerous during this rehearsal period as, given its short length, we all took to squeezing in a little bit of extra practice whenever we could. This meant utilising every bit of dead time available. Thus the most common rehearsal space became the incredibly acclaimed Bus Stop .... except for in the case of @CaitlinLock who decided instead to thrill/terrify her canine friends instead*.

It paid off though because by the time it came to show day we WERE READY! 

Arriving at the school bright and early in the glorious sunshine, showing off our gloriously multi-coloured trousers, we hit the stage for the tech run and then just kept on running (not least because running across the stage in the first black out induced a certain amount of groping). 

Sure there were some pre-show jitters ..... let me tell you it's a very good job that Hampton School has good plumbing facilities otherwise it could have been in some serious trouble .... or we could have been  - whatever, it would certainly not have been pretty - but ...

....luckily these nerves melted away once we got out there for the real thing, largely due to some very loud and supportive audience members in the form of @Mlleginger, @KatymillsLondon, @Hailstonehoop and @KleioBows. They were there telling us to WERK from beginning to end. This may have been much to the disgruntlement of the rest of the very much more sedate congregation in the auditorium, but who cares? - sure made me smile. 

And......what was the outcome you ask?

We all came off in one piece (or largely in one piece, a few of our b-girls were definitely missing some skin on their kneecaps) and on a rather massive high as we celebrated the lack of any major disARSters - whoop whoop!

A celebration was definitely called for, luckily the sun-dappled banks of the River Thames provided the perfect location for this. Here we could be free to upstage the street performers (really not hard when you try and sing 'Proud Mary' as a ballad) with @Katymillslondon and @MlleGinger's rendition of: "contemporary in three moves," and let out all the hyperness in peace .... that is until we tried to go in to eat and they decided that my lack of ID meant ACCESS DENIED, luckily the Ginger ninja was there to save the day (yay) ... quiet we may not have been but I'd take being FIERCE over being a push over any day. 

To conclude: 

WELL DONE GANG WE SMASHED IT! 

*No animals were harmed in the Dance Station RichDance production* 

Waack Date: Bringing Social Dance Back

Recently, for various reasons, Spiderman and Love have been some of the main themes organising my thoughts (and those at the studio as well). At first you would be forgiven for arguing that these two seem completely disconnected especially since, given my schizophrenic lifestyle, I am sometimes wont to going off on tangents, BUT if you dig a little deeper the two can be clearly linked by using THE Spiderman quote “with great power comes great responsibility.......’

Still confused? Allow me to elaborate: 

Love, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful emotions and with it comes the responsibility to promote, share, support and protect the thing that you love. 

For us at Dance Station, that thing is dance as a whole, more specifically the ‘dance scene’ and most specifically (no surprises here) waacking.

It’s important to all of us that the heritage (i.e. the foundations of the individual styles and the fact that all these forms weren’t born in the studio, they were born in the club) of waacking, and other forms of ‘street dance’, is conserved  but not preserved. 

The difference being that preservation is what’s done when we want to keep something in its exact original state, like the Egyptians were trying to do when they created mummies, whilst conservation is what’s done when we want to maintain the essence of something but allow it to change in a natural way. 

In other far less flowery words, us lovers of waacking, (and lovers of other street dance styles), never want it to lose its foundations but also don’t want it to stagnate and stay the same but to grow, develop and EVOLVE. 

One way of doing this is to bring new people in; people with a love and appreciation of all these styles whether watching or performing people, with fresh insight and fresh ideas yet a shared understanding of where a style has been and where it’s going. 

But the question is how to do this?

In a way that is probably very indicative of the differences in the way our minds think, I spent an inordinate amount of time devising an algebraic formula that describes how and @MlleGinger created the one and only event: WAACK DATE - an event that simultaneously conserves the heritage of street styles by bringing the social element back and supports their growth by  allowing dancers of different styles to interact with each other in a completely unique way: 

By pairing one waacker with a ‘date’ of a different style and pitting the couples against each other in a fight to the finish, waack date allows waacking to reach a far wider audience than it has in the past and allows dancers, through observation and training and the creation of KICK-ASS combos, to expand their vocabulary and, consequently, take their styles up a gear. 

It really is a battle event like NO OTHER, one that feels fundamentally different in its energy and atmosphere, and the fourth date was on a whole different planet to waack date the 3rd with Anna Ninja and Sofiabulous appearing as guest battlers. 

Whilst there is still the hunger for the win on the floor, there is also an electric atmosphere where it is clear that all the people (and believe me there were A LOT of people with the doors closing just under an hour after opening!) in the building are absolutely LIVING their lives either performing or spectating. It being obvious that by not just bringing back, but celebrating, the social aspect of all these styles @MlleGinger’s event puts the fun and the sheer HYPE back into the battle ground. 

The energy that this creates makes all the spectators, even those who might not normally come to underground battle events, feel welcome and part of something HUGE and makes those on the floor feed off each other in such a way that it liberates and makes it feel, not only ok, but really great to try something new - a feeling that yours truly definitely enjoyed and proved to be a MAJORLY successful formula for Dance Station’s own @KleioBows who, along with her fellow musical-theatre-technical-breh partner Dharms absolutely killed it and went on to win the whole thing (snap, snap, snap)!! Throwing themselves all over the place in ways that I have never seen before and clearly having the absolute time of their lives - even when facing the fiercely formidable Anna and Sofia (who had taken out all the competition so far by being OFF THE CHARTS SICK) in the final

You can see how all of this WENT DOWN in the videos on @MlleGingers YouTube account (see below - and pay particular attention to my highlights: 1. Kleio and Dharms vs. Shyno and Bagsy - especially Kleio's round kicks - 2. Anna Ninja and Sofiabulous' first round of the night in their battle against Miss Eleanor and Kieran, 3. The 'split' combo by Kleio and Dharms and Kleio's knee drop in final) and, by listening to the crowd, you can get a sense of how hype it was in there. 

What you can’t get is even one tenth of what it feels like to be there, to be part of it, to scream and shout until you’re hoarse and to jump up and (if you are as diplodocus-ified as I am) fling your hands about until you knock beer all over the people sitting next to you (much to their annoyance) because there is simply no other way of expressing how psyched you are feeling when you see some of the stuff hitting the floor, and to come away feeling (especially if you are getting a lift home with the WINNER) as if you are high on life. 

To put it mildly, you walk out feeling like Eliza Doolittle i.e. as though you could have danced all night and still have begged for more. No. To get any of this you will just have to come to the fifth one - it’s going to be MASSIVE do not miss out!!!! 

Long live waacking, long live battling, long live @MlleGinger, @NickyShort, DJHooch, @The_TDA (the team) and LONG LIVE WAACK DATE! 

http://www.youtube.com/user/mademoiselleginger?feature=watch

The mind is a dangerous place

Raggatone is a pretty dangerous class to be in on any given day. I mean you have to control all your limbs at once in a very co-ordinated fashion, and try to avoid smashing the mirror with your reflection - nobody wants 7 years of bad luck after all. 

There is a safe haven however, it's called the mind. 

In your mind you can retreat to your happy place (the dinosaur bit in the Natural History Museum of course) and let your body just get on with it - I mean in my case it does its own thing all the time anyway irrespective of my very specific instructions so in energy conservation terms it makes sense to let it have a greater degree of autonomy during this one hour of the week. 

As a general rule this coping strategy works pretty damn well. This is evidenced by the fact that I have yet to be rendered blind by the sight of any of my ill-fated attempts to be sexy - a very clear indication of the ability of the brain to retreat and protect itself when faced with extremely traumatic sights. 

However, this week a couple of conspirators collaborated to remove even this option. They are called my ears and the brain of @Trixiecantswim. That brain is really like Wonderland - some of the things that you come across, just like Alice does, are truly brilliant but others are really truly terrifying. 

Unfortunately on Thursday the images it was conjuring were not entirely conducive to a trauma-free Ragga-sesh.  And I know that I am not, for once, being melodramatic because even the Ginger one had to struggle to keep hold of the plot before it was completely lost. 

So apologies Sean Paul for what we did to the legacy of your song. We will attempt to redeem ourselves next week - we ate A LOT of cake to aid in this mission (having more to shake can't hurt after all).

This is craaaazy!

On Thursday night, amidst the drills and the drama we took a little experimental detour into commercial inspired waacking territory, werking it out to Carly Rae Jepson's 'Call me maybe.' 

The result is that, as if we didn't already know it, we are now guaranteed to always be the fiercest girls in the club. So if you're out part-ay-ing with us, and trying to vie for all the attention, or trying to take us on at .. say Waack Date ... you better watch it - and here's why:  

We threw a waack in the air,
Don't ask why, we'll never care 
You looked to us with our flare, 
And now you're on our way. 

Waacking to pop's not a sin,
Footwerk and arms for the win, 
We don't care if you're thin.
Cos you're not in our way. 

Fierce pose we are holdin',
Disco pants, shoes we're showin'
Hot right? Moves we're throwin'
Where you think you're going, baby? 

Hey, we just met you, 
And this is a call-out,
But here's the tra-ack,
So go on, Wa-ack. 

It's hard to look right,
At your outfit, 
But here's my ro-ound,
So follow th-at. 

Hey, we just met you, 
And this is a call-out, 
But here's the tra-ack,
So go on, Wa-ack. 

And all the other girls,
Try to haze me, 
But here's my title, 
So follow th-at.

In other words, we're pretty damn feisty down at DS - must be all the Ginger spice, and we are in TRAINING so if you want to get as fierce as us you better come down to the studio soon. 

The Incredi-belles

When you watch professional ballerinas on stage, especially when you're little, it is easy to get the impression that they can really fly. 

Then you start going to class yourself and realise that it just ain't that easy! There's all this technique stuff you've got to be able to do first - and don't even get me started on how much pointe shoes hurt - those ethereal beings up there in their pretty costumes don't let you see that bit  (that's sort of the point). 

This can sometimes result in a bit of an anticlimax, when you get into the studio and spend more time moving like an elephant in need of a hip-replacement than a fairy landing on a tree as @MlleGinger would prefer. 

However, at dance station there is a solution for everything. Yes part of the solution is to work hard, keep coming to class, and listen to your corrections blah blah blah ..... but there is also Glimmer Girl! 

Who is this mythical mistress I speak of you ask? 

I cannot reveal her secret identify because ... well then it wouldn't be a secret any more would it?!?!? 

What I can tell you about her though is that her sparkly pants  leave magic dust in the air that, like Tinkerbell's fairy dust, makes it possible to FLY! The proof of this was when on Thursday night we were all allegro-ing like the pros (ish) and gliding seamlessly from one end of the studio to the next (ish). 

So if you see anyone flying past you who looks like the person in the photo below on the left, make sure you quickly think happy ballet thoughts and guarantee the ENB will be calling you within the next half an hour. 

The Birthday Waack

One friend of DS who definitely knows that life is always better when you know how to werk it, is @EleanorOfficial and Monday, being her birthday, she decided to come and share some of her fierceness and freshness with us. This proves two things (prove being used loosely of course as in the real scientific method nothing can ever be officially proven):

1. DS is clearly THE place to be all the time
2. We never turn down the chance to waack, especially when in training for Waack Date the 4th and @EleanorOfficial always brings something new (even if it's impossible, it's new). 

Starting with a quick funky warm-up we got right into it unpicking four types of footwork (must resist the urge to substitute werk for every use of the word work ... so difficult .... is becoming a Pavlovian response):

1. Digs
2. Step and Cross
3. Shimmy
4. Elvis Presley

Breaking the foundations down this way helped us figure out how to get from A to B in a freestyle whilst still looking fabulous and without falling over (we hope, at the very least 85% of the time). The problem is, that Elvis is also known as 'Elvis Pelvis' and so once again those of us who struggle to identify the exact location of our hips (seriously I am starting a petition to get it included in the lyrics of heads, shoulders, knees and toes before it becomes a national crisis) were a little challenged - but perhaps not as challenged as we were by the step and cross also known as the step and i-can't-work-out-which-foot-i'm-supposed-to-be-on-stumble. Never mind @EleanorOfficial's birthday-fuelled energy at least made it compelling to keep trying and we were soon digging and stepping and shimmying down the studio in a way DS only can. 

Following this, just to add to further confusion on the order of anatomy proposed by the song heads, shoulders, knees and toes, we went from feet to arms. 

It's always great to get inspiration from other waackers/teachers for new arm combinations as, especially when your limbs do what you want them to as infrequently as mine do, it is easy to become repetitive. @MissEleanor did not disappoint, bringing some FRESH new combos to the floor.

 The ability to carry them off whilst looking as if it's as easy as walking must, however, rely on the automated-neuron pathway as you certainly fry your brain (or at the very least in the words of Caitlin 'do yourself a mischief' by punching yourself repeatedly in the head (unintentionally), slapping yourself on the thigh (intentionally) or poking your eye out (unintentionally @Katymillslondon)) in the process of trying to master them. Not that this means you can't be fierce when throwing your arms around your head in multiple different directions whilst your feet do something entirely different, as @EleanorOfficial demonstrated, it just means that you look confierced (see DS Dictionary credit @Trixiecantswim) all the time. 

This all combined to mean that by the end of class we felt challenged fo sho but that the eventual outcomes were obtainable. Shame we thanked her with our abysmal singing - oh well at least there was cake!!! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Who needs a wide vocabulary??

So at school they spend years telling you to read widely so as to develop a wide vocabulary. 

Undoubtedly this has its uses. You can sound intelligent, knowledgeable and well-read. All things that will get you far in life. 

However, in the DS studio you really don't need to be a particularly loquacious being ( ;D ), you only need to know one word: WERK! 

If you pretend that you have a very mild case of tourettes and that your only ticks are to: 1. occasionally (or actually pretty frequently) shout out the word werk; 2. wag your finger from side to side, then you will be pretty much set. 

In other words, you better WERK. 

Valentine is WAACK: an epic evening

The legacy of Walt Disney is wonderful in many ways. The music in the films we love to watch when we're little (and maybe sometimes when we're not so little) for one thing, is GREAT - obviously why we didn't get excited by the Disney playlist in valentines ballet at all. However, it also has A LOT to answer for. 

In the films:

1. Boy meets girl

2. They sing a song

3. Something bad happens

4. They sing a song 

5. The problem is resolved

6. They sing a song

7. They get married

8. They sing a song 

9. The film ends 

10. They sing a song 

But the thing is that in reality, life doesn't work out that way because, you know, there's not as much in-tune singing - a great (probably the greatest) majority of the population are in fact tone-deaf and animal singing, if cats are anything to go by, is horrendous. 

So when St. Valentine roles around and Cupid hasn't struck you with his bow, or you don't want to celebrate the holiday for whatever reason, then it must be concluded that valentine is wack. 

To make it pass by quicker, some people bury themselves in their work. 

This is a legitimate coping mechanism but it isn't really DS style, instead we have @MlleGinger to fall back on. 

With a little bit of help from: the Ginger one, Gloria (Gaynor that is) and some FABULOUS 80s fashion, we chose to bury ourselves in our werk instead. 

By employing this strategy, Valentine got a lot more FIERCE and went from being wack to WAACK. 

This is obviously an attitude that is a lot more satisfactory and a lot less damsel-in-distress (which quite frankly is so 14th century (when heels were only beginning to make their first appearance and there were definitely no stilettos in sight). 

Getting into character, because you really wouldn't expect anything else from us lot, our 'oh hell no' fierce-faces reflected the fact that us DS girls are a force to be reckoned with and NOBODY: no man, no woman, no thing (living or dead) should forget that- because if they do, we will choose to show them the music and make it abundantly clear that they should: "walk out the door" because they are most certainly "NOT WANTED ANYMORE!"

Thus by banging out some FRESH choreography in this fashion we went from sappy to sassy in one verse and one chorus, proving that we will most certainly not 'fall down and die' due to a lack of suitable dating candidates being available on the market (seriously scientists get a move on designer babies have been around for a while when you going to go up a gear?!?!?!) because when you have dance, drama, disco and the absolute best friends around, then who needs dinner and a movie - we even had a rose to show for the evening thanks to the gorgeous @LolaLola_B's secret admirer. 

Such was the high that this fierceness created that even the prospect of Raggatone was a lot less daunting than normal.

In fact a feeling of (almost) eagerness fell over me and was, for once, not rescinded as soon as class begun due to the return of ANTENNA - and a super-extended definitelychoreographed100percentvertically version at that!

This routine is great because the cheese factor is so large that when melted from the heat in the studio it covers the parts of the combination when we're close to the floor and I start looking like a frog that's just been hit by a car and can no longer (poor thing) work out how its legs are supposed to work in a coordinated fashion.

As a result we all left the studio buoyed up and feeling like true survivors - something that proved to be extremely beneficial at Throwdown where the highly romantic, 'totes emosh' Krumpers threatened to take out @MlleGinger, @CarleeBanks and @MissEleanorOfficial in their bid to be crowned last ever krumping champion - the chants of VALENTINE IS WAACK should be heard loud and clear(until next year when it won't be on a Thursday)as you accept the fact, embrace it and look out for the footage coming soon. 

And just for good measure: 

A fine line

It's no secret that us Dancer-Stationers are hard-core Raggatonians.

It's also no secret that I'm a different type of onian and have a love-hate relationship with Raggatone. 

The last couple of weeks it has been really balancing hard on that line due to the amount of isolating ability needed to do this combo with any form of competency. 

Watching those who paid attention in nursery when singing heads-shoulders-knees-and-toes and consequently know where all the individual parts of their musculoskeletal system are located, I came to the conclusion that it was one of my favourite combinations - @katymillslondon in particular was killing it - only helped in part by the fact that it was set to one of my favourite songs: 'If it's loving that you want' by Rihanna. 

However, others of us spent too much time trying to stay inside the lines in nursery and never really learned those other things. For those of us in this second camp, the reflection was not quite so flattering. 

Indeed, my pelvis is beginning to develop a persecution complex....only problem being, persecution complexes are generally completely unfounded in reality, and the reprimands that my pelvis gets from @MlleGinger etc. are, unfortunately, not exactly unfounded. Instead you may as well start calling me number 5 - the robot from the classic 'short circuit,' which comes to life after being hit by lightening- as this really is the only explanation i.e. I cannot locate my muscles or my skeleton as I in fact have neither - only electrical circuits that have gone wrong .... really, really, REALLY wrong - so wrong that the newest member's constant proclamations of 'Whaaaat?!?!?" were extremely appropriate.

The thing is that I can't stay mad at Raggatone forever, because the therapy I have received courtesy of RARC has helped me realise that  Rihanna really is very wise, and when she sings (and I sing along with her to distract from the fact that I look like a fish that's just become entangled in the tentacles of a Portuguese Man O' War) "I'll be your friend, I can be your homey" it is a highly accurate description of Dance Station. 

This is because, in a recent interview I was asked to convince a group of complete non-dancers to go take class at the weekend in 30 seconds.  I waffled on about it being fun, good for confidence and fitness....all of which is 100% true of course .... but what I should have said was: for friendship. There's no way I would willingly spend an hour every week making myself look WAY more awkward than enticing (and admittedly quietly loving it),  if it wasn't for the other people in the room.  

So whilst it may be that we are the supposed 'lost generation' as the media likes to call us, or it may be that we're not lost at all - we're simply in different spaces than we were before, having to fight a bit harder, but very much still here because we have each other to rely on.

So come to class, get yourself in shape so your legs will hold you up better, whilst at the same time finding some people who will catch you when the Reese's temptation becomes just a bit too much and you just have to give in! 

(P.S. how FIERCE is this video!?!?!)

Creepy Clowns

Ok so it might be the opinion of some that all clowns are creepy, Coulrophobia after all is rather common. 

In the context of Waacking, I will argue that there is a sliding scale of creepiness and a room full of people chanting (rather breathily at that) "ha. ha. ha. ha. haa haa" to keep in time with the music, does not a sexy dancer make, as Prince and @MlleGinger with her creative combination skills intended,  but rather a creepy sounding clown. 

Thankfully the track, "sexy dancer", itself is sick, in the cool sense, not the eww sense, so with the volume turned up and the focus on the limbs of the Waackers in the room, not their vocal chords, the effect of the combination was dramatically fierce rather than dramatically terrifying.    

Despite the trials and tribulations it had to overcome, the combination was a great one, incorporating all major aspects of waacking (arms, footwork, posing etc.) in one - like one great big 'dentistsworstnightmare' bag of pick and mix. This is something that is key to any freestyle and thus something that should be practiced....especially if you're like me and rather dyspraxic fantastic. 

This is because, if you are, as soon as you try and think of multiple parts of the body moving at speed simultaneously in ways that are not necessarily related to one another, the result is likely (100% likely in the example of me on Thursday night) to be a near-gauging incident where a two-armed reversed waack-attack very nearly became rather more gruesome than it was ever intended to be!!!

I guess that's why we evolved to have two eyes, not so that they could work together and create an averaged balanced image that helps with all sorts of useful things like depth-perception, but so you have a spare ... just in case waack happens.

http://www.myspace.com/prince/music/songs/sexy-dancer-39287574

(from around 1.30)

Just keep spinning, just keep spinning ....

So it turns out that Dory the fish was very wise, although she may have advised us to 'just keep swimming" in the pursuit of Nemo, her logic can be extrapolated and applied to ballet where we must keep spinning in the pursuit of the perfect pirouette. 

Even if I'm not convinced that this exists. 

This was certainly the case on Thursday with the return of the pirouette song: "Try Again" by Aliyah - always good for motivation! 

It might be something that at first seems like an insurmountable task, but with @MlleGinger on your side, it somehow becomes possible to do a complete 360 degree turn and not fall flat on your face (at least not every single time) 

It is, however, best to do this before you've attempted a grande battement exercise at the barre. This is because this exercise carries a particularly high risk of ballet-bullying by the Ginger one. This is a kind of necessary evil where your legs get put back in their place after slacking. The results of this are twofold:

1. An exponential increase in technique 
2. An exponential decrease in being able to stand, much less pirouette. 

You have been warned! 

Zumbalicious

The thing about Zumba, is that it is supposed to be easy to follow. You're not really intended to have to think too much. 

The problem is that this doesn't factor in the fact that at DS we specialise in not being able to tell directions. So if @KleioBows goes left, we'll go right and so on. Occasionally this works, because it adds in an extra bit of shimmy, but at other times it can kind of just make us look a little bit nutty, even more so than usual that is. 

And there you were thinking that wasn't possible!!!!!!!

It's almost like freestyle Zumba really. We start with changing the directions, and then when you get really advanced (like @trixiecantswim for example) you can start changing the order of the movements ... and maybe sometimes even the moves themselves. 

Darling it's better, down where it's wetter ...

.... take it from me, sometimes when you are free-styling it helps to have a story to inspire your moves. 

In general this is really good advice and it can lead to some of the most inspired free-styles. However, the problem is that at Dance Station, we have a tendency to take this concept a little bit too literally. This doesn't just apply in waacking or hip hop either (although 'thrift shopping' inspiration apparently equates to walking around the studio with a shopping trolley), but also Jazz apparently.   

The problems that this can cause were illustrated on Sunday when we were supposed to be free styling during the introduction to Rihanna and decided that the most appropriate way to represent the music was to pretend to be under the Sea and move around as Seaweed and crabs ..... as you do ... much to the despair of @KleioBows. 

If you've never free-styled like seaweed before, it involves a lot of swaying, and walking like a crab is exactly that, with an apparently obligatory french accent ..... I don't know why that's just the rules!!! 

Juste Debout

Sunday was the UK qualifiers for Juste Debout aka "the BIGGEST battle for standing styles," featuring top rock and 2 on 2: locking, popping, house and hip hop, and @DanceStationTW9 was there to witness and support. So we can testify that it definitely lived up to its title. 

Starting big the day kicked off with the top-rock prelims, which had more than 80 entrants, and then moved onto the locking prelims. This is where it started heating up for Dance Station with Xena, @MissEleanorOfficial and @Brookeplague to support. The action was funky fierce from all of them and @MissEleanorOfficial werked it for her first ever locking prelim, bringing some fresh style to the floor, but @Brookeplague with partner T-Wild were the ones to go onwards and upwards. 

Following this were the popping prelims, which were absolutely dominated by members of Fiyah House crew. @Brookeplague and partner Dickson were one classy act going through to the quarter-finals styling out the shirt and hat look. However, they did have some competition in the style stakes (;D) by a pair throwing out the daddy-daughter wedding dance tradition by entering as a father-son duo in some very fetching matching outfits that led @MlleGinger to claim that they were relations of mine (though obviously they weren't cool enough). 

The battles themselves were hype with each new round bringing at least one thing to elicit a response from the very excited crowd. This was a reflection of the inspiring standard of the competition as a whole, leading to some fabulous final action. Highlights have got to have been:

Hip Hop: Audience participation with the spectators acting as an impromptu safety net 
Popping: Best popping final I've ever seen - an all firehouse cracker - largely due to the musicality and originality being demonstrated by the fabulous four. The Fiyah House chants were definitely deserved.
House: 'The Roses' composed of two brothers including the absolute sickest kid, great to see the next generation coming up, ensures the progression of the scene we love and that's great! 

All of these factors led to hours of us hovering on the edges of our seats - in fact @MlleGinger was so dazzled she just had to put her sunglasses on inside, not that we're divalicious or anything at all. Major props have to go to all the dancers, even if the hardest worker of the whole day was @KleioBow's Shazzam app thanks to DJ DBO. 

The evening ended with us performing our own version of the clown car trick, with five of us squishing into the Kleio Mobile in order to get to Madame Jojos for the after party and bust some moves after being inspired all day. 

Final thoughts: YES UK!! 

What day of the week is it?

Last week we did a bit of a switcheroo in the studio with @MlleGinger teaching the Tuesday marathon and @KleioBows taking over Thursday madness for one week only. 

This meant two things:
1. People were temporarily very confused when walking in through the door - It's understandable, Tuesday and Thursday are similar enough as it is without turning things around to make one seem like the other, shame that April Fools is a Monday otherwise this would have been a good trick. 
2. Old Style Thursday night hip hop made a temporary triumphant return!

This second result of the freaky friday incident (now I'm just messing with your heads) was that for an hour we bounced, partied, moved around like a running man and isolated our necks like a chicken until we got whiplash - just like the good old days and I mean that seriously,  I mean I didn't have to found HARC  (the hip hop aftermath rehabilitation clinic). 

Absolute highlight though has got to be the bringing back of the GANGSTA WALK! Testament to this statement being the look on the face of @Trixiecantswim when she realised it was coming, like a five year old who was having a christmas-birthday-junkfood-weekend mash-up. I think the only way to explain the collective reaction in the studio is to liken it to Phoebe running in friends. She argues that the only way to make running fun is to run like you did when you were a kid, so for those of us (not naming any names) who are queen of the # arewenearlythereyet? whine when on foot, the only way to make it fun is to embrace your inner gangsta and style it out. 

With this in mind, I would, on behalf of the studio,  like to take this opportunity to apologise to all those pedestrians going about their lives in Richmond who will either be massively delayed by getting stuck behind an American Gangsta lope, or bowled over by an English rude boy offensive. If you can't accept this apology then all I have left to say is: if you can't beat them, join them. 

Hip Hop for the recession

You can't open a newspaper, or look online without seeing a reference to the recession. It's all doom and gloom all the time, which when combined with this miserable weather can make for a rather depressing mix. 

So what's the solution? 

Bring the recession into the studio and turn that frown upside down of course! 

Yes I know that sounds mad, but it is completely one hundred percent possible thanks to 'Thrift Shop' by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. 

Take this tune, some funky moves, a freestyle based on charity-shop shopping, and for an hour having only 'twenty dollars in your pocket' makes you the coolest person in the room. 

It's a pretty sure-fire way to cheer you up AND if that wasn't enough it reminds you that if you don't got it then all you gotta do is fake it till you make it. In other words you can choose to ACT FIERCE, even if you feel timid, and soon enough those around you will start to agree.

Move over Maria ...

... Maria Von Trapp that is. 

Raggatone is always chocka-block full of treats, I mean RARC (the raggatone aftermath rehabilitation clinic) wasn't founded without a cause, but this week there was an extra sprinkling of spice with random outbursts of song peppering the the evening. 

I blame the trigger-happy reaction to the cheese of Azonto.

The combination has got to be, hands down, the best one yet. And that's not just because I can do it without looking like a cartoon cat who just got its tail stuck in a plug socket and got the consequential shock of its life. No joke. That was only a contributing factor. 

It had, in reality, more to do with the fun-enhancing bounciness, which, when combined with @mlleginger's imaginative (not at all based on reality ;D) image-painiting skills, produce a hype that is like no other. 

In fact so great was the combo, I know we were all mourning its premature demise by the end of class (grief counselling will be made available and an address to which flowers can be sent can be requested via the "ask Carlee" button). 

However, the fact that there are 3 interim Thursdays between now and Valentines day (which has got all sorts of plans of its own) might mean that it will be possible to perform a miracle and resurrect this bad boy for one last outing at least. 

Obviously this needs to happen because if it fails, the only other option will be to go and do a Raggatone antenna flash mob in Richmond Station - and whilst my dangerous hip movements might entertain @LolaLola_B and @DelphiRose97 to no end, they are NOT something that should be inflicted on the general public under any circumstances.  

JINX

Ok so I know we spend a lot of time together in the studio but we don't actually live there (probably just because there are no beds ....) and so it really isn't an inordinate amount of time. 

At least that is what I believed until waacking on Thursday, when in the space of one hour, there were at least four counts of saying or doing things at the same time (of course this could just be because we're all way too predictable). 

Obviously this was too bizarre for @mlleginger and so the only way to deal with it .... a FIERCE FACE OFF of course!! 

So we learned a quick combo, turned to face each other and tried to fierce each other out. 

This had some rather interesting consequences with @katymillslondon and @Carleebanks going up against each other, which produced a lot of pointing and dramatics but nothing compared to @mlleginger vs. @trixiecantswim. That got dangerous with a serious amount of ducking and diving going on. Gotta be a good thing though as a certain Ginger person came very close to having a nose that matched her hair!!!

However, had this happened, it would have been painful - but perhaps not as much as it would in a stone cold sober situation. 

You see, during Thursday night madness the laughter can reach such a volume it is almost louder than the music and whilst, at first glance, you might think this a completely irrelevant thing to point out, you'd be wrong:

Dr. Bellace, author of "A better high" explains that when you find something funny, the reward centre in your brain is activated (the same part of the brain that is activated by drug/alcohol-induced highs), making it release dopamine and inducing a sense of euphoria. This makes you want to continue with that behaviour and, so if you do, your brain rewards you with:

1. Improved immune functioning

2. Stress relief

3. Increased tolerance for pain

4. Improved cardiovascular health

5. Reduced anxiety 

6. Improved mood. 

Now if that's not a convincing argument to come and join class, I don't know what is!!