Saturday, April 21, 2012

Clog dance workshop

So today I got up at dawn to travel to Cecil Sharp House in Camden....to go to a workshop.
A photo from the showcase (nope I'm not in the picture)

Now I was hopping between choosing Beginner (waltz) and Improver right up to the last moment. But went for beginner, which I think was the best choice and will prabably do improver next time. Unfortunately my alarm didn't go off - so I didn't have time for breakfast and arrived late but managed to catch up.
Took me a bit of time to get used to the waltz rythum but managed it in the end. Brain did stop working for a while...had to kick it into gear one last time for the showcase...eeeep! I didn't fall over doing the jump clicking heels together as I feared I might. Phew!
I think my legs and feet have now stopped working...it was great fun but ever so tiring.

Video of the last dance...pat tracys A routine(?)

Been working on the waltz at home as you can see been making annotations on the notation.

I'm getting the highlighter pen out next....lol! That'll be same colours for identical sections repeated. Yep I really do need to colourcode steps. Its the way me brain remembers it.

You should see my copy of Brenda Walkers Clog dancing book...I've got doodles and notes all over it. lol! And instructions like LEFT or RIGHT written really big as prompts to get me to start on the correct foot.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Clog & Tap?

Off on a slight tangent...
Totally fallen for this dance sequence...and the music is such an earworm.
Its from a film called 'you never were lovelier' (I went out and bought the DVD...the plots not bad...with some funny dialogue. I actually stumbled upon it trying to look up what the move 'shorty george' was. lol!



At about 1.08 is that a bit like stepping back/over?
I stumbled upon this quote "It is in fact noted that Fred Astaire was taught to dance by a traditional clog dancer." which made me look at Fred Astaire's dancing again.

So wondering a bit about the connection between tap and clog...are the steps quite similar?