Independence Day Ball '07

[NielsenE]

So Ily is being a spoilsport and won't start a thread about the recently completed IDB, so here you go. If you attended, please tell us all about it so us poor souls who were unable to attend can live vicariously through you.

[ACtenDance]

I'm looking forward to reports too!! I was all set to go, but then work made me decide between taking time off for IDB or Nationals... Nationals won. I've seen some interesting pictures already. Any idea if any IDB instructors are still hanging around DC this weekend and not going to Manhattan?

[ChaChaMama]

It was SOOOO awesome!

I just spent an hour typing up my notes just from JIVE (our weakest latin dance, so we went to every workshop we could on this and focused our private lessons on it as well). Have tons of notes from cha-cha, samba, rumba, and a few from paso too, as well as some on arms and hand styling, but those will have to wait until another day.

We took classes with Karina Smirnoff, Jean-Marc Genereux, Victor Kanevsky, Polina Pilipenchuk, Ron Bennett, Jennifer McCalla, and Lydia Petrigova. They were all excellent, thoughtful, thought-provoking, with lots of helpful technique tips, useful visual images, and analogies. If we can incorporate even 30% of what we learned into my dancing, it will make a real difference! There was a lot of great information and coaching.

Other faculty included Victor Fung, Anna Mikhed, Wendi Davies, Dan Calloway, Glenis Dee Creger, Glenn Weiss, Todd Borzych.

There were also a lot of fun events:
-A performance class with Jean-Marc Genereux ending in a formation team performance. Link to the YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVr9x52BH6g

-A Pizza Party with the Pros--
By the way, Wendi Davies brought up DF when talking about the possibility of a post-college, pre-Senior I category! :)

There was also a question about the perennially recurring DF topic of "Should you date your dance partner?" and Victor Kanevsky and Wendi Davies emphatically answered "No!" and some other panelists concurred. Victor K was very funny, saying that while Jean-Marc Genereux's and Victor Fung's successful relationships might seem to indicate to the contrary, for every two relationships that work, there were a thousand, ten thousand that didn't.)

-A Jack and Jill competition including hustle, west coast swing, same-sex rumba, reverse role waltz, and a crazy partner switching multi-dance event.

Everyone was also slated to go to fireworks on the 4th. (I had to leave before that, though.)

It really is a great camp, and I am so glad I had the opportunity to go! I think any syllabus-pre-champ dancer could benefit from it. (There were a few classes where as a silver dancer there were steps I didn't know, but I could kind of fake it and could still benefit from the technique points.)

I highly recommend it!

ChaChaMama

[reb]

this sounds good . . . !

[LucyDiamond]

Oh, ChaChaMama that sounded wonderful. Thanks for the report. I so wanted to go this year. Maybe next year.

[kimV6]

mmm living vicariously through people. excited to hear about it too, since i couldn't even use my gift certificate to IDB because i couldn't get time off my four jobs to go.

[FatBaldGuy60]

mmm living vicariously through people. excited to hear about it too, since i couldn't even use my gift certificate to IDB because i couldn't get time off my four jobs to go.

I don't suppose you sleep much! :(

FBG

[chica latina]

I don't suppose you sleep much! :(

FBG

What's your secret?

[kimV6]

What's your secret?

good scheduling skills. naturally being energetic. and being goal oriented (in this case, needing money to pay for ballroom during the year).

[chica latina]

I had private lessons with Karina and Jean Marc... I really liked them, specially Jean Marc's.

Lydia's group lessons had a lot of great info that could benefit any level dancer. Some of the others were targetting syllabus dancers.

They did a GREAT job, very WELL organized, had a lot of friends there and they all had a blast!!
My only suggestion would be to separate some lessons by levels and my partner thought it could have been nice to give priority for privates to the package holders vs people from outside.

[chachachikka]

it's a secret... only the ones who went are cool enough to know how awesome it was... LOL, just kidding!

OMG, it was amazing. Each coach was unique and offered very important and enlightening things. I learned something from every one of them, and every class I took away something that would really help my dancing.

The social was fun, and the performance was very artistic. The History of Ballroom lectures were great! And I learned a lot. The Fun Dance comp night was really fun. Fun to participate in, and fun to watch. The prizes were signed posters of all the coaches.

It was a blast getting to know each of the coaches. As the days went on, we got to know the coaches better as they got to know us better. They all taught us lots of important dancing things, as well as just really good stories from their experience, and awesome little pep talks to help us remember why we love dancing, and to show us why they love dancing. The lessons were very informational, inspiring, and just everything you could hope for.

The discussion panel was so good, and we got to ask great questions and hear their responses which were very helpful.

The set up was great. The whole event was run very well, and very smoothly.

Only sad thing is I left before the fireworks, and I heard that a bunch of ppl got to go out and have drinks with the pro's and I missed out on that... phooey.

[IlyZislin]

I'm looking forward to reports too!! I was all set to go, but then work made me decide between taking time off for IDB or Nationals... Nationals won. I've seen some interesting pictures already. Any idea if any IDB instructors are still hanging around DC this weekend and not going to Manhattan?

I finally got around to look at this thread (sorry, have been trying to catch up on my real "non-IDB" life).

As for the instructors hanging out in DC instead of going to Manhattan. I don't think any did that. I know that Glenn Weiss was sticking around until 7/5 and then going to Judge. Polina Pilipenchuk started judging on the morning of 7/5 after finishing teaching on 7/4 at IDB, Victor and Anna competed on Sunday at Manhattan (and actually came to the fireworks with the rest of the camp). I think Victor Kanvesky was in attendance at Manhattan as well. Finally, Jean-Marc spent a day with his family, and then off to shoot another episode of "So You THhnk You Can Dance"

[IlyZislin]

mmm living vicariously through people. excited to hear about it too, since i couldn't even use my gift certificate to IDB because i couldn't get time off my four jobs to go.

Sorry you couldn't come Kim :(

[IlyZislin]

I had private lessons with Karina and Jean Marc... I really liked them, specially Jean Marc's.


I am not surprised. JM is a great teacher and we try to bring him back every time!


Lydia's group lessons had a lot of great info that could benefit any level dancer. Some of the others were targetting syllabus dancers.


Our goal was to have all the instructors talk about technique as much as possible - of course, once they start teaching, everything is out of our hands. Some instructors are better at "sticking to the plan" than others :)


They did a GREAT job, very WELL organized, had a lot of friends there and they all had a blast!!


Thank you thank you thank you! It's very rewarding to hear that dancers who came enjoyed it. That makes all the sleepless nights worth it!


My only suggestion would be to separate some lessons by levels and my partner thought it could have been nice to give priority for privates to the package holders vs people from outside.

A quick word on level separation: as much as we are resisting, because we have seen it go badly so many times. We are going to have separation of lessons by level - we just have to come up with a good way to do it by next year. This year we had about 10% of classes labeled as "Advanced" and targeted specifically at Open Level dancers.

As for privates, can you explain what you mean when you say that camp attendees should have priority? Right now we basically book privates for anyone who wants them because we have to keep the instructors busy. As a result I think we sold all but 2 lessons by the end of the camp, and actually ended up asking a few instructors to teach a few more than they agreed (and wanted to). The goal is to have the instructors teach as many privates as they wanted.

[IlyZislin]

And finally, special thank you to all that came to Independence Day Ball this year, all the instructors, staff, and those who did not make it but provided many hours of their time helping with ideas, coming up with interesting class topics, etc

As Joe and I said many times at the camp, we welcome all kinds of feedback and ideas, so please, do not hesitate to let us know either here or via email / phone / IM / etc.

Thank you once again!

[cantskiforlife]

mmm living vicariously through people. excited to hear about it too, since i couldn't even use my gift certificate to IDB because i couldn't get time off my four jobs to go.

You and BM should get together. The two of you are the only 4 jobbers that I know. :)