Hyperreal

Oooohh!!!! I’m going to be on telly!!!!

Was at the GUU for the first time in a few weeks, and there for the beginning of the class too, which I don’t think I’ve done for a couple of months – felt I needed to get the whole experience today for some reason…

At the door there’s a notice… The BBC are filming for a documentary and entering implies permission to be filmed. Yikes!

From what I’ve learnt they were there filming a mother and daughter as part of a future series of Honey, We’re Killing the Kids. From what I know of the current series it’s primarily about families with young kids, but in this case the daughter must have been in her late teens, I’d guess…

So they were talking part in the beginner’s class and first freestyle… During the class the teacher arranged for them to stay put at the front so that the cameras could stay close to them whilst also getting shots of the teacher and the rest of the class.

I foolishly had stood next to them at the start and so must have been filmed lots. I’m so glad I didn’t ask one of them to partner with me or else I’d really be a TV star… Feel sorry for the poor guy who did… A taxi dancer was the other victim. Half way through the class though, we switched to guys moving round with spare girls scattered… This meant we all got a chance to dance with the stars of the programme and be on TV.

That was a bit nerve-wracking! Managed to fluff a few of the moves, but I don’t think I did too bad… Was a bit concerned by the presence of a microphone on the daughter, but I wasn’t struck dumb by it…

During the first freestyle the lights were kept up to allow filming to continue while the victims got to dance with a few people. I think I managed to stay out of the way of the camera for that though, and enjoyed several lovely dances.

After the freestyle the TV stars and cameras left us alone, letting us relax finally.

I’ve no idea when it’s on, but I’m not sure I’m looking forward to it… I hated seeing myself dance on a video taken at the Musselburgh competition, and I was way in the distance for that. Who knows how much of me will be on national telly… In fact, they’ll no doubt sell it abroad, so it’ll be international.

As a result of the filming the announcements and introduction of the taxi dancers was missed which might be why the only other first-time dancer ended up in the intermediate class… She had done some dancing before, but both her, and maybe one other girl I though would have been better at the revision class.

It was quite a complex routine, though really rather nice…

• Man-spin into figure of eight push spin… Starts like a man-spin but when you put the girl’s arm to your waist, switch it into your RH, then instead of finishing the move turn CW to face taking your RH out towards the left (it’s a bit of a boing moment!) Straight into a figure of 8, turning the girl ACW and yourself CW and as you come round try to get some tension through the R-R hold as you then push spin the girl CW, catch L and return into double-handed.
• Wurlitzer into … first move. Standard Wurlitzer, but as the girl comes back towards you in your RHS, scoop round her CW to bring her straight into a first move “in” position…
• Open first move block. From the “in” position open out into an open first move and instead of coming straight back in, step forward taking the girl’s LH with your LH, and then step her out blocking her after her first step with the L-L hold. Turn her ACW, stepping back into another “boing” where you’re side-on to each other, facing in opposite directions.
• Left-handed archie into flamenco… The archie is a always a tricky lead… Lead the girl back towards the front of you but as she comes in sweep your hand down, round and over, turning back-to-back, shoulder to shoulder. Follow this by a travelling return, but grab the girl on the way through to go into a flamenco position.
• Flamenco into open first move… From the flamenco position, you don’t need to maintain the L-L hold as you step around for a few counts – I think it was meant to be two for this routine. As you step around you should notice that you are in the first-move “in” position, just without the L-R hold… So, lead her into another first move open position, but this time on the step out lead her to turn CW before going L-R for a return ready for the man-spin…

So, how did I get on with this lot… Well not too bad actually… Although it looked and probably sounds very complicated, it wasn’t so difficult. I had one or two problems leading the push spin, though most ladies helped me there! I think an extra moment to draw the lady over a bit ACW to ready her for the CW spin helped me, but it’s hard then to fit it in to the timing.

During the archie the teacher got down off the stage to show the move to the class with me – not sure why… Anyway, she said I had an excellent lead, so I was well chuffed by that. (Later when we were dancing the routine through a few times she also said “good turns” to me, though I’m not entirely sure what part of the routine she was referring to.)

I found it a bit tricky to lead into the first move from the flamenco, but that may not have entirely been my fault as sometimes the girl anticipated the exit before I was ready to lead it. Other times it was just because I wasn’t sure how it should be done. But it mostly worked.

The only move I tried during freestyle was the L-L archie, which didn’t work so well… I think I might have tried it four or five times, and I think it only really worked once. I would guess part of the problem is that the girl is already in a “what’s going on” state of mind by being led with her left hand, that the lead through the move could easily get lost. I’d like to practice this more though.

I’d also like to do that man-spin variant… I guess I did do a few figures of eight that I wouldn’t normally do during freestyle, but I also did a few yesterday – they’re good for the “all. that. jazz.” bit of that song.

Haven’t done a flamenco walk-around for ages, so maybe I should keep them in mind too.

Basically, I’d like to learn all the moves in this routine to some extent, though maybe not exact as we did them.

So how was my dancing? Well why not leave a comment to let me know? The impression I got from my partners was that I was having a great night. I guess because I haven’t been at the GUU much at all of late, some of my favourite dancers there were surprised how much I’d come on in the past month or two. One girl I though looked visibly shocked (in a good way) after dancing with me.

As well as dancing with my “usual suspects”, I asked as many new faces to dance as I could. Some were beginners, there were a few who just hadn’t been much for a while, so were just a little bit rusty… I don’t think I had anything less than a great dance all night. Even my dance with the first-timer who’d danced before went fairly well…

It was obvious from the start she had done some other type of dancing as she had a good spin (the very first move we did was the first move push spin.) I think she was concentrating too much on learning the mechanics of the moves and didn’t ever wait to be led through them as soon as she recognised what she was doing. I guess she’d either not done much partner dancing, or else had been used to leading (or at least not having to wait to be led.) She also put a lot of style into her movement which once she’s confident in the dance will be great, but I think her fancy movements were acting as a distraction to my lead that she needs to concentrate more on.

But like I say, if was fun to dance with her, and I’m looking forward to my next chance to do so again.

Over-all an excellent night.

Oh there was one thing I wanted to say about the music. It was another fine selection by CJ, doing his usual devilish work of playing two tracks with false endings. There was one track though that I was trying to remember the singer’s name… Sitting here though I can’t remember what the song was, just that it was a female singer… Not a distinctive voice, but a rather nice one… Don’t suppose it matters now…

Cheers guys, see you on telly!