DanceSport Talk

Hoping to capitalize on the success of Dancing With the Stars, ABC is launching its new show, Dance War, Monday, January 7 (8/7c). The premise of the new show is pitting DWTS judges Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba against each other, each one in charge of choreographing singer/dancers who then compete to be voted America's most talented amateur performers. Personally, I'm not convinced this idea will capture the imagination of the public. While both are well-known choreographers, I find it much more intriguing to see a variety of choreography styles applied in competition, as seen in So You Think You Can Dance, as compared to having everything choreographed by just two people. The idea of combining singing with dancing is questionable in this kind of competition, but certainly adds depth. If the two hosts can maintain some level of maturity through this thing it might be worthwhile. I'll watch the first episode to see if it lives up to the hype.

Everyone in DanceSport knows what a significant role Britain has played in the world of dance. But most dancers probably don't know why, or how that influence played itself out in the timetables of dance history. BBC Television's three-part documentary series Dance Britannia covers that in detail, beginning with the story of a country divided along class lines flirting with the cultural perceptions of ballroom dance as morally dangerous. The series doesn't focus only on ballroom DanceSport, but covers all dance forms including some of the more recent styles like breakdance. Looks like an interesting show, but it will likely never make its way across the pond. There's a link to the trailer on their web site, but unfortunately the video is encoded in RealPlayer format. What's that, you say? A video codec that was popular around the time of the Northern Soul dance scene, so it's no wonder you never heard of it and probably won't be able to view the trailer. Who know - maybe they'll release the series on DVD.

Google Calendar is pretty cool, and makes it possible to bring a unique public calendar of DanceSport competitions to the web. Anyone can publicly discuss event information. Dancers are encouraged to recommend events so that we can see all the competitions in one convenient location. Check out the North American DanceSport competition calendar (shown below, with limited number of entries) or go to the full-sized version.