Just last weekend, the Branch met at Fermilab to discuss whether or not we wanted to ban all setting steps. ... Either that, or I was at the wrong meeting. Then we had a tasty feast of pastries and fruit before trying out the barn's new floor en masse.
For the Loch Mich class, Noel flew in from Minneapolis, on the heels of a tornado, to make it just in time for dancing. Unfortunately, she planned this week for three couples and we only had two--oops. But we picked out a grab bag of two person dances that we spent a good portion of the evening laughing about. There were a few real gems, but there were also one or two that made our Kiwi contingent grimace and squirm. If you ask me, that is just as good a reason to do funky dances as any.
The wind must have agreed that we should keep dancing--it battered the windows all night. Next week we begin doing the competition dances in earnest. With eight submissions, there are sure to be a few new favorites in the mix. If there are any that can't stand the heat--Hunger Games style--we take no prisoners.
Our teaching moment of the week was to blend warm-ups with proper foot positions to help them become ingrained in dancers' minds. Begin with an extended leg, the heel turned away from the body. Then shift into correct turnout position, with the heel turned in toward the body, as if leading forward from the heel. This both warms up the foot and reinforces good dancing technique.
