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Inventive competition report
?Kay Fairgrieve and Emma Johnson from South East London, were lucky enough to win their first Inventive competition at the ISTD event with the Sedgehill Samba. Veteran winners, Barry Earnshaw and Beverley Murch-Fowkes won the Modern section with Calendar Foxtrot.
It was a splendid day which started with a sparkling Club Dance/Latin lecture by Suzanne Hammond. This audience can sometimes be quite difficult to woo when Latin dancing is being presented, but Suzanne won them over with her enthusiasm. Patiently and clearly, she taught a 3-person Salsa party dance and participants and spectators were enthralled. At the end, she had dancers clapping and flicking to a whole track of ‘The Boy Does Nothing’ by Alesha Dixon. As well as being fun to dance, this contained material which can be used in our social classes. In addition, it is always a bonus to have a 3-person dance to teach.
The Latin Inventive competition contained 11 entries with a mix of Rumbas, Cha Cha Chas and Sambas, plus a Mambo and a Jive. The adjudicators were Jill Bush, Lee Williams, Debbie Wilson, Diana Wykes and Harry Youlton. Sedgehill Samba took shape over the course of a year. It contains figures and shapes Kay Fairgrieve and Emma Johnson like to dance, with some of the combinations worked on with their more advanced pupils. Although some of their previous Inventive dances have got through to the Final, this is their first success and they were delighted when their dance was announced. Everyone got up to learn The Sedgehill and it was enthusiastically received. The chosen music was ‘El Ritmo Hafanana’ by Monkey Circus from the Latin Mix CD (blue, track 4).
When you arrange as many dances as Barry Earnshaw and Beverley Murch-Fowkes do, there has to be a system for choosing a name. They are inspired when arranging the steps by the music (they danced to ‘September In The Rain’ by Dinah Washington) but did not think February Foxtrot was going to give the right impression, so Calendar Foxtrot it became. They both collaborated to create a new dance and were glad to present some more advanced figures for this occasion. As usual from this couple, the Modern dance has an easy flow and was very well received by all the participants. There were 12 entries: Waltzes, Foxtrots and Tangos. Congratulations to both veteran and first time winners.
Kay Fairgrieve reports on the Classical lecture
Following the success of her lecture at the 2009 Inventive dance competition, Karen Byron intended to give us ‘part 2’, showing how she builds on the fundamentals as the pupils become older and more experienced. Unfortunately, the older children were severely delayed by the bad weather so Karen very ably adapted her lecture. Through the dancing of Amelia and Alex and the able assistance of Tyrone Thiara, who volunteered on the day, Karen took us through the teaching and analysis of Classical, Modern and Latin Sequence, using the dances set for the Juveniles at this year’s Blackpool Grand Finals. All Karen’s medallists dance the three Sequence disciplines, as well as Ballroom and Latin, which gives them a broad base of experience.
As last year, the audience was fascinated to see how such young children coped with some quite advanced work, including some very proficient rotary turns. From my own point of view, I was particularly interested to see the way in which (especially for the
Classical work) Karen works so thoroughly and in such detail on developing her pupils’ sense of balance and centering, on every part of every figure. This enables the pupils to achieve good foot action and ankle strength which was ably shown when they danced the Diamond Jubilee Two Step. Karen says she teaches even the very young children at quite an advanced level; they do pick things up gradually even if they are not ready for all the information at once.
The lecture ended with a demonstration of all the dances, now including Elisha and Megan who had battled through the snow to get to us; although it was a shame we didn’t see more of them, it was nice to see their dancing at the end.
Kay Fairgrieve
At the end of a very happy and successful day, Jill Bush, Chairman of the Sequence Faculty, thanked Julie Earnshaw for all the time and effort put in to organise this event in Whitwick, which ran very smoothly.
Next year, the Inventive Dance competition will take place on Sunday 20th February 2011.
Diana Wykes |
