Mark
Ron writes:
>Certainly a good social outing! But should it be a sport, even an
>Olympic sport?
Joanna writes:
>Once a standard for dancing enters billions of homes across the
>world through mass media (Olympic television coverage) how many people do
>you suppose will be turned off by realizing they have been doing it
>"wrong" all along...
Here's what a former US amateur latin champion and pro latin finalist once
posted on rec.arts.dance:
From: ProDnzr@AOL.COM
Subject: Re: New ISDF Rules (Latin dance music)
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 1995 07:46:54 GMT
...As long as I'm on the box I might as well add my two cents on
the Olympics. I dread the day when ballroom dancing is televised at
the Olympics. When the hundreds of thousands of real latin dancers
see what we are calling latin and hear what we are dancing to there
will be such a collective laughing that I will be embarrassed to be
associated with ballroom dancing. I for one wish the IDSF and WD&DSC
would wake up and revamp the latin format. Drop Jive and add
Mambo/Salsa or real Swing.
Enio
Ruth ann writes:
>I think part of the cache of being an Olympic competition is the
>expectation that it will now be taken "seriously".
Yes, ballroom dancing does have an image problem.
This tongue-in-cheek review of "Come Dancing," a British TV show about
competitive ballroom dancing, appeared on rec.arts.dance last year.
"Seriously" is addressed in the second sentence :-) :-)
From: KKKKatie <Kate@carterce.demon.co.uk>
Come Dancing - I saw it tonight for the first time for ages.
I'd forgotten how seriously deranged it is.
The women all appear to be a well-preserved 45 and turn out to be 17.
They have no buttocks and an unearthly hairstyle of the type worn by
Captain Kirk's ex-girlfriends which involves scraping it all back
into a strange structure resembling the sort of worm casts you see
on beaches except that these are lightly dusted with those little
silver balls (rhinestones) your Granny used to put on cakes circa
1965 and which you had to swallow whole because they were infinitely
stronger that your teeth.
The men come in two types, clones of Christopher Dean's younger
brother, (the one they kept locked in the attic because his manic
stare unnerved people) and assistant managers at McDonalds pretending
to be south american gigolos. They too have no buttocks and more
alarmingly (for them anyway) they have no discernable genitals,
despite (or perhaps because of) the tightness of their trousers.
They are dressed in colours that make your eyeballs bleed and
periodically appear from behind a curtain, walk forward with their
arms outstretched as though inviting the audience to smack them in
the kisser. They then throw themselves about in a manner utterly
unlike anything you have ever seen at a real dance in your life
(and I speak as someone whose style of dancing was once referred
to as "Baroque").
This largely consists of (a) a lot of walking around with the groins
pressed together and (b) a lot of dancing side by side with one arm
in the air and (c) the bit where the chap throws the chappess to the
floor and twiddles her round. Although this latter is performed by
approximately 50% of the couples it is greeted as a daring innovation
everytime by the audience.
At one time this show attracted an audience of 7 millions and while I
for one would like to believe they were all watching to enjoy the kitch,
I don't.
Kate
Here's a post from a former US amateur latin champion and pro latin
finalist which actually agrees with the above tongue in cheek remarks:
From: ProDnzr@aol.com
Subject: Re: Requesting info on Ballroom...
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 03:21:02 -0400
...I was talking to a city official today who said she had seen
a ballroom competition on TV. The topic of conversation soon
shifted to the goofy hairstyles that the dancers wear. She kept
trying to describe this "anvil hairdo some dancer had."
Do you remember when the vogue in competition dancing was
carrot-orange hair? Rhinestones glued to the face and hair?
Latin "catsuits in pink"? Have you ever seen a ladies pro-am
where the costuming includes lots of nude material and some
strategically placed appliques....
Are we about outlandish choreography, affected styling, boring
music & ridiculous outfits? Or are we about getting people to
dance together? Is strict tempo music more important than fun?
Terryl just mentioned to me that the health club industry used to
be strictly for the elite. Places like Gold's Gym were for the
hard core body builders. Very intimidating places to say the least.
Until the places like Bally's & Nautilus Aerobics Plus came along
and made it accessible AND appealing to the masses, gyms were a minor
industry. Showcasing bodybuilders is more like a freak show. Just
like a ballroom comp. But now the average housewife can go in and
see other people she can relate to working towards minor or major
goals and putz around without being a fulltime bodybuilder.
The point is you have lots of people dabbling in it which leads to
an even larger percentage of people actually becoming good. As a
result the entire industry has boomed including related fitness
products, clothing, etc. as well as accessibility because there
are more people to support the venues and events.
It's not salsa nor swing that will be the death of ballroom but
ballroom itself if it becomes more elitist and bizarre.... I keep
hearing from England that it's getting harder and harder to get
young people to learn in the UK. They used to have thousands of
juniors & juvenile competitors. What's going wrong? Latin champion
Keith Clifton made the same complaint in 1980 about how bizarre
latin was getting and the direction it was going.
Enio