Julia Wetzel’s dance I Want You was among the winners of at the choreography contests at Windy City. Congratulations, Julia!
It’s a great dance: 64 counts, 2 wall, Intermediate level; done to the song I Want You by Kelly Clarkson. We learned it at Evelyn’s class last week and did it at the BnB dance last night; Sue & Kathy have made an instructional video; and Amy Ong has chosen it as one of the dances to be played at her Instructor’s Appreciation Night on October 28. The stepsheet is posted on Yipee and other sites.
Below is Julia’s demo video for I Want You. And below that are demos of two of Julia’s other dances, which are also big hits in the Bay Area: Innocent (done to No Me Enseñaste by Thalia) and Miles Between Us (done to Kilometros by Sin Bandera). See more videos at Julia’s YouTube channel.
I Want You (demo by Julia)
Innocent (demo by Julia)
Miles Between Us (demo by Julia and Amy and Friends)
Saturday, October 15 at 4-8pm a Line Dance Party in San Francisco. Hosted by Hagan Ko and the Wine Country Dancers. Proceeds to Charity. The playlist has been posted. Read more here.
Saturday, October 15 at 7:30 to 10:30pm, a Cactus Corners dance at the Danville Grange. Cactus Corners will hosting only a few events in the next year or so. Gary Clayton is maintaining a schedule here. They’re planning a Christmas dance on December 17.
The Quicksteppers are holding dances at the Belmont Sports Complex nowadays. There will be a ‘Mellow Yellow’ dance Saturday, Oct 15 from 7:30 to 10:30pm and a Halloween Party on Saturday, October 29 at the same time. Details here.
The Country Hustlers will hold a Halloween Dance on Saturday, October 29, 7:30pm – 10:30pm in Livermore. Read more about it here.
Sue and Kathy will be hosting a Halloween Party on Sunday, October 30 from 2:00 to 5:30pm at the Cupertino YMCA. The event is a benefit for cancer treatment for a family member of one of their students. A playlist has been posted on Sue & Kathy’s site. Read more here.
Joyce and Mike Shannon will be holding a Line Dance Party on Sat, October 22, 6:45pm – 9:45pm at Hyde Middle School in Cupertino. This will be their last dance until 2012. Here are the details.
And of course the Boots ‘n’ Buckles Dance Club will be holding its own Halloween Party on Friday, October 29 at 8pm at Swiss Park. That same night we’ll be honoring Amy Oyang and Friends with an Instructor Appreciation Night. Read more about that here.
At left, pictures from recent dances including our Instructors Appreciation nights for Sue, Kathy & Limay on August 22, and for Evelyn and Denny on September 23, and a great evening at Centerville on September 2 with Mike and Joyce. It sure was fun dancing with these folks and the students they bring in. Our thanks to these instructors for all the hard work they put into our dance community.
On September 23 the club will be honoring Evelyn Khinoo and Denny Harris at a dance at Swiss Park (8pm at 5911 Mowry Ave, Newark, CA). Instructor appreciation nights are our way of recognizing and expressing gratitude to local instructors, who spend an enormous amount of time learning new dances and then teaching them to the rest of us. These events are also a lot of fun. On instructor appreciation nights, past and present students of the instructor being honored get a discount on the admission fee. (Students should sign in using a separate, ‘students’ admissions list that is different from the usual sign in sheet.)
Evelyn and Denny are an institution in the Bay Area’s line dance community, with a history of line dance instruction stretching back beyond the memory of most dancers. A number of Evelyn’s students are now instructors themselves. She is also a choreographer of note, having produced classics that include: Attitude, Blue Kentucky, Raise Me Up, The Lady & Me, Take a Look, and That’s My Hat. Silk and Satinremains a favorite in the Bay Area even today. Denny may be more at home on a golf course that a line dance floor, but he has also choreographed dances, includingDoesn’t Take Much and Days Go By.
The pictures at left show Evelyn teaching at Swiss Park, and Denny with Angela and Belinda.
Evelyn teaches an intermediate class at 7pm on Tuesday nights at the Lucy Stern Center in Palo Alto (1305 Middlefield Road). She has just started a new session of classes, and last night (September 13) we learned three dances that were taught at the WOW festival:
There will be a review of these dances next Tuesday, and then new teaches, possibly more dances from WOW. Evelyn usually posts a list of the dances she will teach on BALD several days before the class. And some of the dances she is considering for future classes are:Party Freak (Kate Sala), Jazzy Girl ( Kinsers), Hold On Tight (Francien Sittrop), Papi (Rachael McEnaney) and Know Me By Now (Craig Bennett).
Correction, Sept 17: The dance on Sept 23 at Swiss Park will start at 8pm, not 7pm as stated in the original post. The text above has been updated to reflect this correction.
On August 26 the Boots ‘n’ Buckles dance club will be hosting a dance in honor of instructors Sue Hsu, Kathy Chang and Limay Flavell. It will be held at Swiss Park, and it is sure to be a great time.
Sue and Kathy are among the most popular instructors in the Bay Area. They teach about a thousand classes in Cupertino, Mountain View and San Jose – and they were named Regional Instructors of the Year at the Dancers Choice Awards in 2009. They regularly produce some of the best line dance demonstration videos around; see the latest, and a list of their YouTube accounts, on the home page of their website. They also choreograph award-winning dances: Under the Sun won the prize for the Best Beginner Dance at the 2010 Vegas Dance Explosion; Tango Tonight and It Hurts were both published in Linedancer magazine.
Limay Flavell is a marvelous dancer, one of the people I like to follow when I’m fumbling to recall the steps of a dance, and she has been a lead instructor with Sue and Kathy for the past two years. I’ve taken some of Limay’s classes, and enjoyed them enormously. In the picture, that’s Limay on the left, Sue in the middle and Kathy on the right.
Opportunities for dancing abound in the Bay Area in the coming weeks. In addition to the regular club and monthly dances (including Doris and Carol’s Second Saturday Dance on August 13), there will be social dances hosted by Sue and Kathy and Amy and Friends. And of course, everyone is looking forward to the WOW Event on September 9-11.
On Sunday, August 21, Sue and Kathy are inviting everyone to attend their Line Dance Summer Social. It will be held from 2:00 to 5:30pm at the Northwest YMCA at 20803 Alves Drive in Cupertino. The flyer includes a tentative playlist, with many dances well known by our club members. There are also the following dress suggestions: “Ladies, break out your skirts (any length, any style) and guys, how about a tie? Keep it casual!” Sounds like it will be a lot of fun.
On Friday, September 2, Amy and Friends will be hosting a Summer Session Social, and everyone is welcome to attend. It is scheduled for 10:30am to 2:00pm at the Premier Ballroom Studio at 4181 Cushing Parkway in Fremont. Amy is accepting dance requests until August 19 for additions to the social’s playlist. See the flyer for more details. I always enjoy it when Amy and Friends join us at Boots ‘n’ Buckles dances, and I’m looking forward to this social.
There will be no Boots ‘n’ Buckles social dance on September 9 because many of our club members have already signed up for the WOW event. However, there will be a Jamie Second Friday Dance that evening (7:30 – 10:30pm at Barrett, 1835 Belburn Drive in Belmont). More information about WOW is available at the event website. Sue and Kathy are Co-Event Directors of WOW this year, and I suspect that entailed a lot of hard work. If you enjoy the event, be sure to thank them. If it is a bust, remember that Judy Chen was the Event Director.
Evelyn Khinoo and Denny Harris had issued a challenge to line dancers all over the Bay Area: if 75 dancers attended the Boots ‘n’ Buckles dance on June 17, they would donate their DJ fees to the club. I’m delighted to report that we met the challenge and more, with a total of 100 dancers! It was a pleasure to see old friends from all over on the dance floor at Centerville. Our thanks to our DJs, to the instructors who supported our club by bringing their students, and to all the dancers who came from miles around. And a special thanks to Evelyn and Denny for bringing us all together that night, and for their generous donation.
Evelyn and Denny will be starting up a new session of classes at 7pm at the Lucie Stern Center (1305 Middlefield Road) in Palo Alto this coming Tuesday, June 21. The first lesson will feature:
With “American Idol” and “Glee” ending their seasons on FOX, my favorite summer TV series “So You Think You Can Dance” now airs. Last night’s episode (Wed, Jun 1) featured a ballroom dancer dancing cha cha to a familiar song. Can you name the line dance?
Martie, Gerald, Gloria, Carolyn, Chi, Jim, Colleen, Johanna, Bill, Ron, MaryJane, Deana, Joyce, Chris
Judy, Carole, Maria K, Doris, Carol, Jean J, Jean A, Phyllis, Nora, Anne, Maria T, and Dolores
On 2011 Memorial Day Weekend 74+ danced w/DJ Tina (and Frank) at BnB Swiss Park. Carol and I were in the restaurant/bar side of the hall just finishing DINNER, when Tina came in to find/chat at us.
Seems SOME students were already here (just past 7) because the traffic was lighter than normal and they were all around the DJ booth signing the request list.
I didn’t dare have her play the 5 favorites we asked for because they were NOT supposed to be played til 7:30. We asked for Only Girl and Talkin’ to the Moon for the pre, pre dance music ……and then it was time to sign in the rest of the students who were just now coming in at 7:20ish. Carol gave ‘first timers’ FREE passes for their next club visit.
The beginning of May 2011, Kathy Martin asked me if Carol and I would like to be the first to ask our students if they would like to participate in an Instructor Appreciation Night at BnB. When she said we could choose FIVE dances that we wanted played pre dance and then again before 10 PM, I said YES. (Calypso Mexico, Let it Be, Swan, Bittersweet Memory, and Still Got the Blues were our official 5 choices and enough dancers signed up for to get played Only Girl, Talkin’ to The Moon and Twist With The Fat Boys.)
Some, of course were on Holiday but many of our students came to dance with us and at least FIVE for their very first time as ‘weekend social dancers’. Around 9 PM this photo was taken …Homeward Bound was playing; Thankfully, Tom and Rita hurried their photo session along! ~ Doris Volz
Hello Dolly turned one year old May 2011 and remains a social floor filler around the world. Congrats to U Lorraine!
Lorraine Kurtela has been busy the last 6 months or so writing a dance to Sweet Georgia Brown while listening to Trini Lopez sing.
‘One pattern in the middle just didn’t seem to flow’ …so Unlike most choreographers …Lorraine was able to ask for creative help from her daughter! Michele Burton came up with the rescue remedy. Instructors in the San Francisco Bay Area are teaching Sweet Georgia Brown this week and those of us of a certain age KNOW the words. Lorraine, you are a real SHOW GAL! Those of us in the San Francisco Bay Area will be singing and dancing Sweet Georgia Brown with YOU first weekend in June.
Julia Wetzel’s dance I Want You was among the winners of at the choreography contests at Windy City. Congratulations, Julia!
