January Jam
January 4 - 6
Event Directors:
Jamie Marshall & John Robinson
ORGANIZATION:
Independent
Event Directors Jamie
Marshall and John Robinson
Being a first time event director
is never an enviable task. Most dancers don't fully realize the
difference between attending as a dancer and/or instructor at an event and
running the event itself.
Both Jamie Marshall (still known to
most people as Jamie Davis)
and John Robinson both have had extensive experience with other events as
dancers, competitors and instructors. They were able to have a great
advantage over many other Event Directors in that they've probably seen it
all with both good and poorly run events.
This event was first conceived as a
bit of a diversion for those who couldn't afford to attend the UCWDC Worlds
Event this year. And while it was not meant to be a full scale event
complete with competitions and tons of workshops and instructors, it was
more of a fun diversion with a small group of instructors, lots of open
dance and plenty of new dances.
In addition to John and Jamie,
Barry and Dari Anne Amato, Larry Harmon (from the St Louis area) and yours truly also took
on instructional duties.
Barry & Dari Anne Amato
were among the Event Instructors.
Open dancing began
Friday night at 7pm. Not many dances filled the floor as there were a
number of dancers from very diverse areas with equally diverse tastes as far
as the types of line dances goes. But a few managed to pack the folks
such as oldies like Bump N Grind and Fresh as well as a few new ones such as
Peter Metelnick and Allison Biggs' Destination Dancefloor and Kevin Ward's
Tonight. But lots of other nationally popular dances such as Jukebox
and C'mon C'mon only attracted about a quarter of the dance crowd, so DJ Tim
Hand definitely had his work cut out for him.
Larry Harmon also
introduced a couple of fun and easy club dances including Wishful Thinking
which he recently learned at the St Louis Gateway Classic last November.
The dancers, including a small busload from St Louis, definitely had a good
time.
Saturday included a
large number of workshops going on all day in the one workshop room.
Each hour had from 2-3 dances introduced with subsequent quick reviews of
all of the dances the next day.
Our groups favorite
dances were:
Wannabe
(Barry Amato): which was done to the Savage Garden song of the same name.
Lots of arm work so beware!
20 Seconds
(John Robinson): is for those looking for
a good country dance that is not too difficult and goes well with the Tracy
Lawrence tune it is choreographed to.
The Heat
(John Robinson/Shelli Blake) and Barnyard Boogie
Does (Jamie Marshall) also seemed
to be liked by the dance crowd here.
Dances mentioned from
previous events included:
Derivative
(Barry Amato) was re-introduced to a new song by Jamie-Lynn Sigler called
Cry Baby that fellow instructor Eve Yeaton came across from my music
collection. The dance was definitely a winner with this group.
Southside Stomp
(Barry Amato)
So Blu
(Jamie Marshall) was also taught last fall by Scott Blevins at his one day
workshop.
My teaches included
Shadow Cha, re-introduced to Marc Anthony's hot new tune "Tragedy",
Hey
Honolulu, my latest dance co-choreographed with Doug and Jackie Miranda and
You're The 1
(Stephen Sunter).
The Saturday night
show was far better than anyone expected thanks to great performances by
Lenny Paquette and hot new Curb artist Jenai, who sang Southside Stomp and
two other tunes from her upcoming release. That, plus the addition
of some great
vocal and dance performances by Barry and Dari Anne Amato and a dance
routine from John Robinson and Jamie Marshall gave the folks a better than
average dinner show.
Curb music
recording artist Jenai was one of the performers during the Saturday night
show.
The numbers for this
event were lower than expected due to what I perceived to be some limited
package offerings. I also think that the people that did make it here
were a bit overwhelmed by large number of instructional dances thrown at
them at one time with two to three new dances being taught almost every hour
during the day. I'm hoping that next time, more open dancing is thrown
in between lessons so those who want to rest can do so and those who want to
dance the day away can also do so. More quality and less quantity
seems to be the way to go.
Talking to the
dancers, I was under the impression that they would definitely come back
again if John and Jamie were to offer another event. And given a
longer window to publicize and more options, I believe that not only would
most of the dancers return, but many new ones would check it out next time.
The Radisson Hotel,
located just across the street from Opryland Convention Center (host of next
year's UCWDC World's event) was an excellent choice for the event.
With close access from our rooms to the dance ballroom. The floor was
smaller than anyone expected (including Jamie) and next time she has already
publicly promised more floor space.
Given these
improvements, John and Jamie can look forward to even better times ahead
with their event. Given that they have gone through the trouble
to have everyone write up comments, it is evident that John and Jamie are
interested in making even more improvements as dictated by their dancers.
They both have relayed that they are looking into doing another event,
perhaps during the summer months since next year Worlds will be held in
Nashville. They will make changes based on the feedback cards and comments,
so we can look forward to even better times ahead!
Congrats are in order
for a well run and well organized event.
For a detailed review
of the World's event held that same weekend, check out Peter Blaskowski's
take on it in the Kick-it
web site.
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