2019/2020 Dance Season Wrap-up

Just in case my computer has the virus!

Anyone else in need of a haircut these days? I just might let Eileen loose on mine. It couldn’t look any worse.

Seriously though, I hope everyone is staying healthy through this stressful time. Who would have thought in early February, when we first heard of a new virus on the other side of the world, that our lives and dance season would be affected so quickly?

To recap our past season, we did have very successful Fall & Winter sessions with another Capital Caper workshop in October, featuring Steve & Irene Bradt, followed in December by the annual Christmas benefit dance in aid of Parkdale United’s “In From The Cold” program.
Several new dances were taught to the two dance groups in addition to those taught at the Caper. If your memory needs refreshing, these dances are listed in the  “Dance Cuesheets” link when you select “Dance Season” in the main menu.
Many thanks to our teachers Pat, John, Marg, Ziggy, Jenny, Susan & Doug.

Now here’s some good news courtesy of Arlo. Some of you may be aware that Pamela & George Hurd have an instructional website which was accessible for a fee. To lift dancer’s spirits and weather the Covid19 storm they have decided to open the site up to dancers free of charge. I have spent some time going through the site in a download frenzy and think I now have pretty much all of the material downloaded. I will start uploading some of the dances we are familiar with to Dropbox once I have their titles updated to indicate phase level and rhythm. Head to “Videos” in our website’s main menu, enter the password and you’ll be able to access them from there.  There is also information there on accessing the Hurd’s website directly if you wish.

At last the weather is more spring like these days which I hope will help lift people’s spirits. Stay safe and healthy everyone and let’s hope we will be dancing again in the Fall.

 

 

 

Less than 2 weeks to Capital Caper!

If you haven’t registered for this excellent dance workshop there’s still time. Dance teaches will be a Ph4 Slow Two Step on Friday afternoon, a Ph3 Rumba Friday evening (followed by a dance), a Ph5 Foxtrot Saturday morning and finally a Ph4 Jive Saturday afternoon. A Ph3-5 dance will take place on Saturday night.
More information is available on this website. Go to “Capital Caper Weekend” in the top menu.
We hope to see you there!

Capital Caper 2018 Wrap-up

Another very successful Capital Caper was held this past weekend ( Oct 26 & 27 ).
Four dances were work-shopped by Steve and Irene Bradt; “In Times Like These”, a phase 4+2+2 West Coast Swing; “Life Is A Slow Dance”, a phase 4+2 Waltz; “Emotion”, a phase 5 Bolero and “Nostalgia”, a phase 4+2 Rumba.
Cue sheets for all these dances can be found on the club website’s Cuesheet page and demos of the dances performed by Steve and Irene at the Saturday evening dance are now on Dropbox at the link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4blylyk5dewqqhj/AACNVd9Wh77C_v9xz0icUEi9a?dl=0

Thanks to all who worked so hard to make this event such a success. A special thanks to the out-of-town dancers who traveled considerable distances to attend and as always Steve and Irene Bradt for their excellent instruction.

Thursday dancers remember there is no dancing this week on Nov 1st.

Remember it’s Halloween this Wednesday night. Please be careful  when you’re trick-or-treating and don’t eat too much candy!

Another Capital Caper In The Books!

Another Capital Caper is in the books and what a fun weekend we had!! It all started out with our Intro to West Coast Swing with the dance called “You’re Something Special To Me”. It was a good beginning dance as it has figures that repeat often which is what we need—and nice music as well! On Friday evening, we learned the phase 4 foxtrot, “Kiss To Build A Dream On” with once again, beautiful music and good reinforcements of figures. On Saturday morning, the vastly popular dance right now, “Right Here Waiting For You” was taught. It is a phase 5 rumba and this dance was a real crowd pleaser and beautiful to dance to. We ended off our teaching sessions on Saturday afternoon with a phase 4 mambo called “One More Tequila” which will be a very nice addition to any club’s mambo dance collection! Steve and Irene did a fabulous job on all the teaches and we had many positive responses regarding the dances taught. In between the Saturday morning and afternoon dance teaches we had a delicious lunch comprised of sandwiches, cheese, veggie and fruit platters. To satisfy our sweet tooth we also had some scrumptious squares, tarts and cookies of various types at our lunch meal and also provided with coffee breaks! Ian and Ann were scheduled to put out the lunch spread but due to unforeseen circumstances, Ian could not attend. Ann was good enough to come and help out irregardless and Brian and Ann stepped in to not only look after coffee for the weekend, but also for the lunch meal. Thank you Brian and Ann for your many contributions to Capital Carousels cause!
Our final night dance on Saturday night was a nice mix of dances and also dance demos and dance thru of the teaches. As Halloween was just around the corner, our Montreal dancers decided to come dressed for the occasion. Crazy bunch they were and a nice backdrop to our Halloween decorations. I will be posting pictures of Capital Caper in the near future, so be on the lookout!
Once again, we had members of our own Capital Carousels club in attendance, but also our loyal Capital Caper attendees from Montreal and also the southern Ontario region! We appreciate everyone’s support of Capital Caper and it would not have come together had it not been for the people in the picture. Gavin, for many years has been managing the registrations and money for the Capers and doing a fabulous job. Thank you Gavin! Pat has not only created and ran our newest Caper-Summer Caper, but has taken over the reigns in running our Capital Caper. Great job all around Pat not only your input of teaching selections and creating the dance program, but also keeping the strings tied around everything else involved. Thanks so much for your hard work. We couldn’t really do this weekend if it were not for Steve and Irene Bradt! We treasure having them with us to increase our dancing knowledge, cueing a wonderful night dance, but also just their longstanding friendship with this dance event. Thank you! Also a big thank you to Ian and Ann who although, not pictured, were involved in our Saturday lunch. We wish Ian a quick recovery and thank Ann for coming out to assist in any case. Again, a big thank you to Brian and Ann for running the weekend refreshments and also stepping in to help out with Saturday’s lunch! Also a big thank you to all of our Capital Carousel dancers and also our visitors to helping out with setup and takedown of tables and chairs and to Pat and Jill for our Halloween decorations.
Another fun year has gone by for Capital Caper and here’s looking forward to seeing you next year!