Category: News

Happy Easter!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart April/08/2017 10:54 AM

We had a very nice start to the weekend with wall to wall sun and warm temperatures. Over the day today, it has become overcast and has been raining. Look on the bright side! This rain should green things up quite nicely!
As our season dwindles away, we have been doing reviews as requested by many of you. Pat and John have been giving us some much needed review of tango with the dance Black Tie Tango. Promenades, links, viennese turns. Feeling like it’s coming together and fills in some of those blanks most of us probably had. We will have continued review of this dance next week. Thursday has been working on jive figures and specifically some found in Cat Daddy with both Pat and Donna. Sailor Shuffles, glide to the side and traveling sand steps are primarily what we have been working on this past week. We will continue with Cat Daddy next week with “the mooch” among other figures. Our Monday club has also been back these past couple of weeks where we have learned a nice phase 5 waltz called Forever We’ll Be In Love. Many of our Monday group will also be attending WOW in London in June and Donna has been putting dances on our program we just might see on theirs! This Monday, our group will not be dancing with the centre being closed for Easter. We will be back the next week though, where we will be starting a phase 4+2 rumba called Tears In Heaven.
Toward the end of the month, on the 26th and 27th, we will be having a group meeting to discuss next season, providing you with information your executive has discussed at our recent meeting, and in return, looking for your ideas and comments! We look forward to hearing from you!
We have about a month left to go in this season, with our final dance being on Wednesday, May 17 celebrating Canada’s big year with a Canada 150 Dance!! We will be celebrating all things Canadian so please come dressed in red and white! Canadian dances, door prizes, share the wealth, decorations and of course, refreshments! We will also be holding a short Annual General Meeting to cover needed yearly business and get back to dancing.
Swing Into Spring and WOW are also on our radar at Capital Carousels. Be sure to register soon as time is drawing closer! Swing Into Spring will be featuring Jerry and Bonnie Callen on rounds where a slow two step clinic will be conducted and perhaps a phase 4 foxtrot or 2 on the agenda. Sounds like a good weekend. At WOW this year, the Preskitts will be the featured instructors. Hailing from Washington State, they are a bit far from home and all the more reason not to miss this rare event! A real “diamond in the rough” this couple with years of teaching experience, beautiful dancing and amazing choreography. Hope to see you there. There will be a phase 3 teach on Friday night during the evening program. On Saturday there will be a phase 4 and 5 teach and a full dance program on Saturday night. A review is also offered on Sunday morning to solidify those dances learned over the weekend.
Lots of dancing left here at Capital Carousels and beyond. Dance shoes-don’t leave home without them! Happy Easter everyone!

Canada 150 Dance-Our End Of Year Party!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart April/08/2017 10:17 AM

As we approach the end of our 2016/2017 dance season, we look to our end of year celebration here at Capital Carousels! With our great country celebrating a landmark birthday this year, we plan to jump into the festivities with a Canada 150 Dance! On Wednesday, May 17 we will be brimming with Canadian Pride with many Canadian flags and red and white all around. We encourage everyone to come dressed in something red, white or both to help celebrate this wonderful country of ours! To keep things Canadian themed, we will have some music on our dance program from Canadian artists and choreographers. We will also have a few door prizes that are Canadian themed up for grabs. Feeling lucky? We will also have a “Share The Wealth” drawing and some lucky winner to be Canada’s next millionaire! We will also have some very quick “Did You Know” segments just prior to each dance set with some facts about Canada which you may not be aware of! What is a dance without some refreshments? We will be having some yummy treats as well so save your sweet tooth!
Our end of year dance also is when we have our Annual General Meeting covering some needed items to move forward to our next season. Our goal is to keep this meeting short so we can continue the dancing through the end of the evening. We do hope you will be able to join us. The evening will be from 7:00-9:00PM and a nice way to end our dance year.
Come and help us celebrate our nation’s 150th and let’s get this party started early!

The Flock Returns!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart April/01/2017 12:51 PM

Yes, it’s that time of year again! Canadian Geese returning home and in large numbers! Whether you see them, hear them or both, they can be spotted in many farm fields and parks around. As with the return of these beauties, we also anticipate the return of our own dancing snowbirds! The coming of our spring session usually is a good sign and we begin that this week! With the coming of spring, our Monday club resumes dancing phase 4-6 level and learning dances via instructional video. We will begin with a lovely phase 5 waltz by the Gloodt’s called “Forever We’ll Be In Love”. On Wednesday, we will be starting our spring session with an all dance night. A great opportunity to get reacquainted with those who have been away. Last Thursday, we had a bit of a survey with our dancers there, asking if they would like to review some of our recent dances, or have an all dance day. By popular vote, we will be doing some review of Herb’s Green Peppers and perhaps another glance at Viennese Turns.
With the coming of our spring session, you once again have the opportunity to sign up for a session fee or pay per dance day. Prices remain the same as they have been all year. Gavin and Pat have returned from their trip south and will be manning the registration desk to begin our spring session!
Looking forward to seeing all of our winter travelers and hearing of all your adventures. Hopefully we’ve had the last hiccup of winter! See you all on the dance floor!

Last Week Of Winter Session

Originally posted by Donna Stewart March/25/2017 11:33 AM

This coming week will be the last week of our Winter Session. Here is hoping the snow will finally dissipate and we will begin to see some green around here instead of white. Perhaps our snow birds down south, can bring some nice weather back with them. We have missed you and look forward to seeing you all again. We know some of you don’t actually go south, but instead travel west and although you have had more winter than I’m sure you would have liked this year, you are getting a headstart on spring at least. Bring some back on your way home OK!
As discussed in our last executive meeting, fees will remain the same for the remainder of this year, so the spring session for 6 weeks will be $42/person or $84/couple. For those who wish to pay per day, the fee remains the same at $10/person or $20/couple. Gavin and Pat will be back at the beginning of our Spring Session, the week of Apr 5+6 and will accept session fees at that time. Just giving you all the heads up!
Come spring our 4-6 club will be resuming on Mondays from 1-3PM at the Greenboro Community Centre. The Spring session begins on Monday Apr 3, and we will also be running for 6 weeks. Your fees are the same as what are listed above. For our members who attended last fall’s session, you should have received an email from me this past week. We will continue to use Curt and Tammy Worlock’s Instructional Videos and will be starting with a nice Gloodt phase 5 waltz called, “Forever, You’ll Be In Love”. This should be a good coming back point for many of us and first week back, our program will contain all the dances we have learned thus far on Mondays. The program will be released next week, but for you eager beavers out there wanting to practice, there is a good starting point.
Hard to believe we are coming to our spring session already in our 2016-2017 season! Looking forward to less snow, more green, our traveling members coming back to the nest and catching up on all the news. Remember, with spring comes more dance events out there to attend! Please check out the Coming Events section of our website and see what’s coming up. See you next week!

Snow Day and St. Patrick’s Day!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart March/18/2017 02:21 PM

Last week I was talking about St. Patrick’s Day, the beginning of spring and tulips. Instead we were inundated with snow enough to cause a cancellation of our Wednesday club. One foot of snow in places with about over two feet with drifting snow were what we found here in Winchester. The snow steadily continued on ALL DAY until around 6:30PM. For our Wednesday dancers, we hope that you were not too disappointed and managed to celebrate all that St. Patrick’s Day means yesterday. We did manage to proceed on Thursday. We were joined by Pat and Jill who even decorated the hall for us. Nice job guys! Jenny and Ziggy as always did a great job with refreshments with a delicious cake all in green and white. Special thanks as well to our own Daphne, who brought some cupcakes for us to enjoy! It was all good. I sampled both! I’ll admit it! As you can see from our picture here, a lot of our St. Patty’s Day decor flowed across the dance floor all morning. Everyone dressed with green and white, or green and black. Added to a festive atmosphere indeed! Thanks for the participation. Some of our music sounded a bit irish in nature as well-even between tips with a bit of “mood music”- “Black Velvet Band” and “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” to name a few. Lots of fun this past Thursday morning with lots of time for an “irish jig” and chit chat! Loved it all! Once all of our “picture takers” have sent me their pics, I will post them here. Give me another week or so. Thanks!
Next week, we will be back to our usual routine. Arlo will be joining me this week on the teaches for both our Wednesday and Thursday groups! On Wednesday night, we will be presenting a new phase 4 cha which will be basically a cue and do for everyone. We will look at a few components of the dance for review-primarily double cubans. On Thursday, we will be doing a review of viennese turns-both in waltz and quickstep and doing a general review of a dance which has been taught before, “Around The World”. Till next week-signing off!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart March/11/2017 11:06 AM

Irish Jig?

I was Irish jigging,
Up and down I’d dance,
Feet a tapping on the ground,
Wiggling in my pants.

Leaping like a leprechaun,
Prancing all around.
I was looking pretty hot,
As sweat dropped to the ground.

My ordeal was almost over,
As I took my final stance.
The invaders were defeated,
I was Lord of the Ants.

Awww, yes! St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and we will be celebrating on both days at our Capital Carousels clubs. Come dressed in something green and we will dance a few Irish jigs in return!
With the coming of St. Patrick’s Day we are always looking forward to seeing more green in our surroundings, particularly outdoors. Spring is just around the corner. Our clocks spring ahead this weekend giving us an additional hour of daylight! We are also coming to a close with our winter session with 3 weeks remaining. Our friends who winter elsewhere will be returning to the fold here and tulips will be in bloom for our Nation’s Capital annual tulip festival. We should see many displays of Canada’s 150 Tulip this year as well, not only adorn our city parks, but also in many people’s yards this year. It should be quite a spectacle indeed!
This week of course will be all dancing as we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, so it’ll be nice to just dance and socialize. Expect some special treats as well.
Until then, have a great weekend and we will see you next week. Top of the day to ya!

Spring is Coming!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart February/25/2017 11:46 AM
It will be March in a few short days. The rain is coming. The snow is melting. Before we know it, we will be seeing lovely displays of these Canada 150 tulips adorning many people’s yards and of course, during the annual Tulip Festival in Ottawa. Bring on May! Speaking of Spring and May, we are getting close to EOSARDA’s yearly Swing Into Spring event. A whole weekend of square and round dancing fun, learning something new and lots of dancing to be sure. Jerry and Bonnie Callen will be the round dance instructors at this year’s event and I’m sure have some fine dances for us.
Swing into Spring is May 5-7 this year and if you’ve been thinking of registering, but just putting it off, you should think about doing that shortly. Come April 1, prices for registration will be going up, so take advantage of the lower fee and solidify your plans. You can download a registration form right off of this website here, or you can also obtain a form at our weekly clubs. Sounds like a great way to start off the spring dances anyway!
Just as a reminder to our Wednesday dancers, we will not be dancing on March 1 because of other Parkdale activities going on. Thursday dancing however will be happening as usual on Mar 2 so don’t miss out. This week on Thursday, Donna will be teaming up with Arlo for a new phase 3 cha that we think you will like and as usual, Pat has delivered a fantastic program for this week. She has really been selective in choosing dances you have indicated to be danced more often and if you are seeing more of that and liking what you see, please let her know. It is a process putting together a dance program and she deserves some kuddos for that!
Alright then, enjoy the soaking rain and snow melt in the process this weekend. if our Wednesday dancers are just itching to dance this week, you are more than welcome to attend our Thursday morning session! Have a great weekend everyone!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart February/11/2017 06:10 PM

Tuesday will be the day for romance, roses and chocolates, but we got started early at Capital Carousels with our Valentine’s Day dances at both clubs this past week. This week was all about dancing and Pat came up with some nice romantic dances for everyone. It was nice and relaxed and yet we still felt in the Valentine’s mood with many people coming dressed in red and white to add to the atmosphere. After some dancing we had a bit of an extended break time where people wasted no time by all the visit and chit chat going around while enjoying some very festive cupcakes, candies and of course coffee or tea. Thanks to Ian and Ann for bringing our special treats for both Wednesday and Thursdays groups. We still had a few people out this past week, but others returned and we ended up having a few more people overall this week, so thanks for coming out this week gang! We had a great time celebrating Valentine’s Day!
This coming week will be the last week we will be posting the signup sheets for requested teaches and also dances we want to hear more or less of on our programs. We are getting some excellent responses which will really help us with our teaches and programs. Pat has already incorporated some dances you have been wanting to hear more of on our program, so thanks for letting us know! We hope you will be noticing some changes as we go through the remainder of this season, and beyond!
So until we meet again my friends…have a very Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Valentine’s Dance Coming Up!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart February/04/2017 03:12 PM

As is particular fashion for us, Capital Carousels will be celebrating Valentine’s Day at our Wednesday and Thursday clubs with a party! A party means all dancing and no teaches for this coming week! We are very fortunate to have many dances in our repertoire that make planning a Valentine’s Dance a breeze for our programmer Pat. Lots of love songs to look forward to this week! Valentine’s not only means love to many people, but also sweets. This week at our coming break time, you will have the opportunity to enjoy some Valentine’s sweets along with your coffee or tea! Yes, we will be celebrating the holiday of love this week and if you have something red and white in your wardrobe, please be sure to wear it! I’m sure there will be a camera or two around taking pictures!
As I mentioned, we will not be having any teaches this coming week, but both clubs can expect to find our newest mambo, “One More Tequila” on the program. The Thursday group has one more week of this teach to go, but we will be putting the portion of the dance you have already learned for practice. You are almost there so let’s give it a whirl!
Thanks to those of our members who have already given us some good information for upcoming dance/figure reviews, as well as, dances you’d either like to hear more of or less of in the future! Our signup sheets will continue to be posted back on the Parkdale stage for a few more weeks. Please give us your ideas! This will be helping to plan your future teaches and dance programs. Make the most of it with your input!
Have a good weekend everyone and remember that cupid will be in our corner this week at Parkdale!

You Asked For It!

Originally posted by Donna Stewart January/29/2017 02:12 PM

We have talked a lot about our recent meetings and survey we had at Capital Carousels. Not only did it help us to come up with a game plan for our remaining season, it also told us a few things about what people would like to see regarding our teaching sessions. One point brought out was to introduce more reviews for dances we had already been taught recently and in years past. Another point was to have some reviews of particular figures we have been having trouble with. Beginning this week, you will have a chance to let us know what dances you would like a review on and what figures you feel you need help with. A signup sheet will posted on the stage at the clubs (by where the flyers are located). Please consider which dances and/or figures you might like reviewed and write them down on our sheet. This will help us plan for future teaching segments. Your webmaster/cuer and part time instructor has already indicated to Pat that in the spring session, any teaches that she pencils in for me, will be strictly reviews so please put on your thinking caps on and let us know what you would like!
Another area touched on in the survey was music selection. Some comments regarding some of our older dances vs some of our newer dances on the programs. Some people also felt some of the dances are difficult to dance to with regard to the beat. We will also have a signup sheet for this as well. Please indicate specific dances that you would like to hear more of-or hear less of.
With regard to all of this, the teaches decided upon would be based on not only popular request, but also what your instructors might see as an area of review needed. With regard to old vs new dances, being specific on choices is best. We may have a “preference” for one era over another, but I think we can all think of songs in the other era that we would miss dancing to, if it were removed or played less on our programs. Some of us may even enjoy dancing to both eras so specifics are very helpful.
To sum things up here, we at Capital Carousels, hear you about wanting some added dance and figure reviews to our teaching programs. We also recognize that we want to hear more of some of our dances we don’t hear too often and some dances we want to hear less of or not at all. What we would like now is for you to think about those specifics in each area I have outlined, and put your choices down on paper on our club days. There will be a separate signup sheet for both Wednesday and Thursday clubs.
Alright then! The plan is starting to come together. Get your choices in now and remember BE SPECIFIC!