Saturday’s Judges Offer Advice/Experience for Dancing Stars

SAT, MAR 8th show starts at 7pm sharp with a Dancing with your Stars locals competition and then follows an hour of professional Ballroom Dance from Utah Ballroom Dance Co. What do you get when you take six local stars – Brooke Bourn, Rayma Hayes, Jenn Tate, Sam Naney, Walt Pearce, and Tori Karpenko – pair them with six professional ballroom dancers, and give them one week to practice? A Dancing with your Stars – Methow Valley style. Don’t miss the opportunity to watch these couples compete for 1st place, receive commentary from local judges and dance their hearts out in full costume! And remember the audience gets a vote too!

CLICK HERE for event info
CLI CK HERE for tickets
INTERVIEW WITH DON ASHFORD, KTRT, 97.5FM AND BROOKE BOURN, SAM NANEY

JUDGE #1 – Carolanne Steinebach

1. What is your experience with dance and performance?
I started taking dance lessons at the age of four, and continued taking classes for forty more years. In that time I had some of the most well-known teachers in the modern dance world: Martha Graham, José Limon, Merc Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, Donald McKayle. I became a Company member of the Contemporary Dancers in Winnipeg (Canada) and later taught dance for many years in Vancouver.

2. What qualifies you as a judge for this contest?
I love ballroom dancing! I had to go to dancing school at age 11 and continued through tenth grade. We were expected to be competent by then and look graceful on the dance floor at social events. But then at college, the social dancing scene changed entirely and became a non-contact activity: the twist, the frug, TT, the swim. Luckily my husband is a great dancer and we can waltz, fox trot, swing, and dance all the salsa rhythms to our hearts’ delight.

3. What are you looking forward to in the competition?
I am excited to see what the Utah Company brings and how our locals fare with their instruction.

4. Any words of wisdom/suggestions for our performers in preparing for the March 8th competition?
My words of advice are: above all, have fun!

JUDGE #2 – Danbert Nobacon

1. Experience with Dance/Performance:
There is a good scientific argument that dance and music are the oldest human art-forms and I came into the world evolutionarily primed to continue the party. One of my first memories is hearing The Beatles’ She Loves You at the Methodist Church Christmas bazaar when I was three years old , and seeing these grown-ups, who were actually probably young teens spontaneously combusting on the dance-floor. When my time came it was the punk rock disco in the same church hall, and whilst the ‘pogo’ dance might not win any points at Dancing With the Stars it certainly channeled for me, the primeval connection we all have when we let our bodies lose to the music. There is something about moving and swaying in a communal throng, and something else again when we are in the zone with a partner, raw oxotocinicity sizzling along the neural pathways. As a front person for a rock ‘n’ roll punk band (Chumbawamba (Tubthumping) and many more) for 22 years I have strutted my stuff in front of many tens of hundreds of thousands of people, and since moving to the Methow I have crafted a host of performances, unshackling my inner dance demons in all new ways

2. What qualifies you as a judge for this contest?
We had a version of Dancing with the Stars on English TV called Come Dancing when I was a kid when we had a black and white TV and something about the movement and the costumes always grabbed me. Watching dance as a child was like a guilty pleasure but I must have picked up an eye for detail and attention to flare, which makes the prospect of being a judge completely enthralling for me. I think that, coming as I do, from performance disciplines very different to ballroom, I am perhaps attuned to picking up on the unpredictable magic that sometimes licks over the edge of our expectations and momentarily transports us, the viewers into a different universe.

3. What are you looking forward to in the competition?
I am looking for fire and verve and the balancing on the wire, with all the speed and movement of ballroom, as dancers with the adrenalin flowing, take that extra risk that transmutes a good performance into a great one.

4. Any words of wisdom/suggestions for our performers in preparing for the March 8th competition?
I am excited to see the dancers up close and I wish them all well. If I were to make a suggestion it would be to trust your instincts and the wondrous mass of neurons that are at work when body and brain are coordinated in that feast of the senses that is created when dance is unleashed. Bring on the dance.

JUDGE #3 – Deirdre Luvon

1. Experience with Dance/Performance:
Deirdre Luvon studied contemporary dance and dance composition at Bard College, in New York state. Following that, she spent years on the West Coast (Washington and California) studying West African dance, in addition to several months in West Africa. She taught children dance for years in Seattle, before moving to the Methow 10 years ago. Since being here, she has continued teaching, although somewhat less while juggling her three young children. She is a founding member of the Methow Dance Collective, and has created and performed works regularly in the valley over the last 10 years. More recently, Deirdre has become interested in comic work, and has found inspiring laughter to be truly satisfying.

2. What qualifies you as a judge for this contest?
Being a dancer, I know what I like and what I don’t like when watching others dance. I want to see people really giving themselves to this show.

3. What are you looking forward to in the competition?
I can’t wait to see these people I know in one setting push themselves in a new setting (and in front of so many people!!) I’m also really looking forward to seeing everyone in ballroom dance competition costumes.

4. Any words of wisdom/suggestions for our performers? Connect with the audience, be present while on stage, and HAVE FUN! If you are having fun, everyone watching you will have fun too. And remember– we WILL be watching you! “Tummy tucked, head up high, shoulders back!” (smile)