March 24th, 2010 by soullldiva

Found this really fun video from Jon M. Chu (of LXD fame) on my Twitter list. They are busy busy busy shooting Step Up 3D (I really liked the first two movies, this should be interesting).

Sometimes when you’re on a set at all hours of the night (and have gotten no sleep on your 8 hours off) thinks get kinda weird, wooly and wild.

What better thing to do than freestyle?

Dija see B-Boy Legacy poke his lil’ face in there? Sweet. Thanks for the vid Jon!

March 22nd, 2010 by soullldiva

Ugh, after waiting and waiting and listening to all the rumors and guessing which ones might be true–premiere night had arrived for season 10 of Dancing With the Stars!

And, after doing numbers 1, 7 and 9 on this great list from EW.com (thanks Doxietrek!), I settled down for the night.

What a night it was. The red room is officially out–we now have the balcony instead for after dance interviews with new co-host Brooke Burke. I miss the red room and all the antics of the other couples in the background.

It is a little taxing to do a dance-by-dance rundown, so I thought I would change it up a bit. You always have expectations for the first show, and I thought I would give “DWTS First Night” awards. Here are my categories:

Biggest Potential: Shannen Doherty. Shannen handled really difficult choreography that Mark gave to her with a ton of enthusiasm and all the finesse she could give. And after all the gossip about her supposedly bad attitude, I didn’t see it anywhere in the footage. She seemed sweet, and boy does she love her dad.

Biggest Surprise: Pam Anderson. I thought she was going to be stiff as a board, but she surprised me with a lot of grace and ability to smoothly walk across the floor and shimmy those hips. Now if she could just work on that extension…

Biggest Disappointment: Aiden Turner. For some reason I thought that he would bring more dance ability to the party. Oh well. Good try, hopefully he’ll get better. I’m still holding my breath for Edyta Sliwinska. It’s her time to win a mirror ball.

Favorite Couple: (not technical) “If I lose my jiggly parts you gon’ git it,” big girl Niecy Nash tells her partner Louis Van Amstel. This gal is a hoot. After being made wrong all her young life in performances for being the chubby girl, Niecy has come to embrace her body, jiggly parts and all. I love this gal, and Louis is the perfect partner for her, he’s willing to train her hard and really play with her. Love them both.

Best Couple: Cheryl Burke and Chad Ochocinco. They pretty much rock together. Very well done on a hot Cha Cha Cha!

Best Choreography: Mark Ballas’ Viennese Waltz to “The Killing Moon” by Nouvelle Vague. This was such an interesting take to put a goth twist on the Viennese Waltz, and have Shannon be like a doll or a puppet. I liked it, very fresh!

Best Outfit: Anna Trebunskaya’s beautiful lavender Grecian style dress with velvet burn-out pattern. And the flowers in the hair to match were nice, too.

I-Don’t-Get-It Outfit: Cheryl Burke’s drop waist, bubble bottom dress. I really liked the grey/peach color and tulle on the outside, but I just didn’t get the whole thing as a concept, nor did it match the music she picked for their Cha Cha (“It’s Just Begun” by the Jimmy Castor Bunch, a really funky groove song).

Craziest Judge Comment: “At times it was a sassy ol mamma, and at times it was a born again virgin.” Bruno Tonioli (of course) speaking about Niecy Nash’s Cha Cha Cha.

Best Tom Bergeron Moment: “Ok…for those of you who do not believe in parallel universes…” (referring to Len Goodman’s tirade on Nicole Scherzinger’s really good Viennese Waltz)

Season Ringer: Nicole Scherzinger. Pussy. Cat. Doll. Need I say more? They’re all practically (if not really) professional dancers. But she really was super lovely in the dance, I have to say, and although Evan Lysacek was super good, I have a feeling that he won’t fare as well in the Latin dances as Nicole will.

Go For It Award: Buzz Aldrin. You still got it, Buzz. Nicely done.

All in all, it was a pretty fun night. But NOW–the competition begins!

March 22nd, 2010 by soullldiva

Wow, what a week for moi!

I am super excited that my very good friend and dance teacher, Maria, is going ahead with her original musical “From the Heart of Love”(TM). I was part of the original workshop when it was done back in 1997 at the Glendale Center Theatre. It was an amazing production to be a part of, as it began with just a really beautiful poem (and was slated to only be a poetry reading with dancing), and grew to be a full-fledged show, with scenes, original music, and all types of dancing from ballet to African, swing to rhythmic stepping (we had a former member of STOMP! in our cast).

Maria and her producers have brought the project out again for a backers audition in August, and we’re beginning auditions tomorrow. The (what turned out to be) huge task of setting up all the auditions came down to me. Now, I’d done this before, but not on this huge of a scale. We’re holding auditions from 1pm to 8pm, and I was to double-book appointments every 10 minutes. That is a total of eighty-six (I spelled it out so I could bold it) appointments to fill.

Now, you think it would be easy-peasy to fill up an audition in THIS town. Yes, I’m talking about Los Angeles. A town where probably half the population is in the entertainment industry in some way, yet only about 10% (or less) of them work regularly. It’s a tough biz, baby.

We had posted casting calls online, and got a good amount of submissions. Maria also had people she’d already worked with the wanted to have come in. First I went through all the submissions (with Maria) and picked out those we wanted to see, then transferred them one by one from the online sites to a spreadsheet with their info and personal notes about them (like, they do Bollywood, or mime) we’d all want to know. That took more time than I thought!

Then the calls. I made over 75 phone calls and got to speak to probably only about 25 of them initially (you artists are busy). Then I waited. And waited. And sent a few emails out, and a few Facebook nudges. And calls trickled in. Wow, talk about biting my nails! I started actual calls on the Thursday before the Monday audition and just now (on Sunday) have filled the day with 56 appointments.

Whew! I’m exhausted. And the auditions are tomorrow!! And there will probably be more auditions before the workshop cast is finished.

But now is where the real fun begins: the discovery of wonderful, beautiful, orignal talent. And what are we looking for? The Individual. As Miss Mia Michaels says, “You are the only one of you.” Damn straight.

Let you know how it goes, cross your fingers for us!!

March 19th, 2010 by soullldiva

So Kate Gosselin has managed to get a TON of publicity as she steps into her ballroom heels for Dancing With the Stars. More than any other star on the show in fact. Even Joel McHale from E!’s The Soup gave her time when he said how great it was that she was on the show, because “even her kids would get to see her once a week.” It kinda rankled me, so I thought I would take a closer look at it and see if there is any validity, or a bunch of hot air.

When Jimmy Kimmel interviewed her, she stated flat out that she could not dance at all. But, she really wanted to learn. When he brought up the experience that Nicole Schertinger has over her, she stated “It is concering, because I am going to win,” then replied to Jimmy’s question of her being competitive, “Umm, have you watched my show?” Nuff said.

So we have her word for it, she’s going to win. What do the betting odds actually say? Well, there’s less of a chance:
Aiden Turner: 18/1
Buzz Aldrin: 50/1
Chad Ochocinco: 4/1
Erin Andrews: 7/2
Evan Lysacek: 2/1
Jake Pavelka: 18/1
Kate Gosselin: 16/1
Niecy Nash: 25/1
Nicole Scherzinger: 3/1
Pamela Anderson: 13/1
Shannen Doherty: 18/1

Kate seems to be in the middle of the pack if you were to put money on it. 80-year-old Buzz Aldrin is at the bottom (sorry Buzz) and looks like Evan is the favorite to win. I’m curious about Erin Andrew’s 7/2 odds, not quite sure what that means. My husband said I should research it and come up with my OWN odds for DWTS. Sounds fun I might be up to the challenge. My bet right now (and it’s really too early in the game for this) but if you want to triple your money, place your bet on Nicole Scherzinger.

Have a great weekend!

March 18th, 2010 by soullldiva

Today I needed a little injection of beauty into my world. There’s no better excuse to share a Dance Quote from lovely Isadora Duncan:

“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
The true dance is an expression of serenity;
it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion.
Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action;
it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed,
and it unfolds with a gentle slowness.
The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement
that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.” Isadora Duncan

To accompany the poetry (that’s always what her quotes sound like to me), I found a fantastic video of the Isadora Duncan Dance Group performing in Bologna in 1997. These are just snippets, but you get to see choreographed pieces from Isadora herself, including “The Butterfly”, “The Furies” and “The Revolutionary”.

I attempted to find the group’s website to no avail (even tried to find an archived page). If you know where this group’s webpage has gone to, let me know!

Hope you all enjoy the day ;o)