Dancing With Dancers (Again).

Last year's Dance With Dancers event was so great that I just couldn't skip it this year either. It's a dance event organized by the Finnish National Ballet in Alumnisali in the Opera. The night includes lots of different dance shows plus a band and a DJ to make the audience dance in between the shows. This time there the audience were treated with ballet, contemporary dance, pole art, competition dance etc. Great night and I was even able to dance some Zouk with Michaelo there! A definite must-go for next year too.

So, what has been going on in my dance life this fall? Well, I haven't been able to dance as much as I have done before. I had to stop my regular Zouk classes and settle just taking some F&A's drop-ins every now and then. This month my Australian friend come to visit me, so its been even more quiet time for dancing. One new thing that I started on September was Voguing, and those dance classes have definitely been my Wednesdays' saviors! Voguing classes are really my only regular dance classes I'm taking at the moment so there is a huge change to my previous 3-4 dance classes per week rhythm. I am already seeing the negative results of this change: I am now stuck to my current level and not proceeding anywhere. The ones who continued with F&A's classes have already created a gab between those who left the group.

I also feel like there haven't been that many chances to go social dancing this fall. I was really looking forward the Zouk Sunday practicas to start again but there has been some problems with a place to hold it. However, now we are gathering every Sunday at 6pm to Kisahalli, so come to say hello to me there! There hasn't been much dance parties either and of course I was out of the country when Finzouk had the 2nd anniversary Zouk party in Helsinki. The best dance parties I've been this fall have been HOT's parties. Well, there would be many Salsa parties around but I still haven't found a Salsa dancer inside me. Maybe I should go to some Salsa classes or something.

Another thing is that taking the intensive Mzouk course might have affected my Rio style in a negative way, a least until now. So all in all, if I'm thinking of my technique, it hasn't been a good fall at all. Then again, I have been able to shake off some of my self-criticism when most of the chances for dancing are most simply for pleasure and not for learning technique. In this sense this more quiet period might have done some good for me after all. It has also shown that there are other lovely things than dancing out there too - something I sometimes seem to forget when dancing takes over me.

After the FREACA competitions I started to wonder with Michaelo what's next. Practicing for the competitions was a good and motivating target for our practices but since either of us are now taking regular classes, having one-to-one practices with no new material to work with sounded quite useless. We came to a conclusion that we would still have time to make a choreography before I leave, so he arranged us to one dance event to perform it. Its going to be a busy two months to work with the show for December though! (Well, actually Michaelo already made a first draft of the choreo while I was traveling in Portugal.) So at least these practices will bring some more dancing to the rest of the year. Also I'm really excited about the Zouk festival in Helsinki next month. I know it's going to offer the kind of dance parties I've been waiting for.

Yesterday I actually had quite a nice dancing night in HOT's party. I was supposed to go there just for couple of dances but stayed until the end. I was feeling somehow surreal on my way to the party but dancing helped me once again to get my mind off from my mixed and confused feelings. Dancing is such a great and fast way to escape reality. Fast but treacherous.

Till the end, here you can find a video of me dancing in one of the Sunday practicas: http://youtu.be/1Ue2ZtEwIZ0.

There Are Short-cuts to Happiness, and Dancing Is One of Them.

Have you ever had this feeling that time just seems to disappear somewhere when you would like it to stop? It's like waiting for eternity for something to happen and then when it is actually happening the moment is gone before you notice. I bet this happens to everyone when on holiday.You save money and wait for a whole year and then, puff, a time machine takes you into the future after the long-waited trip to paradise. Annoying, huh?

Well, something like this happened to me this summer, without warning or a long wait though. My dancer friends have been asking where have I been lately. What have I been doing? Good question. Time just have seemed to disappear. Summer left me thousands of precious memories but my time machine have now taken over my desperate attempts to extend the summer, and I have to accept a new phase in my life. A phase to enjoy my last months in Helsinki before I leave the city in January. So don't worry, I have been around, happy and dancing, I'm still all of that and, eventally, I'll come back.

The same rule about time applies to dancing. You can achieve perfect moments of paradise with the right connection, the right music and the right feeling, but then the paradise is gone in the blink of an eye. It is just then when you would like to scram STOP to that evil time machine of yours but fear you'll lose some of those precious seconds of pure happiness while doing that. This also goes to performing choreographies and taking part to competitions. You start practicing months and months before, giving maybe countless of hours for polishing up your movements, and then in the moment of truth you know who is entering the stage. And again puff, time disappears.

Actually the reason to start writing again was a promise I made in a dance competition I took part yesterday, FRESCA Latin Dance Competition 2012. My promise was to update my feelings here if the competitions went well, and it just happened that I walked home with three medals from all of the dances I took part with Michaelo: 2nd place in Zouk and Kizomba and 3rd place in Bachata. Even though I am really happy about the placing (it did feel great to go up to the stage again and again to get the prizes!), the medals are after all just reminders of the amazingly good feeling I had during the competitions. I couldn't see the audience or hear the cheers. It was just music, Michaelo and a great amount of adrenalin in my blood. I am happy that the judges and the audience were able to see our passion to dancing. After all, dancing is really about expressing, not impressing.

What comes to my evil time machine: even though it seems to steal my time, there is something it can never steal. The warm feeling of the valuable memories I live through that will always be stored into my heart. Why, you might ask. Because those are timeless.