A dancer’s diary II….

Balboa swings, come~arounds, sidewinders, mambo turns, these dance terms have now become a part of my daily vernacular as I continue to prepare for the Seattle Dances! Event in which I am dancing tomorrow night {Yikes!} with my fabulous partner Travis. He has come up with a great “Balboa Swing” routine and we will be dancing to Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga singing “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing”. It has been a lot of work, but it has been fun to be immersed in this new community and challenge, here’s and inside peek:

These are all of my steps I’ve typed up, but as you can see there have been many additions and details added along the way. These have definitely become 8 precious pieces of paper to me. I do my personal practices in our entryway, with the dogs watching and use shells and stones from a display to keep track of the number of times I repeat the routine (I get to use the pearl for the final round).

The fabulous Jamie Von Stratton  is in charge of costume design for the event. I was thrilled when she said she could use the silk fabric from this swing dance dress that my mother~in~law used to wear for part of my dress!

I wanted to go with a certain shade of green and the silk chiffon picked it up nicely {see the pink roses shining through?}

I can’t reveal the entire dress now, but I will give to a sneak peek at the skirt, which is my favorite part. In addition to the fabric from Mimi’s dress, she created panels from another silk chiffon and then created an underskirt with an apple green silk charmeuese.

I wore it to our dress rehearsal today at the Fremont Studios and it was very fun to dance in.

I haven’t had a chance to go to this event before, but learned that the tradition is to decorate your tables to make it fun for your guests, I think some chilled Piper Heidsieck {my very favorite champagne} will make it fun, don’t you??

Noisemakers are also a tradition, I ordered all of these from Oriental Trading.

It’s also a tradition to provide signs or masks of the dancers, I’ve painted all of my dowels golds and need to attach my “Swing with Team Emily” signs in the morning.

I want to thank all of my friends, family and the absolute strangers who have voted for me on-line with their donations to Plymouth Housing. an organization that has come up with a winning formula for helping the chronically homeless. To learn more about this cause and why I am swinging for them click on Team Emily.

Also, thank you to all of the people who will be coming to the event tomorrow night, I promise to make it fun for you.

Finally, thank you to friends who have sent flowers from my favorite local florists, Martha Harris. They are gorgeous and fragrant and I truly appreciate your kind wishes.

So, that’s the update! Please wish me good luck tomorrow night {you don’t say break~a~leg to a dancer}. In France they would say “Merde“, which actually means Sh*t, why? I don’t really know.

There will be a live feed broadcast beginning at 8pm PST, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KszZlH1CBro

Swingingly,