This year’s Northern Masters was definitely something a little different. We wanted to try something new, so we introduced the 1st Day of Dance to the Northern Masters 2010. Based upon the idea of offering even better value for money for our dancers AND spectators, we introduced a time-utilised day of competition and workshops, literally providing a full day of dance for all our attendees.
These were not standard workshops though, they were picked and decided upon by notion of offering dance styles that the competitors don’t usually, or might never have, enjoyed. We had Zumba (the latest latin fitness craze sweeping the WORLD!), West Coast Swing, Mambo, Jazz & Social Line Dance (something a lot of competitors don’t get to enjoy that regularly).
The day began at around 06:00 for the Masters Team, who all arose to make the journey to The Dance Studio, Preston, Lancs (ran by the delightful and always helpful Julie & Colin Carr). After setting up, doors were opened at around 10:00 and the guests settled into their favourite seats and prepared for the day. After some initial warm-up music the first workshop started – ZUMBA! The floor was full and it was very entertaining. Qualified Zumba Instructor Nicola Lafferty took to the stage for around 40 minutes while competitors, spectators and parents enjoyed a thorough workout. Some of the tracks used were C'Mon & Dance (a merengue/hip hop track), Los Campeones del a Salsa & Baila Pa Emonciona - Calypso, No Americano & finally a cool down to Breath by Faith Hill.
The Pro-Am practice music followed and then continued into our Pro-Am competition, straight into Dance A of the Line Dances. The dances used for this competition were the same as Worlds 2010 so everyone got to the bust out the moves they already knew. Remember that all the dances will change for UK Masters in December! After Dance A and Pro-Am had concluded we started with our second workshop, a very special West Coast Swing session taught by Nicola Lafferty & Sam Robins.
In this workshop Nicola & Sam taught a small, 32-count swing routine to Usher’s DJ Got Us Falling in Love which is going to be used to conduct a Flash Mob in Blackpool Town Centre on Sunday 12th December 2010, the morning after our event in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom. For more information on this Flash Mob, click here. Find out what a Flash Mob is, where and why we plan to do it and find a video of the routine to learn so you can join in! We’ll be teaching this at all of our next events so that everyone can participate!
After this we had another fabulous display of talent when we proceed with Dance B of our competition. This event had everything in the competition stakes, competitors new and old (some first time dancers with Masters and some of our new Division 1 graduates dancing for the first time); the standard of competition was proving to be as amazing as always. Next we had a Latin workshop from IDTA Instructor Zoe Powell. Zoe (and reluctant partner Sam, who knew nothing about the next dance form or the routine that was about to be taught) took to the floor to teach the dancers and parents about the Mambo! Sexy, sassy, and pretty fast, everyone enjoyed this 30 minute insight into one of the more technical Latin dances to 'Johnny's Theme' from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.
Back to the competition. The dancers finished of their work through Dance C, bringing our competition to and end but with still two workshops left! The next workshop was taught by Strictly Dance Fever finalist & Division 1 World Champion Paul Culshaw. Paul took to the stage to teach a Jazz number to a great DJ Earthworm track - the Sean Kingston Beautiful Mashup'! It was great to see not only experienced dancers on the floor learning this but also social dancers and parents. It definitely brought a sweat on to all those who participated.
The final workshop of the day came from The Dance Studio's very own Julie Carr who taught a new 48 count 2 wall high intermediate dance by Dee Musk called Fall Apart to a great track by the same name from Sarah Connor which went down well - You can view the script here, and video here. The final part of the first aspect of the 1st Day of Dance was the awards. Some very close divisions in this competition proved that the standard of dance at Masters Competitions keeps getting better with the gap between levels ever narrowing!
After a small break we re-opened the doors for the evening social with DJ Jamie & DJ Sam, which went on until 23:30. The dance requests were very VERY eclectic, old and new ranging from No Salvation and Murder My Heart to T-Bone Shuffle & Lamtara Rumba, from I Run To You, Drip Droppin', Haunted & Hot Out Of The Box, to Deeply Completely, Do Your Thing, Now or Never, Brucie, Tik Tok Drop, Stupid In Love and much much MUCH more, finally being brought to an end by DJ Sam getting everyone in the Christmas spirit by doing the Tush Push to All I Want For Christmas (Is You) by Mariah Carey! Only 74 sleeps to go!!!
We'd like to thank everyone for their support on this experimental day. We have an amazing time and the feedback we have received has been great. We'll definitely be introducing more of these workshops at future events so keep your eyes peeled for more information. For more information on the UK Masters Flash Mob that we will be conducting please click here.
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