Fall 2014

Fall 2014
(VIP Dance Convention, The Pulse on Tour Announcements, DFD Show Dates, The Underground Dance Centre, Monsters of Hip Hop Atlanta, "Lost It To Trying" Video Shoot)

The fall months have turned out to be full of exciting dance opportunities. I've attended a few conventions and took part in an amazing video shoot with my friend Juliette Irons. Here's what I've been up to:



VIP Dance Events

Last year I attended one day of the VIP Dance Event in Toronto. I had so much fun dancing at the workshop that with the new Faculty additions for the 2014 Tour, I knew I'd like to attend again.

I travelled to Ottawa - the second tour stop of VIP Dance Convention in September. The Faculty for the weekend consisted of Ian Eastwood, Chaz Buzan, Marty Kudelka, Tessandra Chavez, Nico Archambault and Blake McGrath. The classes were awesome and I was honoured to be asked to assist classes for the weekend!

We had two classes with each Faculty member over the course of the weekend.

I loved Chaz's combos…they were so full out and who doesn't love a deep second! These photos were taken from his "Free The Animal" combo - one of my favourites I've ever danced with him.






Chaz pointed out an exciting trend with contemporary dancers being front and centre in entertainment industry projects with videos like Sia's "Chandelier", Madonna's "Secret Project Revolution" and Beyonce's "On The Run Tour".

Classes with Marty Kudelka are a departure from hip hop choreography that requires you to hit accents hard. He is so smooth and to do his choreography well requires you to be clean, un-rushed and finish every movement. Even the most subtle accents can be just as exciting as a hard accent in his choreography.

We learned two different combos but both had signature Marty moves. You could imagine what it's like to be onstage performing for Justin Timberlake, dancing choreography by Marty.

I was excited to assist Tessandra Chavez again - I miss her approach to teaching. She demands everyone dance to their own potentiality and she never wants you to mark. She believes "you are never good enough to mark" and that your muscle memory and how you execute choreography are directly related to how you rehearse in class. I love how she pulls more effort from a class and the growth from the start to finish of a class is very noticeable.

She is a choreographer who likes clean, technical dancers who work hard in class. We danced to "Gimme Love" and it was a fun combo. I can't wait to dance with her again! Good Luck to Tessandra as she ventures across the pond to work on X-Factor UK!

And who doesn't love class with Ian Eastwood?

I'm a fan of Ian's - not in a fan-girl way but rather I'm in awe of his unique style of movement. The way he tells stories with his gestures and articulates his movement - each count is so clean and precise. Because of this, it can be challenging for dancers to get his choreography in just one class. Despite the challenges, everyone loves a class with Ian - he has a dry sense of humour which makes class fun and he genuinely loves when he sees dancers imitate his movement the way he wants it executed.

He explained he listens to music for days before he starts any choreography - a cue I'll take so that I'll intimately know the music and can connect with it on a deeper level.

I took my first ever class with Nico Archambault  - the winner of SYTYCD Canada Season 1. He is a busy choreographer in Canada, former Pulse Elite Protege and I loved his class.

We did a contemporary combo with lots of lunges, floor work and challenging poses. There were moments that required strong musicality, strength and fluidity. Nico encouraged everyone to let their own essence come through his choreography - that although there was an expectation to execute the choreography, there was no right or wrong way to do it if you let "you" shine through.

In Blake McGrath's classes, we did contemporary the first day and jazz funk the second day. Both combos required you to travel and dance the choreography full out.

On Saturday evening, a Gala was held in an effort to raise funds and awareness for The Children's Wish Foundation. We listened to a Father tell the story of his 11-year old daughter who was diagnosed and treated for Ovarian Cancer at age 11. It was a heart-wrenching story but thankfully she has recovered and was granted her wish to travel to California and meet the character artists at Dreamworks Animation. I forget sometimes how fortunate I am to have a healthy, capable body that withstands the rigour I demand of it. It was a reminder of how blessed I am to be healthy and how fortunate I am to dance. Thank you to organizations like Children's Wish Foundation that exist to enhance kids lives and to VIP for fundraising on their behalf. I know I left the evening with hope and gratitude.

All Photo credits: Yonard Sambo


The Pulse On Tour Alumni

On October 1, The Pulse On Tour made several announcements adding new Faculty members and Guest Artists to their already stellar line up of Choreographers! I can barely contain my excitement! Can't wait to take classes with Tucker Barkley, Jillian Meyers, Erica Sobol, Meg Law, Kayla Radmonski and Chaz Buzan!

The Pulse on Tour really is a special experience. The Pulse has been a wonderful influence in my dance life and I'm honoured to have been an Elite Protege and proud Alumni. Brian Friedman gave the Alumni a once in a lifetime opportunity to dance in the New York City Gala in an Alumni Piece choreographed by Rhapsody James. Half the alumni from the past ten years of The Elite Protege program were able to participate in the performance. It was a really fun number, I loved my custom-made Alumni Jersey with my name and Elite year on it, and dancing in front of the Pulse Faculty who were just as excited to see us dance as we were to perform. The Pulse is proud of their Protege Program for the opportunities it facilitates for dancers, I hope you can make it to a tour city and experience it for yourself. Check out the Gala Alumni piece:



Dana Foglia Dance Company - "Vatic"

I really hope I'll be in Los Angeles to catch Dana Foglia's newest production "Vatic". Based on my mentorship experience with her and the DFD Company; it will be nothing short of amazing!

Tickets are now on sale - be sure to get yours for one of the performances November 14-16th at the El Portal Theatre. For information, visit www.danafogliadance.com.

The Underground Dance Centre

The Underground is a new studio in downtown Toronto offering beginner, intermediate and advanced level classes for dancers. I love the options for Contemporary classes through the week with choreographers Jade Whitney, Faye Rauw and Guest classes with artists such as Tatiana Parker, Hani Abaza and Chris Stewe. The Underground has an easy on-line method of reserving class space and it's a really supportive environment to dance in. Congratulations to Leon Blackwood on his new venture!




Monsters of Hip Hop - Atlanta

I attended my first city as an Alumni and had so much fun! For the first time in history, the Monsters Faculty and Show Alumni hit the stage together for a performance they created just for Atlanta. The closing number featured Tabitha and Napoleon Dumo, Kevin Maher, Rhapsody James, Laura Edwards and Sean Bankhead plus Alumni Robert Green, Dylan Cheek, Angelo Saunders, Ramone Wilkinson, Jarred Jenkins and myself. We danced to Chonique Sneed's new single called "Let It Go" available in itunes!

I also took part in my first ever Industry Class at MOHH. This class is for 18+ and in the span of an hour and a half, Kevin Maher created a video with the participants. He taught us about formations and the importance of eye contact with the camera.

Monsters is an action packed weekend with a bonus class on Friday evenings, classes Saturday and Sunday with awesome faculty and performance opportunities on Saturday evening. Proceeds from the Showcase benefit "Monsters on the Move" Foundation. The highlight of every Monsters showcase though is the Parents Battle...you'll be awe what some of the parents can do!

Check out www.monstersofhiphop.com for information on their tour cities!

It's always fun to see friends at conventions including Jentry and my little cousin Hadley who came to watch me dance.

Juliette Irons - "Lost It to Trying" Concept Video

On a recent trip to LA, I was fortunate to participate in a concept video created, directed and edited by the extremely talented Juliette Irons.  We met and danced in a white-box studio in downtown Los Angeles - covering ourselves in white baking flour and white makeup on our faces.  Under Juliette's direction, we improved, jumped around, threw flour at each other and created "pictures' that Juliette had in her mind while she filmed in slow motion format. What she created and edited is nothing short of amazing! I was honoured to dance with Ryan Spencer, Jason Gorman, Kelly Browning, Kenzie McClure, Jordan Johnson and Jesse Johnson. And props to the camera man Julian Juarez!



Juliette describes the video "about passing through after death, and a metaphoric presentation of resisting what life presents us with". Congratulations to Juliette on this amazing video!

Summer 2014

My 16th Birthday

For the first time in years, I was with my mom, dad and sister Kate on my birthday! We spent the day in Santa Barbara, driving along the PCH to a private beach near Malibu, played in the sand and surf, drove through the beautiful mountains, had an awesome birthday cake and watched the July 4th fireworks with our neighbours. It was the best birthday ever!

Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes...I'm so grateful for the friends and family in my life.

The Pulse on Tour - Alumni Reunion

This summer I had the privilege to dance in the Pulse Alumni Piece at the National Gala in New York City. This year the Pulse on Tour celebrated its 10th Anniversary and in honor of this huge milestone, every Elite Protege Alumnus from the last ten years was invited to participate in a special performance recognizing 10 years of the Elite Program! To date 66 dancers have been selected as Elite Proteges and approximately 20 Alumnus danced in the routine choreographed by Rhapsody James!

We wore oversized black and white jerseys with our last names printed on the back and the year we were Elite Proteges on the front. We performed to a J Lo track "Waiting for Tonight" right before the 2014-2015 Elites were named! It was an honor to dance with my fellow Alumnus in front the the Pulse Faculty and Guests. The best part of the night was seeing how proud Brian Friedman was of us all as he stood crying, cheering us on. We were greeted by the faculty as we exited the stage to many hugs and kisses - It was an amazing moment I will never forget!

My sister Kate met Zendaya :)

Thank you to Brian Friedman and The Pulse on Tour for this incredible opportunity!

Juilliard Summer Dance Intensive 2014

This was the view of Central Park from the room I shared with Kaylyn - I was so happy she was my room-mate - the best roomie ever!

Thursday was "clean the bathroom day" in the dorm...Sophie, Kaylyn, Sarah, Brianna and myself shared the duties!

On several outings with the crew, we went to Central Park to watch a live dance performance, went to Magnolia Bakery, Serendipity or walked a neighbourhood tour. It was fun to spend time with the other dancers outside the studio.

 

I was in a piece by Kristofer Weinstein-Storey for the performance showcase....and I was lucky enough to meet one of my dance idols, Jermaine Spivey!

 

With Ray, hanging out after the performance.


Juilliard was an amazing experience - the individualized program focused on technique and artistry. It was one of my favorite experiences yet! Being on campus and dancing with Juilliard students left       me so inspired and I met so many amazing people.

Monsters of Hip Hop Show 2014

For over a decade, Monsters of Hip Hop has toured North America providing training and career opportunities to hungry dancers with their down to earth, world-renowned faculty and positive, family-oriented convention environment.

This year I was selected as a 2014 Show Cast Member and I am proud and honored to have worked alongside my fellow cast members, the Staff of Monsters and Show Choreographers to create a show for the dance community, unrivalled in concept and execution. A huge thank you for selecting me for this prestigious honor....it was the most intensive dance experience I've had to date in my training!

For two weeks, the Cast rehearsed in North Hollywood at mL, Nappytabs or Downtown Los Angeles, at the venue - an old industrial warehouse made up of a myriad of rooms, old brick, beams and graffitti. 

It was the perfect setting for the show and reinforced the concept of "Madness & Mayhem" - a journey to "La La Land filled with Madness and Mayhem at Every Turn" - an interpretation of the journey, triumph, trial and error we experience while navigating our careers as dancers!

The venue was awesome...Julie Anne and I had an impromptu photo shoot!

As an added bonus, The Cast performed Tony Testa's choreography at the 2014 Choreographers Nominee Emmy reception! The venue was right around the corner from Nappytabs so between rehearsals, we made our way to the event and performed in front of Kenny Ortega, Nigel Lithgoe and the Emmy Nominees as one of the five guest performances. The event was hosted by Jesse Tyler Ferguson - it was such an amazing opportunity...THANK YOU Tony and Monsters!

Here is footage from the Emmy Reception...thank you to Tony for posting this!!!

The Monsters Show Project was created in 2005 to "introduce up-and-coming dancers to industry professionals and hopefully launch their careers...Dancers from around the globe attend Monsters convention tour for the opportunity to audition for the industry's top choreographers where four dancers in each city are nominated as show finalists...through this project, we aim to develop professional, hard-working and determined performers who will entertain for years to come".

This year's show was created, directed and produced by Tabitha and Napoleon D'umo with Assistant Director Tony Testa. There were five shows in total and they were all very well-attended by dancers and dance enthusiasts!

The Cast danced in 12 pieces and Monsters Alumni performed two pieces. Choreography was done by Tucker Barkley, Kaili & Kassidy Bright, Lisette Bustamante, Phillip Chbeeb, Nick DeMoura, Laura Edwards, Alex Fetbroth, Parris Goebel, Brandon Harrell, Rhapsody James, Ande J, Nick Lanzisera, Brian & Scott Nicholson, Chonique Sneed, Tony Testa, Hannah Gossett & Jazmine Rafael!

It was an amazing show and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. It was great to see so many dancers support the show and dance celebrities including Nigel Lithgoe and Paula Abdul. I am very grateful to Jennifer, Will, Moe, Hannah, Irina, Robert, Willdabeast, Nicol, Ashley, Jacqueline and my family for coming to support me!

Willdabeast came to support his immabeast cast members KK, Angelo, Noah, Jake, Ramone and myself!

 So You Think You Can Dance - Final Four Announced!

On Wednesday, August 20th, I had the privilege to see the pre-tape portion and live results show of SYTYCD Season 11 when they announced the Final Four Dancers! Thank you to Will Wingfield and Monique Borromeo for the tickets for my mom, sister, bestie JQ and myself to see the taping!

We arrived early in the afternoon at the VIP entrance to obtain our tickets. "Some" of us were a little awestruck by the people coming and going...including Scooter Braun who was there to see the performance by Rixton!

The show was amazing - it was great to see the size of the stage, the Judges, Christina Applegate and Kat Deely in person and watch how the show unfolds. We also were able to hang out backstage following the show to see Will walk the press junket while we got a few pictures with dance celebrities like Willdabeast, Cyrus and Nick DeMoura. We even saw Mary Murphy do the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge live!

It was an awesome afternoon - Good luck to the Final Four!











Check out video of Will Wingfield dancing with Jacque and Willdabeast's choreography for Valerie and Twitch!





Thank you for checking out my blog and to everyone who made my summer so special!
See you next time on Move It With Maddie :)