Come Dancing!

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Come Dancing! It's Only Natural

In the hit song Come Dancing, Ray Davies of the Kinks sang:

Come dancing,
Come on sister, have yourself a ball.
Don't be afraid to come dancing,
It's only natural.

[Click for the full lyrics.]

How true! Well, at least for me. Ballroom dancing IS only natural! I started taking lessons in mid-June, 2005, when the woman I was dating at the time told me I'd be "THE perfect man" (her words, not mine) if I could only dance. Well, signed up for lessons and almost immediately became addicted. The woman has long since broken up with me (I guess she just couldn't handle perfection) but we've remained friends and occasionally dance partners.  And I now have a passion for life!

2009 Kaluby's Dance Club Black & White Gala 

My most recent routine

If you live in the Jacksonville, FL, area and want to learn how to dance, check out Kaluby's Dance Studio. And if you decide to contact them, please mention my name, Mike Rosenberg.

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2009 Black & White Gala, part 2 

Student and staff performances

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2008 Kaluby's Dance Club Winter Blitz 

My previous routine

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Come Dancing at CafePress 

2008 Winter Blitz, part 2 

Student and staff performances

curated content from YouTube

2008 Winter Blitz, part 3 

More student and staff performances

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Recommended Links 

Dance Forums
Discussions groups for all types of partner dances - ballroom, Latin, swing, country and western, polka, etc. Includes lots of video links.
Designs By Mike's Coming Dancing @ CafePress
Gift shop for tee shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, mouse pads and more, with designs related to ballroom and Latin dancing.
DanceShoesStore.com: the online ballroom dance shoes mega store
Authorized VeryFine dancesportshoes dealer, the best prices I've seen anywhere on the VeryFine brand, with free shipping.

2008 Black & White Gala 

My second routine

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2008 Black & White Gala, part 2 

Performances by staff and students

curated content from YouTube

2008 Black & White Gala, part 3 

More performances by staff and students

curated content from YouTube

2007 Black & White Gala 

My public performance premiere!

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My "As Time Goes By" foxtrot 

The background story

I was born May 23, 1957, and began taking ballroom dance lessons in mid-June, 2005. Two weeks after my first lesson, I attended a local Jacksonville, FL, event, the Black and White Gala, hosted by my dance studio, Kaluby's Dance Club. It's an event put on purely for fun and entertainment, not competition, consisting almost entirely of one-couple showcase routines.

Although I'd started the lessons only with the notion of becoming a good social dancer, I was enthralled by the showcases and came away from this event with the goal of performing them eventually. I'm also a nearly lifelong fan of Humphrey Bogart (see my Squidoo lens on Bogie), and Casablanca is my all-time favorite movie. Having already come across a foxtrot version of As Time Goes By, the famous title song from that film, I immediately knew that this is what I'd have to do for my first routine.

It took me two years to feel I was ready, though. By this time, I had collected several more foxtrot versions of As Time Goes By. When I listened to all of them, though, none of them felt right. They were all kind of, well, hokey or overly schmaltzy. I wanted something a lot jazzier. Macintosh geek that I am, I took a nice solo jazz piano MIDI file, imported it into GarageBand, increased the tempo from 80 to 120 BPM, and added bass and drums. Then I dubbed in dialog from Casablanca. After the event, I had a field day putting the video together in iMovie, so, really, what you're seeing combines three of my biggest passions.

By the way, you can't hear it because it's drowned out, but 10 seconds after the music ends, the routine ends with Bogie saying "Here's looking at you, kid."

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by mikerose23

I am a Macintosh computer consultant by day, ballroom dance student by night, not to mention a New York Yankees fan Toyota Prius driving liberal democ... (more)

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