02 July 2008

Stanford Dance Weekend

This past weekend was the 2008 Stanford Dance Weekend, a total immersion in social dance — "waltz, swing, salsa, vintage dances, club dances and more." In addition to learning new moves and dancing with nice people, we also picked up some new songs to waltz to!

  • Tsuumi Sound System - Tuulin ja Hannun häävalssi (Wedding waltz) (140 bpm) This is a lovely Finnish waltz which Lilli Ann Carey played in her class on musicality. It has some nice syncopations which I imagine would work well for canter pivots.
  • Peter Gabriel - Down to Earth (117 bpm) (Amazon | imeem) This new cross-step waltz comes fresh off the soundtrack of Pixar's new film Wall-E, which opened last Friday. Richard Powers played it for the first time this weekend in his cross-step classes. There's a few bars in 4/4 time in the middle which need to be edited out, and it's too long to play as is, but otherwise it's a fun new song to dance to.
  • Kepa Junkera - Santimamiñeko Fandangoa & Ioaeoe (130 bpm before editing) (Amazon | last.fm) New to my collection, though Richard's been playing this lively, cheerful waltz for a while. He speeds it up and plays it as a rotary waltz which also works for redowa. I haven't tried it editing the song yet, but it probably needs to be shortened even after increasing the tempo.

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