By David Paris

The road to the World Country Dance Championships started in the summer of 2008 when Barry Durand saw us compete in Cabaret at Disco America.  When Barry approached us to do one of his events, it was special for me because I watched videos of Barry competing in the 90s and loved his cabaret work.  We competed in Barry’s event called Swing Fling, and this was attended by Tony, the head director of the World Country Dance Championships.  He liked our work and invited to perform and teach at the event in Disney World, Orlando Florida.  What I didn’t know is that Tony was a cabaret dance champion in 4 different styles and worked for 10 years with Pierre Dulaine.  It was quite and honor to be working with these big shots, and added a little more pressure for me in doing every lift correctly.  

The event opened my eyes in a lot of ways.  I thought country dance was square dancing in one room while everyone else is doing the country version of the electric slide.  Well, the dancing was extraordinary, blending the extension, precision, and power of ballroom dance with some earth bound feel of social dancing.  I particularly enjoyed the men’s solo waltz, because I saw grace similar to men’s ice skating, combined with lyricism and tenderness that I had no idea existed.  I’ve used a mental picture of these dancers to play in front of my mirrors, feeling the spirit of Gone with the Wind, even though I’ve never seen the movie.

 

We were up against some fierce competition in cabaret championship.  There was Ely and Wei, two dynamic salsa guys redefining what two men can do in a latin show.  And there was Codi and his partner, who perform dynamic and smooth lifts in their dance.  We were fortunate to come in first, and felt proud considering that there was such a strong field of dancers.  

 

On Saturday, we performed our first adagio to a country waltz.  The song is entitled “Polly Come Home Again.”  I was quite nervous how the country crowd would think about our work to their music.  I was confident that the acrobatics musically interpreted the song and routine was strong, but you really never know when you perform something for the first time.  Hmmm, okay, normally it’s good to perform a piece a few times before going out and performing in front of a thousand people, but we didn’t have time.  We rolled the dice.  And the show went superbly.  We could feel the audience with us, as we danced in the spotlight.  And all night people thanked us for the show.  It felt great. Still does.  

 

Another highlight was hanging out with Roberto Pagan.  He is a champion hustle and theater arts dancer and one of the most interesting personalities in the social dance world.  His classes are a party and well, if you ever get to meet him, you’ll know.