From Dance Spirit

By Alison Feller

As the co-executive producer of “So You Think You Can Dance,” Jeff Thacker has seen it all. He’s watched dancers face-plant during the audition process, but he’s also witnessed the dancers who blew Nigel and Mary away. He’s here to tell you how to get your ticket to Vegas—
and for the hot tamale train.

Do:

• Dress to impress. It makes a big difference.

• Be as unique and memorable as you can. Show us something we may not have seen yet.

• Show us your charisma and character. Having a good personality is equally as important as excellent dancing ability.

• Come and enjoy the entire experience.

Don’t:

• Come unprepared. You never know what songs you may dance to or styles you’ll be asked to do.

• Dance in a style that isn’t your own. Be good at your own style, not bad at another.

• Wear hats or glasses that cover your face. We need to see you.

• Hold back. Just go for it and do your best.

Hello Everyone!

My name is Shelli, and I’m here to answer your dance questions! But,  I guess the best place to start is to give you a little history about myself.

To begin, I wear a LOT of hats in life.  Like most moms, I am completely twisted and pulled in all directions, at all times.  I am a mother of 3 amazing kids (I know we all say that…but they really are).  My kids are very close in age but for the next month I don’t get to look completely insane and tell you that my kids ages are 21, 21, and 19.  Until my baby turns 20 March 2^nd.  Then the head scratching begins when I say my kids are 21, 21, and 20!  So yes, I did have twins (boy & girl) and a 3^rd just 15 months later.  They are a dancer/business owner, a senior at Chapman University (Graduating with top honors), and a sophomore at Idaho State who also plays football for them!

But aside from a mother of 3, I am a wife of 23 years, a business owner for the last 20 years and the matriarch of my entire family. I am also a grantie (yes that’s spelled right) of 5 nieces, mother to my 4 dogs, 3 cats, 3 bothers, 1 sister and sometimes my Husband & my father.  I am also partner in a dance wear business with my daughter, and the PR & Special Projects Manager for Discount Dance Supply.

So what does that have to do with my knowing anything about dance and dancers?  Well, I guess it begins with my daughter.  She’s an amazing young woman who has navigated her way thru the maze of being a student, a competitor, a protégé, a professional, a teacher, a judge and a business owner…all in the world of dance.  So without a conscious effort dance and the dance world have been a very big part of my life for 15 years now.

What I would like to accomplish with blogging is to talk.  About every possible subject in the world of dance I can  speak with relative confidence about.  I know that as a mother of a dancer, there were so many moments that I needed a friend…a confidant…an advisor who knew the road I was on.  Hopefully I can provide some of this to you.  I have been through it all as a mother of a ballerina and now out there watching it all from different angles in the business world of dance and competitions.  So feel free to comment back to me…ask questions…give me your thoughts.

I want to leave you with some questions to begin the conversation….

What’s your goal in dance with your child?  What motivates you?  What motivates them?

In July 2009, Dance Teachers from all over the country converged on New York City Dance Teacher Summit’s recital costume preview and fashion show…and the time has come again! The conference is a 3 day line up of 900 of your fellow dance teachers, 3 motivating days of dance in NYC, World renowned dance instructors and much, much more.

To help gear up, below is a clip from the 2009 summit;  Discount Dance Supply provided all of the clothing that the dancers so elegantly presented.

Get your passes for the 2010 Dancer Teacher Summit today!

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all entering a great 2nd week into February. I’m about to embark on my 4th week of school, and the semester has been so busy already! I mentioned in the last blog some of the projects I’m working on this semester so I thought I’d update you all regarding them.

First, I’m performing in “Showing 4″, which is one out of the 5 “showings” we have featuring work by student choreographers. I’m in a piece choreographed by Mandarin Wu, who is a 2nd year MFA and graduated from UCI for her undergrad. We actually know each other through mutual people including my future sister-in-law, Genevieve, because they worked together in LA this past summer. Anyway, Mandy (short for Mandarin) is choreographing a pointe piece, and I’m very excited and scared to perform it all at the same time. It’s been a long while since I’ve performed pointe on stage so I hope that I don’t fall on my face! We will be performing this piece next week – Feb. 18th and 19th. Wish me luck!

My next project I’m working on is a piece I’m choreographing for the MFA 1 concert. All 1st year MFAs get their own concert to feature choreographic works if they wish. I am choreographing a piece set on 6 women, and it is going to be FIERCE. Here’s a little preview of their costumes (still a work in progress…and was custom made and sewn by my MOM, Monica Chua – my Mom is the best!!! :

Don’t they look so awesome! The piece is also set to music composed by Elias Constantopedos (who also composed my solo from last semester) – the music is a fusion of a Baroque fugue mixed in with electronic sound. I wanted to have this regal and courtship look to the piece, and the music suits the choreography perfectly. You can preview a rehearsal video here – just remember it’s still a work in progress:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP5voHFwoWU

This piece will be premiering in 2 weeks – Feb. 25, 26, 27th. The show is FREE so if any of you readers are in NYC and would like to come to this performance or the one above then come to 111 2nd Ave, 5th floor. Both shows are FREE! I am so looking forward to this performance because not only are my mother, her boyfriend, and my grandmother coming to see the show, but my fiancé, Chester, will be here too! This will be the first time Chester has come to see me here in NYC so I’m so excited!!!

Lastly, the third project I’m working on is for my Choreographers, Composers and Designers class. I’m working with two other ladies, Julia and Wen-Jen, and we are collaborating with set designers, a costume designer, and music composer to choreograph and produce a work. It’s been such a brain-filled experience so far because everyone has such great creative input and ideas that when I walk away from our meetings my brain hurts! Our concept deals with technology, and how it affects our communication – whether it helps or leads us to miscommunication. We are working within that realm, and if you start thinking about technology and how it is taking over our lives this can become a very broad and deep topic. However, we want to keep this piece light-hearted and somewhat humorous. We will be scaling down and concentrating on specific communication through the use of social networking like Facebook and Myspace and how that can affect relationships between 2 or even 3 people. We have 1 female and 2 males in our cast so we might try to work out some kind of love triangle or something to that extent. We are still in the very beginning stages of this project so I will keep you all updated. Here’s a poem that we found that inspired our concept for this piece (it’s actually really funny):

http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/rememberwhen.htm

I will keep you all updated on my many projects coming up this semester. Hope you enjoyed reading and hope you have a great week. Thanks!!!

Sometimes people have a hard time applying their makeup with brushes. The reason for this is because of the amount of pressure they use while holding the brush.

When you choose a makeup  brush, try to use one with a longer handle, and hold it on the far end. This will help you to gain control while applying eyeliner and shadow.

Hello everyone!!!

I’ve had a very fulfilling and busy 2 weeks back home teaching and designing costumes and now I am back to school! Going back home to CA to teach was great because I definitely missed teaching and it’s really nice to know how much the kids have missed me. I have definitely missed them!

I’m done with my first week back to school and I am sore! I didn’t think I would be as sore because at least I was teaching and taking a few classes during my visit, but I guess it wasn’t enough. I have to comment on one my teachers, Jolinda. She’s probably one of the best ballet and pointe teachers I have ever had. Great teachers are very hard to come by, and she’s definitely one of them. I’ve had so many fabulous teachers in CA, but to find one here in NYC and at my school is just amazing. She pushes me, is really articulate about what she wants to see, definitely gives you great corrections and positive feedback when you do something good . I fortunately get to have her for ballet and pointe 3 times a week (I wish I had more!). I just had to say something about her because she’s a great teacher, and I hope to be able to teach and inspire students like her one day, especially in the ballet and pointe field.

It’s back to work with my choreography, and I have a few projects underway. I’m working a solo for my composition class, and every week we are to choreograph about 40 seconds to a minute to experience the choreographic and creative process. My teacher, Phyllis, doesn’t want us to whip out the entire solo right away. She wants us to add on a little bit every week so we can edit, and continue to think about our creative process as we’re doing it.

Another project I’m working on is a choreography piece for the 1st year MFA concert. It’s a concert that is only open to the 1st year MFA’s and we’re able to choreograph a piece if we like. Almost everyone is choreographing with the exception 1 or 2 people. I have 6 female dancers, and have already started rehearsals. I am working with the same composer I worked with last semester so I’m just waiting on the music so I can put the movement vocabulary in and tweak from there.

Lastly, my Composers, Choreographers, and Designers (CC&D) class requires that we choreograph a piece that utilizes a strong relationship with set designers, costume designers, and composers for music. We are allowed to think BIG. So this concert is normally very exciting and creative. I have 2 other partners in this project – Wen-Jen and Julia. We’ve come up with a great idea, but now we have to solidify our concept and think about how we’re going to try and portray that through movement.

Those are the projects I’m working on this semester! I will keep you all updated on the creative process and hopefully it’ll all work out!

Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!!!

Hope everyone had a beautiful holiday season and I know it was hard getting back into things, but here we are almost done with January already! How the time flies, it is truly amazing. I have my first ballroom competition coming up on February 12 at the Irvine Marriott called “California Open”. After my Christmas showcase I put on at my ballroom studio, I got a wonderful response from my students, their parents, my friends and family about my performance, it really gave me the boost I needed to just work work work to be the best I could be for this first time out on the floor. My partner has decided for the first few competitions to start me out at a little lower of a level so I will stand out and look polished and clean. After that, I will then change my routine and go into an open division, which allows me to do more steps that relate to ballet/lyrical background. In the american smooth divison, which is what I am competing in…there are only 4 dances in the category (waltz, tango, foxtrot and viennese waltz). I will keep you all updated an post some videos from my christmas show so you can see, but for now here are a couple of pictures.

Hi Danceworld readers!

So sorry I have been MIA for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been traveling all over the place during this holiday season and now I am finally back home in California.

I’ve been teaching almost everyday since I’ve been here and it has been absolutely GREAT. I’ve missed teaching very much and missed seeing my students. It’s so great to see how TALL everyone has gotten. Either that or I’m shrinking . I’ve had such a great holiday and there’s no better way than to finish it up by teaching some great dance classes.

For those of you who are interested here is a picture from my trip to Juneau, Alaska. I never made it to Florida due to the unforeseen circumstances at the Delta terminal, but I was able to spend more time with my fiancé and dogs.

Here is a picture of Chester and Me, Emma and Ernie our 2 samoyed dogs.

I’m here for one more week and am going to teach almost everyday. Here’s the rest of my schedule for those of you who are interested in taking class. I would love to have you there and would love to see you!

Monday, Jan. 11th

Teaching Blocks 4, 5, and 6 at OCHSA

Teaching at South County Dance 8:00-9:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

————————

Tuesday, Jan. 12th

Teaching at Elevation Studios 8:30-10:00pm Adv Contemp. Jazz

—————————–

Wednesday, Jan. 13th

Teaching at Boogiezone Contemporary classes at Focus Dance Center

—————————–

Thursday, Jan. 14th

Teaching at South County Dance 8:30-9:30pm Adv. Lyrical

Being in the entertainment industry dancers often find that we have the opposite schedule of most other people. We work when others are at leisure so they will hopefully come to see us perform. I have to admit this is hardest to deal with during the holiday season. When others are cuddled up at home with family and friends we are in the full grind of Nutcracker, our busiest time of year.

Since it’s winter time, lets talk about skin care. This can be really tricky especially if you are a teenager. The problem that I see often, is that there are sooo many options when it comes to skincare, that sometimes people overdo it. When you are a teen and your body is going through all of these changes, it really takes itself out on your skin. So if you start to break out, you try to use acne fighting ingrediants which can overdry your face.  Sometimes, by using these products your face will get worse. If you overdry your face, then the dead skin clogs your pores.  Then you really have a problem because you have dry skin ontop of oily skin.

This is my advice: If you try Proactive, then start out by using the face wash once a day instead of twice.  Gradually work your way up to using it full strength.  If your skin starts to get dry, wash your face with a washcloth to buff that dry skin off. I just bought a clarisonic pro which I love! It is a handheld facial brush that spins to get all of the dry skin off. It  is expensive, but amazing.

I like to use an antibacterial soap like purpose or neutrogena, with a washcloth. Then IF you need a toner, the proactive toner is fabulous. Then an oil free  moisturizer. Try and take skin care step by step….without causing dry flaky skin.