Dance life

So the Black Eyed Peas song ‘I Got a Feelin’ may not be the best, and at times it’s pretty annoying, but I have to admit that it’s generating a bunch of cool videos.

The first one I heard about through the Gazette. A french school, Comm-UQAM or something, put together a video to the Black Eyed Peas song.  It took a lot of preparation, but the cool thing about it is that everything came together perfectly and they shot it in one take.  The camera man walks through the school taping people lip sync to the song and act out the lyrics.  Everything is perfectly on time and really cool, so check it out!

The next video is known as ‘The Famous Oprah Video.’  This one has the Black Eyed Peas on stage performing their song to a huge audience in Chicago.  This video also took a lot of preperation because as the band sang the audience danced along perfectly in sync with each other and the song.  It starts off with one girl dancing alone at the front of the audience while everyone else stood still, gradually as the song goes on more people start to join her until the entire audience is participating.  The best part of this video is when all the audience members ducked down creating a really cool domino effect.  I was blown away, like Oprah, and I’m sure you will be too:

So even though the song may be annoying and always stuck in your head (especially after you watch these videos…haha is it stuck in yours?)  the videos are great and well put together!

Michael Jackson has been all over the news and radio for a few days now since his death on Thursday.  It seems like everybody cared that the strange entertainer died of a heart attack, and everyone has their own opinions.  When he was alive and young he was one of the greatest entertainers ever known, up there with the Beatles and Elvis, but over the past decade or more we’ve watched him deteriorate (literally).  He’s been the subject of many jokes, from his nose, to his skin, to dangling babies over balconies, but we still all know the words to his songs and we still learn his dances in workshops.  He’s a strange guy, but who wouldn’t be if they were internationally famous by age five. 

When someone dies you look back at their life think of all the good they’ve done for the world.  For Michael the legacy he left behind is what he will be remembered for in the long run, not what he looked like.  He will always be remembered for his music and his dancing. 

Michael Jackson has the best selling single of all time, and with today’s pirating he’ll probably keep that record for a long time.  Thriller is a classic song, it changed the way we think of music and music videos and it keeps showing up in movies or on the radio long after it first came out.  How many people in the world know the thriller dance, or at least how many people would be able to recognize it if they saw it.  How many other artists are that recognizable? 

Michael Jackson made dancing cool! He single handedly changed the world of dance and made it what it is today.  His songs made people want to get up and dance, and he showed them the moves to use.  He brought together different style from cultures around the world.  He tried new things with every song and every dance and he made people want to be different too.  He showed people there is no limit and he opened the door for other singers and dancers to push the boundaries like he did. 

Never again will we see Michael Jackson’s moonwalk.  Never again will we hear his voice ring through at a live concert.  On the brink of his return he left, but he made everything he left behind that much more important to us.  How many more nose jokes to you think you’ll hear about Michael? – none.  How many times do you think you’ll hear his songs and watch his videos? – an innumerable amount. 

So who is Michael Jackson and why does the whole world care that he died? He’s an entertainer, a person who only really belonged on stage and no where else, who showed us that it’s talent and drive that change the world.  And change the world he did.  This is the Michael we should remember.

 Michael Jackson

August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

So Britney has done it again…yet another stage mishap has happened on her Circus tour, this time a few days ago while she was performing her hit single Womanizer at Mohegan concert.  This problem is stranger than her costume malfunction which she accidentally declared to the entire audience while her mic was still on, stranger than the delay and inappropriate swearing all because someone was smoked weed in the audience, and weirder than her ‘Merry Christams’ comment because this time it wasn’t actually Britney’s fault, so I have to sympathize.

While she was lip singing and dancing to Womanizer a crazy fan jumped on stage and managed to make his way to Britney.  He was a few feet away from her when Britney screamed, the funny thing is her microphone wasn’t on (1- because it doesn’t need to be since she lip sings and 2-because of her Merry Christmas comment, the swearing, and the costume comment they don’t seem to trust her with the mic anymore) so you can’t hear her scream you only see her mouth open in fear and the panic and shock that resonates after the fan was dragged off stage.  It’s really funny to watch her immediate reaction (it’s at 38 seconds), I would recommend you replay that second over and over to really get the effect.

On the bright side she managed to keep going with the song and the audience seemed to enjoy it…but I would too if I got to witness one of Britney’s mishaps in person.   

So this weekend the new Zac Efron movie, 17 again, is coming out.  I hope there’s some dancing in this one, I have a good feeling they’ll slip some in since Zac Efron is such a good dancer.  Even though High School Musical was kind of cheesy, it gets credit for having some really entertaining singing and dancing scenes. 

My favorite scene from High School Musical 3 is a dance number to the song “the boys are back”.  Troy and Chad are in a junk yard and they break into dance while reminiscing about their childhood.  I loved it! It was really creative but it still had the perfect amount of cheesiness. The guys were so hot and they didn’t even have to take their shirts off…they should have though.

Although the weird monster car bit is a little uncomfortable, but around two minutes into the dance it picks up and you forget about the previous weirdness.  It looks amazing when all the back up dancers join them because they’re all moving together perfectly in sync.  The dancing itself is really ‘butch’ in a sense.  The choreographer must have tried to make the guys look really manly, so the moves, which are a lot of fist punching and chest bumping, are executed with a lot of force. At 2:41 Troy and Chad turn into themselves as kids, and it’s so CUTE! They are such adorable little dancers; more little boys should take up dancing.  When Troy and Chad go back to their normal ages (and hotness), the dancing gets even better. They start doing a lot of tricks and they do some really cool moves with props.  Some guy does a flip off a car, and another is doing quadruple turns…there are so many cool things happening it’s hard to keep your attention on Troy and Chad, despite their hotness.

I remember watching this scene in the theaters and I just turned to my friend and said, “That was really good.”  It was better in the context of the movie, but I hope you can still appreciate it now.

Can’t wait for 17 again, better be some dancing…

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The Hannah Montana Movie is AMAZING! I’ve been looking forward to this movie all weekend, and I wasn’t disappointed.  It was the perfect feel good movie.  It made you laugh, cry, and all those cheesy things that Disney movie do. 

Miley is having trouble balancing her superstar life with her normal life.  While going back home to Tennessee she meets a hot guy…a super hot guy… and they fall in love.  This guy is so goddamn good looking, especially during that scene when he’s riding the horse extremely sexually…there kiss scene at the end was pathetic, I would have been all over this guy. 

She has some really good songs in this movie: her Hannah Montana songs were really catchy, but her Miley songs were really beautiful (especially the one she wrote about her and her dad.  I was also really into the last song, ‘the Climb’).  But there was one song she sang, as Miley, which was so funny and cute.  It was called the Hoedown Throwdown or something.  She starts singing this country/’hip hop’ (as she called it) song and she’s making up a dance to go along with it.  By the end of the song everyone is standing up dancing Hannah’s new dance craze.  On the Disney channel they showed everyone how to do it and I can just see a bunch of tweens all knowing this dance.  So why don’t you learn it too

See the movie.  Hannah Montana is cool.  It doesn’t make you cooler to hate her, so don’t.

I’ve noticed that guys aren’t the biggest fans of dancing.  I don’t mean dancing on stage (even though the ratio of boys to girls at dance competitions and shows is 1:100) but I mean out there in the real world.  When we’re out dancing it’s always the ladies on the dance floor, but what about the boyfriends?  They can sit down, find a pool table, drink by the side, bob up and down to the music, but generally the dance floor is not where they want to be all night. 

I love my boyfriend because I feel like whenever we go out together he’s always by my side.  If we’re at a club he’ll still be there, standing beside me, dancing along with me and my friends.  Even if his friends are around he’ll still chose to get up and dance with me.  It’s a million little things that make a boyfriend special, and this is one of them.  It doesn’t matter if you can dance, it matters if you dance at all, and only a real man will get up and dance with the ladies.

One of my favorite songs to get stuck in my head is ‘Single Ladies’ by Beyonce, so since I have it stuck in my head right now I figured why not write a tribute to the dancing which has infamously accompanied the song.

Beyonce dances in a skin tight Leonard and pantyhose in this video.  God I don’t even want to know what I would look like if I wore this outfit, but she looks so beautiful.  Every bit of her body is exposed which accentuates every movement, a.k.a her dancing.  She looks fantastic, and the moves look simple yet well executed.  I love this video because it is just dancing.  There are no random club scenes, no bad acting, no cliché costumes or characters but best of all its not just a singer with back up dancers, Beyonce is the dancer the whole time. 

Now Justin Timberlake also wore a skin tight Leonard and pantyhose to mimic Beyonce’s dance on SNL and he too manages to look hot.  When he’s dancing with Beyonce and the other guys in the video my eyes are drawn directly to him.  Justin is a great dancer, so the only surprise is how good he is in high heels. 

This second video is just some random guy dancing to Beyonce’s song…also in a leotard.  I have several questions…does this person have friends, was this a joke, where did he get the leotard, was it custom made to fit, and does he take dance classes.  He’s really good and he has the choreography down, but the only distracting thing is his pot belly.  

This last guy looks like some sort of serpent when he dances, but he is dead on.  God he’s really good, but what the hell is he wearing the pot belly guy in the leotard is sexier.

Incase you haven’t heard about the mishaps at some of Britney’s concert’s here they are:

In this first video Britney is just finishing one of her songs.  Apparently when she was on stage singing/moving her lips she had a costume malfunction.  At around 30 seconds her song ends and she’s lowered beneath the stage, this is when you can hear her say that her p_ _ _ _ is hanging out.  Poor Britney’s microphone was still on (why it was on in the first place if she doesn’t sing is beyond me) and the entire audience, and now anyone who sees the video, heard about her coverage problem.  On the bright side, at least she didn’t make it noticeable when she was on stage.  

This next video is pretty self explanatory.  In the middle of one of her songs Britney shouts out, “Merry Christmas.” Apparently there was someone dressed as Santa in the audience; I hope so because otherwise she has serious issues.

So for everyone who asked or was wondering how the Britney Spears concert was, here’s your answer:

The Pussycat Dolls were great, and they really pumped up the audience, but after their performance ended Britney didn’t come on stage right away, acrobats and clowns came on to show off the circus theme.  It was a bit strange because when you come to see a concert and you get circus performers you’re a bit taken aback.  They entertained, but it didn’t give off that concert atmosphere. 

Finally the opening circus act is over, the screen curtain is raised, and Britney descends from the ceiling in a ring leader costume singing Circus. It was the perfect opening act.  The whole show was a big circus production and everyone played their part.  The dancers were characters in every song, and they brought the whole show to life.  Britney is a dancer, and she looked great in the center of the stage.  Watching the show was great, but the songs are so easy to dance to that I found I had just as much fun dancing and singing along to all of Britney’s songs with my friends.

One of the most interesting parts of the concert was right after she performed the song ‘Slave’ (from her old album) and each of her dancers names were projected onto the screen as they performed solos in their own style to their own music.  I thought it was a really nice and unique twist Britney added to the show.  Other great part of the show was when Britney’s performed ‘Every time’ (I think she sang it live) suspended form an umbrella while her dancers danced beneath her with their own umbrellas, the song itself is her best slow song, and the dance was really beautiful.  She also had some great videos playing during her songs and during costume changes.  During ‘Piece of Me’ the lyrics were shown on the screen so it was easy to sing along.  Once again just turning to my friends and singing along together made every song a little bit more fun. 

It was such a great concert, and we were standing up dancing for most of her songs.  She’s such a performer and the dancing was great.  She ended the show well with her encore song, ‘Womanizer’ which is a personal favorite, I think we were all standing for that one. 

For some reason, even though Britney was amazing, my friend got the Pussycat Dolls’ song ‘Jai Ho’ stuck in our heads the whole way back to the south shore.  

Last night the Pussycat Dolls opened up for Britney Spears at her Circus concert here in Montreal.  The great thing about the Pussycat Dolls is that, like Britney, they dance and entertain the crowd well, what am I saying, better than well, they are incredible entertainers.  We’re all aware that Britney lip sings at her concerts because she dances, and intense dancing plus singing equals out of breath, but the Pussycat Dolls (or the one doll, Nicole) sing and dance.

Watching the Pussycats Dolls perform was like watching Nicole Scherzinger’s concert with four back up dancers and singers, but wow did it they make it work.  Nicole is an amazing singer, and you can really hear that in songs like ‘Jai Ho’ and ‘I Hate This Part,’ but their dancing was phenomenal every song.  Their choreography was simple, not in a “oh that’s lame” way but in a “wow I wish I was doing that right now, it looks fun” way.  The easier the choreography the more flexibility you have to incorporate your own personality and style into the moves.  So the Pussycat Dolls were consistently hitting every move with massive energy and personality.  Nicole didn’t dance as much as the others because she was signing but I barely noticed because I couldn’t keep my eyes off Kimberly Wyatt (the short haired blonde one who always lifts her leg above her head.)  I used to think she was really annoying because during every performance or music video she would lift her leg, and it was getting old, but when she was doing the choreography at the Britney concert and I saw her live, her energy was so high that I was drawn to her.   

The Pussycat Dolls were performing for forty five minutes straight, no costume changes, no set changes, just them, the audience, their microphones, and their moves.  They got the audience going from beginning to end, and me and my friends were on our feet dancing for most of their performance.