Amanda’s shoeBox

Sorry I haven’t been writing in here for a while! I’ve been busy with my dance life and school life (late assignments tend to stack up, hehe).

Since a few weeks now, my Swing dance club at school (MSDC: Marianopolis Swing Dance Club) and I have been intensively practicing for our upcoming show. Anyone who’s interested is welcomed to come see probably Montreal’s youngest Swing dance troupe perform!

Swing Fiesta!
Friday, April 11, 2008 at 6:30 PM.
Marianopolis College (room F-105)
4873 Westmount Avenue
Westmount, Quebec
Metros: Vendôme, Villa Maria
Buses: 66, 124, 138

Tickets: $8.00 in advance ($10.00 at the door)
Money goes to help our teacher Alain Wong for his 7-week bike ride from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico “promoting micro-credit as a tool to fight poverty”. Current amount raised: $750.00; the objective: $3000.00!

There are going to be 3 Swing dance choreographies and 2 Latin dance choreographies. My friend Ashley and I are also going to sing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”, originally sung by Marilyn Monroe. We’re gonna serve desserts and drinks, and give a mini social dance lesson afterwards. Please come in great numbers to show your support! :)

The MSDC crew 2008! Front row: me, Wisit, Andy and Ilonka. Back row: Nicky, Ting Tin, Jonathan. Missing: David, Martin, Ashley.

Boston Tea Party!
This passed weekend (March 28-30), I went to Boston Tea Party, a major Swing dance event where Lindy Hop and West Coast Swing mix. There were performances, competitions, workshops with pros and lots of social dancing! My favorite part of the event was watching all the pros compete! I have watched a lot of DVDs, but watching the Invitation Strictly Lindy and WCS competition live brought the excitement to a whole other level! Max and Annie did a completely crazy aerial during their Strictly Lindy segment that drove the crowd nuts! The other absolutely amazing (and hilarious) competition was the Jack & Jill Crossovers in which pros of WCS must dance with a randomly chosen Lindy Hop pro! After a whole weekend exposed to WCS, now I really want to learn it! Social dancing to hip hop and R&B is fuuuun!

Here’s fun footage from youtube

It was my first “serious” competition at the Boston Tea Party. I participated in the Lindy Hop Intermediate Jack & Jill, danced with 3 random partners and made it to the finals! I didn’t win anything, but dancing at the finals with the 4th random partner was just one of the best experiences ever! All this motivates me to keep working on my dancing to become better! hehe!

Family for the weekend! <3 Back row: me and Anne. Front row: Aleix, Marie and Alain.

MSDC Practice today!

During the free period at school today, Alain taught us some cool Swing dance tricks! Flying in the air can be super scary, but doing these crazy tricks are probably the only times I’m not so afraid to have my feet off the ground! One note though: Swing dancing is not about these crazy aerials and flips! They are just very fun to learn and flashy during performances!

Martin is pushing me up in the air as I flip across. Wisit is in the back, spotting me in case I crash!

Here’s a clip of me doing the exact flip a few months ago with Alain.

On Saturday night, I was invited to go to Cage aux Sports with Alain and his brother Oscar to eat supper and watch the hockey game of the Habs vs the New Jersey Devils. It’s been a good almost 10 years since I’ve watched a complete hockey game like that, and to my great surprise, I really enjoyed it!

The last time I watched hockey, I had a really bad experience which just made me leave that realm for good. I was still in elementary school back then. One night, my dad brought me to a hockey game at the Molson Center (now called the Bell Center) to watch the Habs versus the Boston team. Somehow, watching the game live seemed 10 million times longer than watching it at home on television and I soon started to be impatient. The fact that the crazy woman sitting in back of me kept stridently screaming “GO HABS GO!” non stop really annoyed me too. We lost that game 9 to 2. By the end of the game, that crazy woman was cheering for Boston instead because the Habs were just doing too bad. As for me, I had lost interest in hockey since then.

Showing off a little bit of Montrealer pride! Go Habs Go!
(Logo of the Habs taken from Habs.com)

Watching the Habs winning 2 to 1 against the Devils on Saturday night sort of reawakened my interest in hockey. The Habs’ first goal was spectacular!~ It was a great experience to watch a lot of people gather up and cheer together. It was funny to see the table sitting behind us with a huge tank of beer as well; they were already so drunk at half of their tank emptied!

Lesson of day: what you gave you gave long time ago might deserve a second chance! It’s nice to always keep your doors open for new things, but also for old things! I use to hate tomatoes when I was a kid; now, I can’t get enough of them! And didn’t we all once, as kids, feared cooties from the opposite sex, and then grow up to find them damn fine? ;)

I went to see a talent show competition (Secondaire en Spectacle) tonight at my high school, Collège Jean de la Mennais (La Prairie). It’s wonderful to see so many young talents in our community. Who knows? One day, one of them just might become a world famous pianist, singer, actor, you name it!

Congratulations to the top 3! They will get to participate to the regional competition in Saint-Hubert.

First position: Jaune d’Oeuf, Blanc d’Oeuf - Band (Michael Sheng, Steven Ah-Lan, Emery Monzerol, André Laï and Didier Pereira-Lauzier)  Video available for download upon request

They did an amazing performance of funk and jazz with a touch of fantastic humour. I loved their concept of making music with plates, cheese grater, chopsticks, etc. Way to go for originality!

Second position: Roche - Band (Charles Naïm, François Trudeau and Charles Boudreau)
They played heavy rock music. Awesome pianist, drummer and guitarist. They were really into what they were playing! Except for the volume being too loud, I really enjoyed their performanced! “Like a real rock show”, as Jeannie said.

Third position: Le Baptistère - Theatric art (Roxane Krief, Marichelle Leclair, Pascale Bujold, Justine Ashby, Marianie To-Landry and Pierre-Olivier Talbot)
These people did a mini-play about a a soul being in the “underworld” that was going to be born. The costumes were very well done and very professional. It shows when people put a lot of effort in what they do! Great punch in the end. The to-be-born soul was French poet, Charles Beaudelaire.

It makes me feel so nostalgic every time I go back to Jean de la Mennais to see shows, or just to visit. Time passes by so quickly, and everyone has grown so much. Even if life undergoes never ending changes, “the show must go on”. I shall prepare for the Marianopolis College Talent Show auditions that are coming up very soon!