A few quotes from Dawn and I landed into the Orlando Sentinel today. The article focuses on the boom in dance popularity in the Orlando area since the TV dance show boom. It’s a nice write up that covers a wide variety of dance  diciplines offered around Central Florida.

Whirl & Twirl is no longer able to use the business parking lot across the street as overflow parking. As always, parking is available around the building. For overflow parking, please park along the side of the street.

Please bear with us as parking might be tight until everyone gets use to this. We apologize for the inconvenience as this was out of our control.

Thank you… and we hope to see you out Saturday!

July is Big Band Movie Month on TCM! Turner Classic Movies has rounded up a collection of the best movies featuring the big bands of the 30’s, 40’s, and early 50’s. You’ll see and hear great bands like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Gene Krupa, Cab Calloway, Lionel Hampton, and many more. While non of the listed features have groundbreaking swing dance scenes in them, some of them do have some brief entertaining swing dance segments. Keep an eye out for “I Dood It”, “Two Girls and a Sailor”, “Cabin in the Sky”, and “The Benny Goodman Story”.

I’m bummed that we missed “Dancing Co-Ed” last night. It’s rare that the movie gets aired and as fans of Artie Shaw, it’s a favorite for Dawn and I.

Be sure to check out the TCM schedule for air times and thanks to John for sending this info over!

We now have an RSS feed for the photo highlights that will keep you up to date when we post new photos after a dance. Simply add the following URL to your favorite RSS reader and we’ll keep you up to date when new photos are posted!

 http://www.flyinfootwork.com/dances/photo-highlights.xml

Not sure how this RSS stuff works? No problem. Just click on one of the links below to add the feed to your favorite starting page.

Once again, we have been nominated in the “Best Dance Studio” category on the WESH A-List competition. Last year we made it into the “top 5″ best dance studios in Orlando… pretty good for a specialized, non-traditional “studio” like us up against traditional studios in varieties of dance disciplines.

We ask you to drop by our A-List profile and cast your vote. Voting works slightly different this year. Once you click the “vote” button, it will prompt you to create an account. Note that they used good website etiquette and the “contact me” options are unchecked so you won’t land on any lists. Once you create an account, they will send you an email to verify your account. You must click on the link in the email to cast your vote. Once you have voted and are logged in, please feel free to write a review or leave comments! Thank you!!!

…and it only took six months!

Back during the holiday season, we did an exhaustive marathon video filming session.  We recorded a total of five videos in about three to four days. Might not sound like much, but it was quite a task and quite an accomplishment to get done. Once the filming was done, the editing process began. We’ve managed to fit the editing process into our workload and have completed each instruction/review DVD right before the corresponding classes have started. This way, all of our 2008 series classes have a fresh new video to go along with them.

The Charleston class starting this week marked the last of the five DVD that needed to be edited and produced. Everything was on track… until… I realized that an entire section of material was missing. No problem… pull the original tapes and re-import… something must have been left out. But no. It wasn’t there. It was then Dawn and I both realized that in our exhaustion from the marathon film session (and Charleston being the last to get filmed), we forgot to tape an entire section. Oh crap! What to do? Well, there was no alternative… contact Mr. Spielberg, fly back out to Hollywood and refilm. So we spent Saturday in front of the camera again. We now have the material we need and the video is in the final edit process and we’ll be testing the DVD tonight. So by this weekend, we will officially have all five of the DVDs competed!

…oh and the car chase scenes turned out to be awesome!

Saturday, May 24th: For the first time ever at Whirl & Twirl, we’ll be featuring a big band! Harlem Madness is a 9-10 piece band that focuses primarily on hot jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. The band draws their inspiration and material from greats like Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Cab Calloway, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Paul Howard, and the Casa Loma Orchestra just to name a few. From the up tempo to soulful swingin’ slower rhythms, there is something for everyone. Certainly a night not to miss! To complete the theme of the evening, everyone who shows up dressed from the era will get a ticket for a chance to win some great prizes (including an iPod Shuffle)! Click here for more info

Starting Sunday, June 15th: The summer series class schedule has been set! In the next rotation will be the ever popular Lindy Hop Series Class. This class will take you from scratch and show you all the ins and outs of Lindy Hop. In addition, we’ll be offering the Charleston Series Class. This will start out with 20’s style partner Charleston and move into side-by-side and front-back Charleston; all the while showing you how to integrate it into your swing dancing. Both classes are open to dancers of all levels. Classes tend to fill in advance, so be sure to reserve your spot soon!

On Saturday, May 10th: Flyin’ Footwork has teamed up with DJ Natch to take you on a trip down memory lane as we track back 10 years of local history. There will be a decade’s worth of favorite swing tunes to spin for your dancing inspiration. But that’s not all… you’ll see the best (and maybe the worst) photos and videos of the last ten years projected on the big screen. Oh… and don’t miss the feature video presentation starting at 10:30.

As always, the dance starts out with a beginner swing dance lesson at 8pm. Dancing is from 9pm to midnight. All ages are welcome and admission is only $6. Click here for more information on the dance and click here for more info on the event.

Saturday, May 24th: For the first time ever at Whirl & Twirl, we’ll be featuring a big band! Echoes of the Cotton Club, the Savoy Ballroom, Roseland and Small’s Paradise. These were the clubs and dance halls where jive thrived. Now Kid Dutch presents Harlem Madness to bring it all back! Harlem Madness(tm) is a 9-11 piece band that focuses primarily on hot jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. The list of bands active in New York during this time (the 1920’s and 30’s) reads like a who’s who of jazz history and covers all regions of the country: Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Cab Calloway, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Paul Howard, and the Casa Loma Orchestra just to name a few. Harlem Madness draws their inspiration and material from these groups. They use original orchestrations from the period, along with period instruments and mutes. The band brings this vital and joyous part of American heritage to life for dancing and for listening audiences. From the up tempo to soulful swingin’ slower rhythms, there is something for everyone. Certainly a night not to miss! To complete the theme of the evening, everyone who shows up dressed from the era will get a ticket for a chance to win some great prizes! There will be a beginner dance lesson from 8 to 9pm with the band taking stage right after and playing all the way till midnight. Special event admission is $12.

Sunday, May 25th: The Tampa/Orlando city exchange is once again in effect for Memorial Day weekend! After the invasion of Tampa dancers on Saturday night, we encourage everyone to return the favor and head down to Zendah Grotto in Tampa for their annual 40’s style USO dance. More details are coming in on the night, but this dance is always a blast and the Swing Gang always keeps the dance floor full of energy. Keep an eye out here for more updates.