Grand Opening Celebration! Dance Party 7-10pm. Ballroom, Latin, Swing & Salsa Music.

New location! Free Refreshments, Door Prizes, Balloons, Silent Auction, Dance Demos and more! Open to the public….$10 admission. Not even the flood waters could stop Shut up & Dance!

Sarah will be performing in a Salsa group routine in the afternoon of Saturday, August 23. Come join the fun!

Since 1977 Mexican Fiesta brings a taste of Mexico to Milwaukee. Sharing Mexico’s history, food, and entertainment for three wonderful days our public has responded with open arms to this festival every year. With breathtaking entertainers such as Alejandra Guzman, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, Montez De Durango, Ramon Ayala and many more! We please your taste buds with Milwaukee’s very own exquisite Mexican cuisine from El Campesino, Tres Hermanos, and many other wonderful local restaurants. Mexican Fiesta has become an enormous success with the help of the community and the thousands of people who attend this incredible festival.

Sarah will be performing in a Salsa group routine around 1:00 and 3:00 pm on Thursday, July 17, and Friday, July 18. Come join the fun!

We’re talking Italian food, Italian music, Italian fireworks, and lots of Italian family FUN – whether your family’s Italian or not. Festa is more than just an Italian Festival, it’s America’s premiere Italian cultural event. And it’s right here along the Lakefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. So plan on gathering up your family and friends, and joining us for all the FUN at the 31st annual Festa Italiana, July 17-20, 2008.

Festa Italiana tickets are now available; order your tickets today online by going to the order ticket page. Advance tickets will be $10.00, a $2.00 savings from the price of $12.00 at the gate the day of the festival.

Come enjoy this dance performance that features amazing student/teacher routines, professional numbers, prizes, and scholarships. General dancing onstage. Mouth watering Buffet.

Visit their website for ticket information (they range in price from about $15 - $65). Evening and All Day Ticket reservations due by June 17th.

Sarah will be also performing in a group Salsa number! Come cheer her on!

In years past, I have attended the adult camps and had a fantastic time. Not only is the access to quality instruction superb, but the instructors are the very people who often judge at the competitions Sarah and I attend.

The adult camps offer a full week of dance classes, social dances, performance, and full immersion into ballroom dancing. The organizers limit enrollment to ~250 participants. In the years I have attended, there have been about 30-40 participants under age 30, with most of the participants ages 40 and above.

It is mostly amateur dancers who attend the camp, most of whom do not compete in dancing, but rather enjoy dancing as a great hobby. Classes are offered in beginner through advanced levels and are taught by skillful nationally (and internationally) prominent dancers and dance teachers.

Private lessons are available with any of the instructors. (Look at the website links, above in the white box, to see who is teaching. The current Rhythm champions are teaching at the first adult camp, if that gives you some idea of the caliber of instruction available.)

I have never attended the youth camps - intended for HS students - so I do not know first-person details about them. I suspect they are quite similar to the adult camps in quality. HS students may attend the adult camps, and each year I was there several HS students were participants.

I have no relationship with the camp or with the organizers. I am posting it here so that you may consider planning to add a dance camp to your summer plans.

Wisconsin State Dancesport Championships
April 17-20
Compete - Attend - Support Darrell & Sarah

Darrell and Sarah will be dancing in both the Professional Rising Star American Rhythm
(Thursday Evening, doors open at 7:00 pm) and Professional Open American Rhythm
(Saturday Evening, doors open at 7:00 pm) competitions. We would love to have familiar faces in the audience!

If you are interested in coming, let us know NO LATER THAN March 28!

Sarah and Darrell will be debuting as a new professional dance partnership at the Indiana Challenge this year! Come on down and cheer like mad! More details on the road trip to follow…

Featured Performers:
Alain Doucet and Anik Jolicoeur

Our plan is to arrive sometime Friday afternoon / early evening, watch the Friday night events, spend the night, watch the Saturday daytime and evening events, spend another night, and return to Madison Sunday. A whole weekend of ballroom dancing!

Watching a lot of dancing can be great inspiration for your own dancing!

With rapid preparation, tons of practice, and a little luck, Sarah and I will be competing in the Professional Rising Star competition on Friday night and the Open Professional competition Saturday night.

Every competition has vendors for shoes, clothing, costumes, and jewelry! Throughout the Friday night and Saturday night portions of the competition, there will also be periods of social dancing. Saturday evening ends with a professional showcase.

Details including prices, carpool information, departure times, hotel rooms, etc, will be published here and announced on the Announcements mailing list.

The competiton organizer’s published prices are…
- Friday Night - $45 in advance / $50 at the door
- Saturday Daytime - $25 in advance / $30 at the door
- Saturday Night - $45 in advance / $50 at the door

Ordering tickets in advance for the Friday Night and Satruday Night events is a good idea - when the ballroom is at capacity, they stop selling tickets. (This has caused problems for us in years past.)

This is a weekend of entertainment and ballroom immersion. Nothing compares to seeing so much quality dancing all at once! Consider it inspiration and fuel for your dancing.

At the Appleton Competiton, students of dance compete with each other (amateur entries) or their teachers (professional/amateur aka pro/am entries) in either solo (choreographed) or freestyle (not choreographed) dances.

This is the second year the studio will participate in this fun amateur and pro/am competiton!

We will spend Friday night in Appleton to arrive fresh and ready to compete on Saturday morning.

As long as you are putting in all the effort to attend the competition, you might as well dance as much as humanly possible! Enter dances in multiple skill levels to maximize your time on the dance floor.

Additional solo (choreographed), multi-dance, and freestyle entries may be added to these packages at the a la carte prices appearing above.

If you are competing with more than one partner or are entering some amateur and some pro/am entries, please discuss your plans in detail with Darrell Dieringer.

Carpool and Hotel information will appear here as soon as plans are finalized. You are certainly welcome to secure your own lodging with friends or relatives in the area.

The competition is an all-day event on Saturday. We will stay at a local hotel on Friday night prior to the competiton and Saturday night after the competition to assure we are well rested for the competition and for the return trip to Madison. We will share hotel rooms, keeping the cost for both nights as low as possible.

Travel and hotel information will appear here soon. If all goes well, budget for an additional $60 - $80 per person for travel and sleep arrangements. Having a hotel will be well-worth the extra cost. Plus, by arriving on Friday night, we can attend the Friday night social dance.

The information appearing above is subject to change and clarification without notice.