2011-11-17

Cross-step at Splash!

Every year, MIT is host to an event called Splash, in which various college students and other low-lifes from around the community are encouraged to come and teach a class on anything they want. These classes are attended by 2500 middle and high school students, who spend the weekend gorging themselves on higher mathematics, the ins and outs of boffer weapons, arguments about nazi imagry in the Star Wars movies, how to make a cake that isn't a lie, and -of special interest- several different kinds of dancing.

When I learned of this nonsense, I knew immediately that I should be a part of it. So I promptly signed up to teach some classes in Cross-step waltz, and then forgot all about it until today. Since Splash is this weekend, I've chosen to spend today frantically coordinating all the various bits and bobs I need. Never let it be said that I am organized about my instruction.

As it is, I've settled things down some (with well over 24 hours to go!) and now have a pretty good sense of what I'll be trying to teach, and how I'll be trying to teach it. Best of all, I've spent the day ferreting around the internet, googling every possible combination of words to get myself some cross-step music that won't be, well, boring to me or my students.

Hopefully, I'm ready for this. I'll try and remember to post back with a report, or at least a list of the songs I used and how well they worked. And if this goes at all reasonably, well...I have dreams for dancing in this city, and being able to teach people some little things fits in well with those dreams. But that's a post for another time...

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