1. I love this song.
2. Kayla is a freakin' amazing dancer!
3. This dance just... ahhh... perfection!
4. I'm posting this video today because I really really really REALLY miss dance. I'm dying without it. But I actually have three dance classes this semester (because it's cheaper to take dance through USU than through a studio) that I'm really excited for. Here's another amazing dance video for fun:
If you love dance check out all of Kate Jablonski's choreography videos, she is incredibly talented! Well, check it out even if you don't love dance, because she may make you love it. :)
I love dance. I LOVE LOVE LOVE TO DANCE!!! So I always love National Dance Day! I love that the Dizzy Feet Foundation works to create this dance routine for everyone to do on National Dance Day! So I'm planning on making my husband learn this dance routine (which will be fun because he can't dance) and my sister and brother and then we can all do it together in the park!! :)
I'm also happy to share the dance routine on here as well. I hope you all take the time celebrate National Dance Day with me! Enjoy! Don't forget to learn the routine!
I can't link the video the way I normally do, so just click HERE!!!!
1. She has a song called Penguin. Penguins are adorable!
See? Adorable!
2. Her song was featured on So You Think You Can Dance and it helped her become famous!
3. This song is just fantastic! The lyrics are incredible and I'm in love with the fact this this is a home recorded video.
4. Related to number 3, I love that Christina Perri has her Youtube channel that helped boost her career. I'll be honest, I'm not one of the lucky ones that found her on Youtube before Jar of Hearts, but when I found Jar of Hearts, I could not stop listening to her!
6. As the pictures above show, she's just... normal. She's not some crazy famous person. She takes photos with so many of her fans and posts them on Facebook. For example:
Gosh... I wish I had been there...
7. She wrote A Thousand Years for Twilight: Breaking Dawn (boo) and it's the most incredible song! I had my heart set on it being my wedding song... you know... until I learned a dance to it and listened to it way too many times. But I'll still be playing the song at my wedding. Because that song describes me in every way. For example:
"I have died everyday waiting for you, darling don't be afraid I have loved you for a thousand years, I'll love you for a thousand more. All along I believed I would find you. Time has brought your heart to me, I have loved you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more."
8. Jar of Hearts hit me in a way that no song ever has. I can, to this day, still say it's my favorite song. Why? Because it describe my life and situation 100% and it made me cry that she would write a song about me (while I know that's not true, that's how it felt).
I am forever grateful for my mom for showing me this song. She showed me because of the music video. Because it has dancers in it, and she said it reminded her of me. But when I really listened to the words, I realized just how much this song was about me.
"It took so long just to feel all alright. Remember how to put back the light in my eyes. I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed cause you broke all your promises. And now you're back. You don't get to get me back!"
A friend of mine has a video of me from one late night after driving from San Diego to Utah, and very much hyped up on Mountain Dew (my alcohol), singing this song. Screaming the line above at a broken drive-thru window, because that's EXACTLY how I felt at the time.
Luckily, the guy left my life, I met Chris, and now I'm getting married to the most perfect man in the world. Win for me!
9. Arms. So similar to my connection with Jar of Hearts. I don't know how Christina Perri is stalking me to write songs about me, but I love it.
"I hope that you see right through my walls. I hope that you catch me cause I'm already falling. I'll never let a love get so close. You put your arms around me and I'm home... I tried my best to never let you in to see the truth. And I've never opened up, I've never truly loved till you put your arms around me and I believe that it's easier for you to let me go.... You put your arms around me and I'm home."
When I first started dated Chris I was in a very depressed and vulnerable state of mind. And this song described me and how nervous and scared I was to open up to my Christopher. I truly have a difficult time opening up and sharing my true feelings with anyone. But with Christopher, I'm home.
10. I know this sounds crazy, but I feel I have a very deep personal connection to Christina Perri. We're like sisters... that have never met. But seriously, how else could all the lyrics to every one of her songs describe me, and hit my heart in a way that no other music does? Her voice is incredible. Her lyrics are incredible. She's beautiful. And someday, I want to meet her, because she is like a part of me. Her songs are written for me. I love her and I will always love her and her music.
BONUS! If you're wanting to get in the Christmas spirit, she has a new album out, A Very Merry Perri Christmas! Check out one special song here:
I'm the second one from the left, thrusting my hips out. :) (except I'm pretty sure I'm older than 4 in this picture, this is just the oldest dance picture of mine I could find) This shows my ballet days. Growing up I did ballet, jazz, and tap. I absolutely love it! But when I was 16 I switched over to ballroom.
This picture is from two years ago with my ballroom competition partner Taylor. He's currently on a mission but I really hope he'll compete with me again next year (even though we never won). I love ballroom as well even though it's much more strict than jazz or tap... and kind of ballet as well.
So as a dancer for many years, I love dance and watching dance! I'm not a huge fan of Dancing With the Stars, but I love So You Think You Can Dance and Dance Moms. Youtube also has wonderful dancing available for viewing. So here are some of my favorites! Enjoy!
Okay, Kate Jablonski is an INCREDIBLE choreographer!!! All her dances are mind blowing! Seriously! If you don't believe me, check out her Youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/katieshmatee?feature=watch. The dance above really just captures you and pulls you in. It's incredible! I cannot look away from those dancers!
So I already said I love Dance Moms, so the clip above features Maddie Ziegler from the show. She's one of the best dancers on the show and this clip proves it. Just look at her energy! She also very good at execution, hitting the moves perfectly, cleanly, with energy and attitude. She's amazing.
So here's another Dance Moms clip, this one feature both Maddie and Chloe Lukasiak. Chloe is my favorite dancer on the show. I think she's amazingly talented and a very sweet little girl (in case you're confused, she's the one in the black, Maddie is in white). This dance sort of proves how talented both these little girls are.
As much as I hate spiders, I love this dance! I have no idea who this woman is, but the fact that she's flexible and talented enough to actually look like a spider while dancing is amazing to me. Props to her! She has lots of talent!
Again, I have no idea who this is, but she's very very talented! I love this song and the interpretation of it. She's also very pretty.
This one is from So You Think You Can Dance! I said it once in an old post, I wanted Kayla to win that season!! She's has incredible technique and amazing dancer's legs. I wish I could be her. I wish I could dance like her. This dance is so amazing. I just love it! All of it! Especially when Kayla comes forward and just whips out a triple pirouette... like... what? Did she really just do that so flawlessly? Speaking of pirouettes...
This girl has a talent. She was even on Ellen once to show off her many pirouettes, but she only did 20 something on the show.
I don't really care that this is fake, I think it's adorable! And a fairly clever commercial.
Speaking of little kids... these boys are very talented! I think they're adorable and I hope my kids play Just Dance like they do. :) They have a lot more videos that you can find here: http://www.youtube.com/user/choynina?feature=watch.
This isn't the best Cha Cha out there but fun fact: Andrea Hale (now Andrea Tatton) is my ballroom teacher! Yeah! I love her, she has so much energy and is so fun to work with. She's also incredibly talented and I like this video because it reminds me how lucky I am to be taught by her. :)
This video seems very cheesy to me, but these two are incredibly talented dancers! I saw them live at the UCSD Ballroom Competition. They are by far the most talented dancers on Dancing With the Stars.
Ha ha! Aren't we great? Yes, I am in this video. This is my USU Ballroom Dance Team competing at UC San Diego two years ago. We won 2nd place that year. Not bad... but there were only 3 teams. The next year we did this same dance... we had worse dancers... we got 3rd. As much as I love my team and my coaches, I really hope we can step it up soon.
Finally, here's a lame video of me and my friend Kyle:
This was last year. We practiced not as much as we should have. But it was just fun to do that with Kyle. He's the best dancer on our team and he's fun to work with. I know it's not that good, I'm working on my technique. But I love wearing that costume. And I'm on Youtube! :)
So there it is! My favorite dances on Youtube... that's not true. There are so many more. But I'll just give them to you in small doses. I hope you enjoy!
Also, if you click on the tab above that says Argyle, you'll learn about my passion for dancing and my desire to teach dance (not necessarily ballroom dance, as you saw, I'm not that wonderful). So if you're in Utah and interested, let me know!
So tonight on So You Think You Can Dance they all did former, Emmy winning, Mia Michaels routines. I absolutely love Mia Michaels and all the routines that they did were dances they I have watched over and over again! Now I don't know the dancers this season, I haven't watched any of it except the Salt Lake auditions (yeah go SLC!). I've been living in Logan with no television, so it never happened. But my mom recorded them all, so I may go watch them all.
So I liked tonight's episode a lot, but since I am such a big fan of Katee, Kayla, Twitch, and Joshua, some routines just didn't cut it for me. So here's my full evaluation of tonight's dances.
1. Mercy (the door)
This one I felt really disappointed with. When Twitch and Katee did this dance it was absolutely incredible. Katee burst through that door with a bang! I always felt Katee should have won that season. She is a truly remarkable dancer. So when they re did this dance, I wanted to love it, I really did, but it just didn't cut it for me. Katee and Twitch had so much power, energy, and emotion. I felt that tonight's version lacked the power, energy, and emotion. It just felt flat to me.
2. Hometown Glory
This was a favorite dance of mine with Katee and Joshua (Joshua was the winner that season so he had to be good). This dance was incredible, again, because of the emotion that Katee and Joshua put into it. You could read clearly on their face what they felt. I didn't feel that emotion with tonight's version, however, I do feel that the dancers who performed were incredible dancers. They are very talented and did a wonderful job. I also agree with the judges though, they didn't help each other enough. And if you read what Mia had to say about the story of the dance (http://insidetv.ew.com/2012/08/15/so-you-think-you-can-dance-mia-michaels-tribute/) you might agree that they needed to work better as a couple to fully perform this dance well. Overall, very good.
3. Koop Island Blues (butt dance)
Ha ha. This dance is funny to me. I liked it the first time around, didn't love it. I love the dancers though, Randi and Evan, I liked them both a lot. This dance, both tonight and during season 5, loses my attention at some points (I think I have ADD or ADHD, never been tested, but you can kind of tell if you meet me). If the dancers aren't doing their job at performing, it gets boring. It is a very technically wonderful routine, however, the dancers can kill the mood. Randi and Even killed it for me a little bit, but tonight they killed it for me a bit more. Not a favorite dance, but good. Although I really wasn't fond of him jiggling her butt tonight...
4. Time
This choreography is incredible. Props to Mia for what she took from her father's death. She turned her sorrows into an incredibly beautiful dance. It nearly made me cry tonight because they did an incredible job! As with Koop Island Blues, this dance has potential to leave you bored at some points, they take pauses, sometimes the movement is slow. Tonight they held my attention through the whole dance. Bravo. I thought it was amazing (but every time I see it, I worry they'll slip on those flowers...).
5. Dreaming With a Broken Heart (bed dance)
This song gets me every time. I don't love John Mayer as a person, but he writes song lyrics that stab right into my heart, this song is one of those. This original dance with Twitch and Kherington was incredible, and I thought tonight's lacked a little bit on the wow factor. Again, it was emotion for me. I love dances where you can read the emotions in the dancers faces, Twitch was incredible at that in this dance. Tonight it lacked emotion, but the dancing was really well.
6. Calling You (the bench)
I did not see this dance during the season. I first saw this dance on youtube. So unlike the majority of the world, I don't have an emotional pull to this dance. Regardless, it's an incredible choreography piece (I cannot stress enough how much I love Mia Michaels). In my opinion tonight's performance of this dance and the original were equally fantastic. I really don't have much else to say on this dance...
7. Gravity
This has been my favorite SYTYCD routine for a very very long time. This routine is about addiction and the darkness of it. Mia Michaels said: "I love the song 'Gravity'. Instead of taking it into a love relationship, I took it into a very dark addiction, and that's how that came out of it." Using addiction as a gravity, as a pull, was an incredibly bold and real thing for me, but not in the same way. When I originally saw this dance with Kayla and Kupono I was struggling with my depression on a very difficult level (I've had depression a long time, it comes in waves). I felt like my depression was constantly pulling me down into its deep dark world. It always had a hold on me and I couldn't free myself from its grasp... like gravity. This routine was my favorite for so long because I felt like it related to my life perfectly. Kayla's face during this dance told MY story. It was the most amazing dance I had ever seen. Tonight, they did a fantastic job at recreating this routine. I'm sorry I don't know his name, but the guy who danced tonight changed the role that Kupono had played, but in a fantastic way. He made his character of addiction different than Kupono's, he was so dark and sinister, almost robotic with his movements, making him unreal. While addiction is a very real thing, it is not a human and doesn't have human characteristics, the gentleman who danced tonight helped portray that, that addiction is not human, and the female (who I also don't know her name) was caught in with something not human, but still just as deadly and dangerous. What a magnificent piece of art! I thought they did the original justice, they did Mia Michaels proud, and they nearly made me cry by telling my story again. Thank you.
So there you have it, my opinion on tonight's routines. If you have different opinions or have something else to say about the dances, please leave a comment! I love my followers!
