Festival4stars - Belfast talent competition 2008

In my third year as a judge at Festival4stars I'm looking forward to seeing the tremendous talent in Belfast. The Northern Ireland heat has produced some national winners in the last couple of years and the standard there is superb. One of the young dance groups from last year was even better than anything I've seen on Britain's Got Talent this week!

The competition is open to people of all ages and has various sections for all kinds of talent, including a new section for musical theatre groups. Four winners from each section go through to a regional final on the same day and the eventual winners represent the region in the national finals later in the year.

Entries are still open for Belfast and you can find out more info on the Festival4stars website at www.festival4stars.com or telephone Judy on 0141 620 2300. Please mention that you saw this blog by Kate if you're ringing to enter. Please note that you can't just turn up on the day, but you can telephone the Festival4stars number at any time up to the event begins.

Details for Festival4stars Belfast:
Sunday 8th June 2008
Belfast Hilton Waterfront Hotel
First section begins at 9am.

Sections:
Solo dance 12 years & under
Solo dance 13 years to 18 years
Group dance
Group dance duos & trios
Group musical theatre
That's Entertainment

Solo singing 14 years & under
Solo singing 15 years to adult
Solo musical theatre 14 years & under
Solo musical theatre 15 years to adult

Brush up on your skills and learn new moves - try these dance DVDs.

Dirty Dancing :The Official Dance Workout

Pineapple Studios - Dance Masterclass: Strictly Street

I'd Do Anything ... and all the TV moans this weekend

I'd Do Anything - Week 4 Reviews

It was time to say fare thee well Francesca on I'd Do Anything results show, week 4. Ashley put up a fight in the sing-off despite getting the lowest vote (where are all the Scots this weekend!).
The list is whittling down and there are a few really strong contenders in there, but no-one who really stands out head and shoulders above the way Connie Fisher did last year in the Maria shows.

Sarah proved herself worthy with her new look and brilliant performance, but I reckon Jessie slipped down the ranks a bit. That might have been because the song choice - Why Do Fools Fall In Love - was awful. I'm not particularly convinced by Jodie this week either, but again it could be the song. The best of the night had to be Rachel with The Way We Were. It was simply beautiful.

Another Oliver made it through to the semi-finals too. It's going to be awful seeing some of them go home, they're so talented.

Britain's Got Talent - or not!

Some truly awful moments were to be seen and it was definitely a case of Britain's Got No Talent until young Charlie Green came on and sang Summer Wind - awesome. And of course the extremely talented Madonna, saved until the end, blew me away with her tremendous voice.

Apart from the handful of good acts, the rest of it was just embarrassing and cringeworthy. What was the dirty old man in the overcoat thinking? And Amanda and Piers should be sacked for putting that awful woman dancer with the hideous off-white bra through. It makes a mockery of dance altogether.

Talking of dancing, it's a pity we didn't see more of the dance groups. One of the groups who went through did a tap routine but unfortunately the producers thought it would be a good idea to dub over the sound, even for the few seconds of airtime they got.

Dance teams bring me to the next subject of this weekend's TV:

Television BAFTAs

It was lovely to see Bruce Forsyth get the Academy fellowship award. He is such a versatile entertainer and at 80 years old has proved his worth time and time again.

The whole show was spoiled by the flashing background. When Brucie was making his speech it was difficult to watch the TV for fear of a migraine. It was also very disappointing that the award for News Coverage wasn't shown. It makes you wonder whether it was because it was a Sky News programme of the Glasgow Airport attack, and if it would have been shown if the BBC's War In Afghanistan had won.

Getting to the point, it was great seeing the fantastic dance team, MD Productions, being shown in the nominations clip of last year's Britain's Got Talent. They are one of the best dance groups I've come across in years and their choreographer, Miguel Doforo, is an inspiration to all of us humble dance teachers.

A very entertaining, if not quite overflowing with talent, weekend of TV nonsense.

Dance Teacher Makes $100

Not millions I know, but hey we all have to start somewhere. My adsense account finally reached the magic $100 payout limit - just need to wait until next month to see any money!

One thing's for sure, internet marketing's harder than it looks and anyone who says it's easy is either trying to sell a get rich quick ebook, or has been very lucky. Now I'm not saying it can't be done; there's proof out there and I'm still working on it, but it will not be an overnight thing.

Take yesterday for instance. After sorting out my site, getting the keywords right and promoting it on various forums, Google do a crawl and everything goes to pot! Page positions went down for just about all of the search terms and the visitor count reduced accordingly.

Still, there's hope on the horizon as Ebay have introduced the new version of their partner network and as long as people are buying and selling the commissions remain a possibilty.

Meantime, there's nothing else for it but to keep teaching those 4-year-olds to point their toes and smile!

Dancewear Web - dancewear and costumes

I'd Do Anything - Week 3 and another Nancy gone

Another fab I'd Do Anything show on Saturday. The real contenders are starting to shine through and those who are not quite up to the job are being whittled out.

It seems Jessie is a strong favourite with the judges, with Rachel and Jodie closely behind. I can see Keisha struggling to stay in the competition next week unless she pulls something out of the bag, after being in the sing-off again. And while Francesca's Time of My Life started off well, it wasn't convincing enough once she got into it.

Some of the judges were a bit unfair on Sarah; she's got an amazing voice with real power behind it. I get what they're saying about her look, and for me the dress didn't help. But in the right costume she'd be a convincing Nancy.

Tara was bound to go and although I thought she did better than Keisha in the sing-off, I doubt if she'd have lasted another week. The standard of the competition is so high but most of these girls are good enough to get West End jobs, just not as leading ladies yet.

The Olivers, as usual, made the show worth watching. Superb entertainment all round.

I'd Do Anything - the right choice

The Lord sent the right person home on Sunday, in the I'd Do Anything sing-off. I'm a little confused about what he was saying at the end though, about the wrong choice being made by the viewers.

If he was in any doubt, Cleo's performance of I Know Him So Well (Chess) should have confirmed that she is not up to West End standard.

Highlights of the week were Rachel's Beautiful and Ashley's Mercy, but it was Jessie who stole the show on Saturday night. Singing Killing Me Softly - the original Roberta Flack version - she really showed her talent for the stage.

Sarah and Niamh didn't quite live up to last week's reviews, singing Take Another Little Piece of My Heart and I've Got The Music in Me respectively.

The Olivers gave a superb rendition of Electricity, from Billy Elliot in the first show - it was simply brilliant. In the results show the 2nd semi-finalist, Chester, touched a few heartstrings with his beautiful voice in the boys' performance of Pie Jesu.

I still say the girls need something a bit more West End, and less cabaret, to really show off what they can do.


West End Theatre Tickets - Best Prices Guaranteed

I'd Do Anything - first Nancy says goodbyeee

I take it all back, the I'd Do Anything/Oliver show was great. The song choices weren't too bad for the first week, although I still stick by my earlier comments about musical theatre shows.

Favourite performances:

1. Rachel - About You Now
2. Sarah - Get There
3. Niamh - First Cut Is The Deepest

Wasn't impressed by:

Tara - Suddenly I See
Francesca - Hero

Results show

Although Amy's performance of Respect didn't do anything for me on the Saturday show, I thought she was much better than Francesca in the sing off. Both girls sang As Long As He Needs Me and Amy had a lovely quality to her voice, and really got into the part. Don't agree with ALW's choice this week, but I'm not sure if Rachel would have got much further.

The highlights of both shows was without doubt the Olivers. They are fantastic and could teach the girls a thing or two about stage presence and confidence. Their performance of Bright Eyes on the results show was just beautiful, and in the group number with the girls (I'd Do Anything) every one of the boys shone. I don't envy the Lord's job in choosing three of them.

Opinion: Can't wait to Be Back Soon!

Oliver! DVD [1968] Oliver Soundtrack (1994 London Cast)

Why some of us will never be The Apprentice

Whilst one can only speak for oneself, one finds that one could never be The Apprentice if one has to handle/lookat/smell/cut/eat fish. Not only that, but one has to put one in between every few words - could get one rather confused after a while!

The first episode of the new series was brilliant stuff. All the backstabbing, the great social class division theme, and of course Sir Alan's famous facial expressions.

I do wonder though, how much of it is hyped up. The posh boys v the rough-around-the-edges lads just seems a bit too contrived somehow. Although, some of those toffs are hilarious. I can see Raef annoying most people eventually, and Nick's super education didn't get him very far.

The preview clip of next week's episode makes Jenny look really scary, can't wait to see her in action. Next week's ponder:

• Will Lucinda still have a pink beret on?
• Will Michael burst into tears if he doesn't get a pat on the back for doing a good job?
• Will the soap suds in the laundry be beneath the likes of Raef?
  

The Apprentice Soundtrack

I'd Do Anything ... for Oliver and Nancy to sing real songs

Now that the finalists for Nancy and Oliver have been picked, and the live shows are about to begin, it's time for my musical theatre rant.

Hopefuls for any musical will go along and audition for a part, and if they're any good will try to act and sing in the character they want to be. If they get through to a callback, they might pick a different song, but the essence is still the same. Finally, when they get the part, the lucky person acts and sings in that character. All pretty standard stuff.

Why then - and I'd put money on this happening - do the BBC insist on making the contestants sing pop songs? It drives me mad, when there are so many fantastic musical theatre numbers to choose from. I know it's prime time TV, but surely those who are watching have some interest in the musicals, rather than the karaoke-style pop tunes the producers force the contestants to sing.

This isn't the first time I've ranted about this, but it has to be done. The live shows will no doubt be compulsive viewing anyway and it will be interesting to see what kind of songs the kids get.

Dancewear UK and discount dancewear - are these the right tags?

Well it's only taken a year or so, but I'm up to $95 or thereabouts with the Google adwords campaign. Nearly time for a payout - yippee!

Time for a rethink, I think. So I've been redesigning the Dancewear Web site and although it's a work in progress it's looking a lot tidier now. Still, the keywords thing still confuses me somewhat and though I've stared updating all the tags, I'm not sure if I'm targeting the right areas.

For example, the analytics page tells me that people who visited my site came through entrance keywords like dancewear UK and discount dance wear. That seems fair enough, but they don't seem to be high on the searches. On the other hand, if I try more general terms there's too many and I've got no chance of appearing in the first 20 pages.

Research is obviously the answer - the problem is there's so much information and different methods of doing these things. I guess meantime it's a case of trial and error... and much hope.

Dancewear Web - Dancewear directory for dancewear UK, discount dance wear, dancewear and costumes.

Dance competition challenges

Going to a big dance competition is one of the most stressful things for a dance teacher. You worry about it for weeks and it's all over in a few minutes.

After hours and hours of practice the routines are as near perfect as they're ever going to get. On then day the costumes are fabulous, everyone's smiling and no one makes any mistakes. An amazing achievement.

So ... WHY DIDN'T WE WIN???

The answer is simple of course, the dance team who won were all the same height!

So all we need to next time is chop off a few inches from some legs, or get built up dance shoes for the shorter people. Easy really, why didn't I think of it before.

Conditioning for dance; training for peak performance

Caught a bit of the new series of So You Think You Can Dance. There's some inspiring moves in there and I love all the different dance styles, although moving out of their comfort zone is a bit of a challenge for some of the dancers.

One of the most difficult things for dancers is keeping up the momentum all the way through, even in a 2 minute routine. The book Conditioning for Dance: Training for Peak Performance in All Dance Forms includes dance-specific exercises to help build up that power and flexibility with injuring yourself.

There are, of course, many other dance training books for ballet, tap, hip hop, ballroom and many more but this one is unique in that it focuses on the mind as well as the body.

Anton's new ballroom dance book

Just been having a look at Anton's Dance Class. His ballroom dancing book isn't too basic, but for keen dancers he teaches ten dances step by step, including ballroom and latin routines. It's getting some pretty decent reviews, so I might even think about buying it.

Proof that dance teachers are poor

Nearly a year on and no millions yet. The dancing school is going great, but making millions is much more difficult than it appears. I'm not saying it can't be done, but unfortunately life gets in the way.

I left the marketing side of things drifting for a while, due to the pressure of everything else. But the sites I built last year are still there and although they need a bit of work to bring them up to date, I've left the ads on them meantime. There hasn't been a lot of traffic, understandably, but there is a small amount of revenue being generated without any effort on my part.

Now that I have a bit of time to get things moving again, I'll try and keep the blog updated regularly, and will give an up to date figure on the road to the millions.

Grease Is The Word Review

I couldn't help it, I had to tune in to see how Grease Is The Word compared to Any Dream Will Do. As I've commented on before, I didn't like the audition shows, but the live programme has proved to be much more entertaining.

We're into the third week of the eliminations and have already seen two couples' hopes shattered. This week, only 6 couples remained to battle it out for the dream of playing Danny and Sandy in the West End.

Danny R and Lauren received a fair amount of criticism from the judges, and while I do worry about Danny's speech problem, I thought Sinitta was really harsh on him when she said "I'd slap myself hard were you to open in the West End".

Michael and Vicky are my least favourites. I haven't seen anything from them that would make me want to pay £70 or £80 a ticket for, but for some reason the voting public liked them and they made it safely through to next week.

Bradley and Michelle on the other hand, did not deserve to be in the bottom two, although I have a problem with this pairing. Bradley lets Michelle down in terms of vocal ability and stage presence and Michelle could find herself going home soon in spite of her own talent.

Last week, Susan and Danny B blew me away but Anthony and Alison changed my mind with their fantastic interpretation of Tonight's The Night. These two couples are going to be very close contenders for the final!

Sadly the voters at home did not keep Wayne and Hayley out of the bottom two, and the judges had a really hard time deciding whether to keep them or send Michelle and Bradley on their way. I loved Wayne and Hayley's performances in the first two weeks and it really is a shame to see them leave so soon.

It was David Ian's turn to pick the style for this week's show and his challenge of "musicals" looked promising. However, I was disappointed to see the genre of musical theatre used so loosely in the choice of the songs.

Heading for broken ankles in dance classes, ballroom shoes to blame!

Last night's class was not good. We're wearing silver ballroom shoes - well latin sandals really - for our big finale. This is all well and good, but having grown up mainly in cuban heels my balance doesn't take too kindly to 3" slim heels, thin straps and open toes!

It seemed like a good idea at the time, and they are gorgeous. Silver, with diamante straps, they go really well with our beautiful pink showgirl costumes. The reality of dancing in them is a bit different though, especially the turns and the high kicks.

Practicing with jazz shoes on was fine, but if I'm ever going to feel confident in the ballroom shoes I need to wear them. Easier said than done!

Now ballet is not my main style, as my classes are based around modern, jazz, tap & stage. I have spent some time learning about ballet; positions, turns, posture, turn out and most of the basics as it is a great reference for other dance styles. Today, I reckon its time for some revision in the balance section!

Ballet Stuff

Having trouble with content for Dance Wear site

So I finally get the Dancewear site going, but it's carp. There's nothing interesting on it at all, and as a dance teacher I'd be disappointed if I landed there from and didn't find the much promised information!

I'm working on it, spent the whole day writing instructions on how to make a simple tutu, and then realised I don't have the pics or diagrams to go with it. I was rudely interrupted by my son, in from football, filthy and hungry... and he wanted his dinner. I mean, doesn't he realise I'm trying to build an empire here! (Well, ok just tutu instructions but its not the point).

Having lost the momentum to go and find the camera, charge the batteries and take the highly artistic photos of my creation I got a bit distracted by other things. New Tricks was on TV and I missed it last week, and reckoned I could afford an hour off to cook, eat and catch up on a bit of telly.

Getting back into the swing of things around 11pm takes a bit of self discipline though. And of course I had to check my emails, web stats, adsense account, paypal account (in the vague hope that I've actually made any money today), and so it goes on. By the time I've done all that I'm exhausted!

Since I promised to share my tales of good fortune, here's the latest:

Website page rank - 0 (Yes, as in zero)
Alexa ranking - Unranked
Traffic yesterday - 21 hits
Earnings to date - $2.96/£1.49

Doing well? Maybe I shouldn't give up the day job just yet!

Dancewear Web Site

My new dancewear web page is driving me nuts. I've only ever built sites using a website builder provided by the webhost, so this is the first time I've tried it using ftp & wysiwig software.

I've tried using templates, but got so confused with the layouts that I figured it would be easier to do it from scratch. That was about 3 weeks ago and I'm still working on the home page! I haven't even got as far as the content yet, I wanted to try and build a template to use for all the pages I want to include - things like costumes, dance holidays, dancing classes etc so that I don't need to mess about with the layouts for each page.

I'm getting there, slowly but surely. There is SO much to learn - HTML, CSS, FTP, PHP - just understanding the abbreviations is hard enough!

I know determination will win through in the end, but sometimes I get to the point where I'm thinking why don't I just go back and do it the easy way?

WebsiteBuilder
Create a Website Quickly & Easily
Hosted for as Little as £1.99/Month
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Update:
$1.67

Grease Is The Word - or not!

It did cross my mind earlier this evening that the new Danny & Sandy talent search could be competition for the Joseph show on BBC1 at some point, when the schedules clash.

However so far Joseph's winning hands down. I can't make my mind up if the producers just didn't show the talented people, or if it really was as bad as that! There was nothing entertaining about the programme at all (and I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff so I'm not just being critical for the sake of it). In fact most of it was just downright embarrasing.

All I can say is I hope it gets better next week - of course I will have to tune in just in case!

I know all the colours of Joseph's Coat!

Call me sad if you like, but I've known all the colours in Joseph's coat since I was at school. I keep thinking that one day a question will come up in a quiz and people will be amazed at my incredible knowledge. Now it's all going to be spoiled.

Saturday nights are saved again! I had heard that ALW was doing a "Maria School" lookie likey with Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. He's calling it "Any Dream Will Do", surprise surprise. Couldn't think of a better name myself, except maybe "red and yellow and pink and green.... etc" Don't think that would work somehow, there are 29 colours plus 27 "ands", a bit of a mouthful for the TV guide!

Here they are (without cheating, and without the "ands")

• Red
• Yellow
• Green
• Brown
• Scarlet
• Black
• Ochre
• Peach
• Ruby
• Olive
• Violet
  
• Fawn
  
• Lilac
  
• Gold
  
• Chocolate
• Mauve
• Cream
• Crimson
• Silver
• Rose
• Azure
• Lemon
• Russet
• Grey
• Purple
• White
• Pink
• Orange
• Blue
  

Edit: I've decided this subject calls for a blog of its own so I'm going to move it over to a new spot.
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Update
$1.07

Belly Dancing Costume - how hard can it be?

Oh hell, I have no idea where to start. This really isn't my thing, but in my wisdom decided that it would be different from the norm, and give the dads in the audience something to keep them from falling asleep or going to the pub.
So I need a belly dancing costume and fast.

I mean, how hard can it be, it's only a bit of flimsy fabric with a few fake coins right? Alright, I tried that (it would help if I could sew), but it was crap. And the chocolate melted.

So back to the drawing board, or ebay.