Flappin' gorgeous!

Here's how we teach a small fragment of any routine:

1. Without any music, demonstrate the moves slowly and with as much instruction as possible, picking out musical cues that will tell the troupe what they need to be doing when
2. Step through those moves again, roughly at the tempo that they'll be at when we add the music
3. Play the music and get the whole class to dance the moves together for the first time. I dance in front of the troupe and the Sparkly Bra Pixie and the Voluptuous Jules dance behind them so that, no matter which way the routine turns us, the troupe has someone to follow
4. At the end of that dance fragment. turn off the music and turn around inquiringly to look at the troupe and the other members of Burlicious to see how it went.

I love that moment. What I see as I turn round tells me all I need to know.

Last night, having demonstrated a few moves from the boa routine in our current dance, I turned around to see showgirls collapsing with laughter; showgirls flapping about with boas demonstrating the mess that they had got into trying to control two metres of feather; showgirls giggling each other through what had happened as they tried the steps; and the Sparkly Bra Pixie saying blandly: "I think we'll do that again."

One boa each. A few arm movements with boa to manage. And an infinite number of cat's cradle and spider web variations produced, together with some mad scrabbling about trying to reach the boa behind the back as if it were being borne away on a strong wind. Our showgirls were like little feathery whirling dervishes, but with fewer clothes. Cracking stuff!

Enjoy half term, showgirls, and we'll flap on with this in two weeks' time. :-)


Yours, as sleek as little birds of paradise,

Burlicious x