A few comments about the Waltz Weekend by past participants


I come away kicking and fighting from the Waltz Weekend.  I feel rejuvenated and yet desolate to have to face real life, where I can't immerse myself in dance for all waking hours, like I did this weekend.

I love the balance Richard strikes between footwork, partnering, and dance philosophy (what I call meta-dancing).  The difference between Richard and other instructors is like that between an artist and an artisan.  They create beautiful motion like a bird or fish does, quite oblivious of the magic.  He is aware, and in awe of the beauty of what he teaches.  I am glad he chose to share some of his insight with us this weekend.

An important distinction is in the place delegated to music in the world of dance.   In most ballrooms, the music is incidental, a means of establishing rhythm.   Only in Richard's ballroom have I felt like cloth, perforated, that music could flow through.   Like dancing on clouds with a matterless body.
- A.B.


This past weekend was the most thoroughly enjoyable dance weekend I have ever attended!
- E.G.


With their guidance...
   we heard with new ears
      we saw with new eyes
         we felt with new hands, feet.

New hearts pulsed new blood through our veins, and we became more than we had been before.
- E.D.


I want to comment as to what a superb experience waltz weekend was.   I felt I learned a lot about dance, not simply a large repertoire of moves.   While we often enjoy the isolated waltz here and there, rarely do we have the chance to focus on the dance and its spirit.
- P.J.


The notion of a weekend of waltz is superb.  It's like boot camp for dancing.   By Sunday, I felt like I was one with the others, their achievements, frustrations, joy, sadness all felt like mine.  Each of the people I met this weekend will be special to me.

I would like to add myself to the long list of those whose lives which have been affected profoundly by the Waltz Weekend; like an eye in my mind has been opened, to a world I was blind to.
- A.B.


I very much appreciated the mix of waltzing, partnering and ideas.   Recently for me dance has become too much analytical, too much about the steps and their execution.   But this weekend really helped to refresh my faith in dance for dance sake.
- S.A.


What a great time I had at the Waltz Weekend!   It has been a long time since I've been in a dance and this one was thoroughly enjoyable, and wonderfully philosophical as well.

In regards to the dynamic between Richard and Angela, that is what I enjoyed the best.  They are wondrously harmonious.   I have never seen someone transmit so much, add so much, enhance so much, without every saying a word as I saw Angela this weekend.  What a beautiful working relationship.   If Irene Castle said dancing with Vernon was intuitive to be sure, then watching Richard and Angela teach, I would swear it was intuitive to be sure as well.
- J.M.


As I laid down to bed last night, I began to think about what I experienced during the waltz weekend.  After the workshop, I found myself dancing with a greater awareness -- not of steps, but of the environment and of my partners.   I found an unexplained delight in doing just the basic steps, and rediscovered the joy in just being with my partners.

I also truly experienced synergy for the first time during the weekend -- being truly interdependent, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.   In the past, whenever I entered my creative modes, the invention/adaptation of new steps was something I did alone.   But on Saturday, while "sharing leads", we just started coming up with new steps *together*.   It wasn't just one of us trying his/her own step, but the steps seemed spontaneously generated between the two of us.   It was exhilirating.
- C.M.C.


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Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email Richard Powers at vintage@stanford.edu