June 2015 issue

Posted on May 29, 2015

This month, we speak to cover stars Katya Virshilas and Jared Murillo, discover dance studios in unexpected places and explore dancers “crossing over” from one style to another…

Quick, quick slow…

Katya Virshilas and Jared Murillo tell Nicola Rayner about their partnership:

“‘I feel like the mummy sometimes with him,’ says Katya. He’s 26 and I’m 31.’ But that’s not too big an age difference? ‘No, but I’m so used to being the mother hen in a situation where I produce my own shows. I’m like, “OK, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that!” and Jared is the chilled, Californian laidback surfer dude…’”

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Back to the future

Dance studios are expensive places to run – big spaces with high overheads. Alison Gallagher-Hughes talks to businesses that have breathed life into old buildings…

“‘We’re a barn on a farm,’ says Alison Slinger when asked to sum up her location. It may not be the first place you’d expect to find a ballroom but the owner of the Crown Ballroom has made this former agricultural building into one of the biggest dance centres on the Fylde Coast… complete with glitterball…”

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Also in the June issue…

Swing when you’re winning: Marianka Swain talks to Swing Patrol’s Scott Cupit, winner of 2015’s Dance Today Dance Teacher of the Year competition

In an excerpt from her book, The Ballet Lover’s Companion, Zoë Anderson recommends Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs as a ballet that draws on social dance music, steps and emotion

Phil Meacham concludes his interview with ballroom legend Peggy Spencer

Tips on Technique: James Whitehead focuses on the samba

Technique Clinic: Phil Meacham looks at American spins

Ray Conway on recovery from injury for dancers

Stepping Out: news of EuroGames, and of Robin Windsor’s first same-sex ballroom class

Jack Reavely passes on the wisdom of ballroom pioneer Doreen Freeman, and remembers Tommy Gray

Simon Selmon on the Charleston

Plus reports on dancing at Hatch End, the Black and White Forget-Me-Not Ball and sequence at the Blackpool Junior Dance Festival, reviews of dance music from Maestro and WRD Music, Bugsy Malone on stage, hip hop dance festival Breakin’ Convention, Carrie: The Musical, The Pirates of Penzance and High Society, variations and sequence scripts, our fabulous listings pages and more!

Buy now

The June issue is in shops (including larger branches of WHSmith) now, or you can buy your print copy here, or buy your digital copy from all good app stores

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.