Winter White Blues

About a month from now, there is another event at the studio. They call this Winter White and it is a relatively new addition to their calendar of events. They used to do a Team Match at this time but it might be hard to get three studio together in our area so they seem to have phased that out and replaced it with this Winter White thing.

I’d describe it as a very condensed Showcase. They have a smooth section, a rhythm section and an auxiliary section with 4-5 dances in each. You can only do one round per section so you basically get one shot at each dance you want to do. There is a judge to offer critiques and, of course, they have general dancing sprinkled throughout. But it only runs a couple of hours as opposed to an all day Showcase.

In theory, you are supposed to wear mostly white but it didn’t seem like a lot of people did that. I actually went for it last year and did manage to put together an all white ensemble. Kind of ended up standing out but that’s OK.

I’m not really sure what the studio gets out of something like this. I don’t know enough about the finances to understand what their costs are for something like this but I can’t imagine it makes any money given the low cost per entry. Maybe it spurs some people to take more lessons to prepare.

Anyway, I’ve gone the last couple of years but I’m wavering right now. Part of it is the whole dress up to sweat thing. The older I’ve gotten, the less I enjoy putting on anything that is remotely dressy. A Showcase is different since you’ll be there all day but it seems silly to get ready for an event that only lasts a few hourse. Again, I don’t have to really dress up, I could go more business casual and nobody would really care.

I’ve found the critiques to be of limited value. I’m not even sure we reviewed the ones from last year. I think I just breezed through them, didn’t see anything that stood out and then they got filed away. Plus, the sample size is really too small to make them meaningful. So it kind of takes away from one reason for going.

And the last couple were just kind of OK in my book. Not as fun as other events. Better than medal ball but that’s not saying much. As with all studio events, there is the hard sell to sign up and go and they have a hard time taking “no” for an answer.

I guess despite the things I’ve laid out, I’m really more indifferent than pro or anti. I could go and it would be fine. Or I could stay home and do other things and it would be fine. It is just hard for me sometimes to justify doing something that I don’t have a strong desire to do.