Dance Along Nutcracker 2013: Dress Like a Pirate

Dance Along Nutcracker 2013: Dress Like a Pirate

Band and cast members offer some costume tips for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.

Talk Like a Pirate: Dance-Along 2013

Dance-Along Nutcracker2013: Talk Like a Pirate

Band and cast members offer some tips for Dance-Along preparation.

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2013: Trepak

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2013: Russian Dance 

First promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  Footage shot at last year's show by Chip and me, titles animated by me.

Dance Along 2012

Dance Along 2012

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2012

DAN 2012 - Overture Miniature

It's that time of year again...

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2012

Dance-Along 2012 

Here's the first promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  It has no graphics because this is the footage that will be made available to TV stations for use in the background of calendar listings (under a voice-over or whatever they choose to do with it).

Dance-Along 2011 photos (3 of 3)

Sunday AM - DAN

Confession: I did not take these photos.  Chip took them while I was recording the show with the video camera.

Dance-Along 2011 photos (2 of 3)

Sunday A.M. DAN 2011

During Sunday morning's show, we just came in and played, so these are just the shots I was able to take from the stage during the numbers I didn't play.

Dance-Along 2011 photos (1 of 3)

Saturday DAN 2011

These shots represent everything that happened on Saturday.  First, a few rehearsal photos, then photos of the pre-show dancing and mingling, then shots that I was able to take from the stage during the numbers that I didn't play during.

SFLGFB at Cal Academy of Sciences

Dance-Along Lite at Cal Academy

We're getting down to the wire now -- Showtime on Saturday and Sunday.

One nice thing that happened at Cal Academy.  As we were walking into the atrium, a girl of about ten or twelve saw us carrying instruments and wearing band uniforms and ran over to us.  She asked excitedly, "Are you going to play?!"

We said, "We're going in to play right now."

She shouted, "Cool!' and ran off to get her parents to make them come watch us.

I know it sounds like a small thing, but given the sad state of music programs in schools these days, any indication that children have some musical education as well as actual enthusiasm for it is a little ray of light.

Reasons To Go To the Show

 
Why should you come to the Dance-Along Nutcracker 2011?

Raymond Hong of Outlook Video spoke with audience members after the Dance-Along Nutcracker in 2009.

Dance-Along Nutcracker, nearly twenty years ago

Good Morning America

The Today Show

Two similar stories, one from Good Morning America in 1992, and another from The Today Show in 1995.  Both are about different interpretations of The Nutcracker, and both featured the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band's Dance-Along Nutcracker.

The band appears in the GMA clip at around 2:30, and in the Today clip at around 4:10.  

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2011: Promo #1

 
Dance-Along Nutcracker 2011 Promo: Russian Dance

I just posted the first promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  More to follow.

Boing Boing picked up the Segway video

I submitted the "Waltz of the Segways" video to Boing Boing via the Submitterator, and Xeni Jardin moved the story to Boing Boing's front page.

Waltz of the Segways

Waltz of the Segways 

Silliness at the Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park.Recorded by Chip and me, edited by me.

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2010

Overture Miniature

Reed Pipe Dance

Russian Dance 

Here are three short video clips I made from last year's Dance-Along Nutcracker, just to prove that you don't have to be a professional dancer to join in this show.

This year's Dance-Along Nutcracker will again be at the Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.  Shows at 2:30 and 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, December 11, and at 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 12.  As always, the Saturday night show is a fundraiser for the band (and this show is for the grown-ups only), and tickets start at $50.  The other three shows cost $25 for adults and $16 for children and senior citizens.

Tickets for all shows are available directly from YBCA's website.

Dance Along

This year, I played two shows and videotaped two shows.  While I was taping, Chip ran around with the still camera, so all of these photos are actually his, except for the one vertical photo that I took from the stage.

The full set of 62 photos can be found on my Flickr page.

Shameless Plug

Tickets are on sale now for the Dance-Along Nutcracker at The Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. 

This year, there are four shows:

December 12 at 2:30 p.m.;

December 12 at 7 p.m.;

December 13 at 11 a.m.; and

December 13 at 3 p.m.

Tickets are $25 for adults and $16 for children, except that tickets for the Saturday night show are a flat $50 per person.

The Saturday night show costs more because it is the "Gala," including pre-show dancing with City Swing.  Alcohol is served at this show, and not a lot of kids come to it -- it's the "grown-up" event.  Also, table seats are available for "sponsors."  Read more about the Gala at the Dance-Along website.

The theme this year is Westerns (Magnificent Seven, Stagecoach, etc.), and the subtitle of this year's show is "Blazing Nutcrackers."

Tickets for all shows are available at the Yerba Buena Center box office.

Dance-Along Nutcracker on NPR

As I mentioned previously, I spoke with an NPR reporter between shows or between acts (I honestly don't remember which anymore) of this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker, and I expressed my hopes that I hadn't said anything too terribly stupid or embarrassing.

Well, I needn't have worried, because he didn't use a single word from my interview in the final story, which aired on "Morning Edition" this morning.

Unfortunately, I can't embed the audio here. I can only give you link to where you can find the story on NPR's website..

Susie Bright on Boing Boing

Susie Bright (who I know has at least one friend in the band) attended this weekend's Dance-Along Nutcracker and then blogged about it on Boing Boing today. It's a very nice blurb -- read the whole posting at this link. Excerpt follows:

"When I was a little wanna-be ballerina, I could barely remain still at sit-down Nutcracker events; I ached to waltz with the other Flowers. In the 1960s, the kids in my parish would run around with fake swords and wild scarves as we recreated the whole shebang to the scratchy amplification of the nuns' beat-up record player. I think I peed in my pants one time -- please don't tell the Nutcracker Prince.

"The Freedom Band's version is far better, with more room to take a flying leap, and an incredibly patient orchestra who play the entire show in costume while scores of little children sit at their feet with mouths hanging open. I am tempted to take up the piccolo again."