torrismith – Page 5 – Maxime & Torri

Euro Dance Festival!!

By torrismith| 2016-02-16T06:11:31+00:00 February 16th, 2016|

This is such an amazing event….. and we always feel so lucky to be a part of it!!! There are over 300 classes taught to over 6000 dancers during this 5 day event…… I have never seen so many styles of dance come together for one event before. Every dance has their own room for social dancing at night until 1 in the morning…. when the party moves to the bar at one of the hotels and continues until 4 or 5 in the morning! The atmosphere is so amazing all day and all night…. it is an unbelievable experience! We love this event because we get to see a lot of our friends…. mostly ones we don’t get to see very often from different styles of dances! 🙂

The workshops… we taught 9 hours over the weekend and had a really fun time with each group! We felt that we had a lot of hard workers, and we really tried to make the energy fun for everyone! Thank you to all the levels for focusing and trying your hardest with us…. even on Sunday when we know you were so dead from a long week of classes!!!!! We really appreciate it and loved the energy of the classes!

A little more about the bar…. every night was great there with all the different dances….. but Saturday was extra special because of the jam that happened!! Starting with Maxime and John Lindo… moving on to more swing dancers…. then some hip hop dancers…. and ending with some amazing salsa dancers!!!!! And ending it with some fun solo line dances to bring it back to social dancing…. Farid Ferchach, Luis Vasquez, and Dado Ibrakovic really brought that bar to life all weekend…. it wouldn’t have been the same without them!!!!

The shows…. Every night there is a huge professional show in the big dome… Maxime has been a part of the show every year for the last 4 years…. and this year, Friday morning, they asked us to be a part of the show on Friday night!!! We hadn’t practiced in awhile…. but we decided that we would try and do our routine!! We had no costume… but thanks to Claude from Le Disc n’ roll shoes….. I had some really beautiful shoes for the show 😉 We felt so honored to be part of a wonderful show… and it was a moment we will never forget 🙂

Thanks everyone for such a great weekend…. we really hope we will be back next year!!!

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Lille!

By torrismith| 2016-02-08T02:47:07+00:00 February 8th, 2016|

It was a quick trip to Lille…. I wish we could have stayed longer…. and maybe without me getting really sick!! I’m sorry to everyone that I wasn’t able to dance at all at the party on Saturday night!! I had a stomach problem and couldn’t keep anything down….. I won’t go into more details… hahaha But I am feeling much better now!

The workshops on both Saturday and Sunday were all very fun and I enjoyed getting to know the group dancers from the North 😉 I can’t wait until we are back in Lille in June so that I can hopefully dance with everyone and be a lot more social than I was this weekend!!!

Even though it wasn’t the best I could have done….. we did do a demo on Saturday night… and it was a special demo for us…. We danced on a song that was by Maxime’s cousin Charlie… All of her music is beautiful.. and we were very happy to dance to this song 😉

Thanks for being so understanding of me not feeling well…. I’m so sorry again!

Until next time Lille!!! 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Clermont!!

By torrismith| 2016-02-02T11:11:04+00:00 February 2nd, 2016|

We had a really great weekend working with Julie Baltar and teaching workshops for her students at Studio Dance 63 and other dancers around the Clermont area!! It was my first time visiting Clermont, and I was so happy with how sweet the dancers were in this area! They were all nice with me when I tried my couple French words that I know in the class…. and made me feel welcome to try more and more!!

I promise my French friends….. soon I will be able to speak more and more in the classes!! Until then, Maxime does a wonderful job translating and taking over for most of the classes!

(level 1)

We really liked having an hour and a half with each of the levels on both Saturday and Sunday…. It made us feel like we had plenty of time to cover everything we wanted to in each class! We were very happy with how hard everyone worked in the classes…. we didn’t make the classes very easy…. and everyone did pretty good with all the material!!! We are proud teachers 😉

(level 2) (level 3)

Saturday night was super fun!! The theme: Haut Chic Bas Choc (top chic bottom shock hahahaha) Some of the outfits we saw that night were pretty amazing! Full suit coats with shorts…. sparkly tops with pajama bottoms….. and even dressy shirts with skirts (for men!)!!! It was really fun for everyone to look silly together!! Maxime and I even did our demo in our outfits….. don’t know if that video will make it up on the website though… we looked pretty funny!!! hahaha

In the end… we had a great time with the people of Orcet/Clermont… and can’t wait to be back next year!

Thank you Julie for your hospitality, all the fun times, and especially letting me play with your adorable little boy Nils 😉

Until next time our friends…

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Anchor Festival!

By torrismith| 2016-01-19T13:12:04+00:00 January 19th, 2016|

Hamburg! We had such a great weekend!!!!! Really nice to be in a new city and meet a lot of new people!!! Hamburg dancers are so nice and hard workers…. Thanks to Julian and Juliane for being the main teachers in Hamburg and helping to spread the dance to new regions! It really helps when new communities have a great foundation and dedicated teachers to help them continue to grow!

Christian, Julian and Juliane did such great job with the event! It had a small intimate feeling for the weekend, which is something we really love. We taught along with Marc and Mejrem; we always have such a great time with these two and were so happy to have them with us for the weekend! Marc was a great MC for the comps, and brought a fun energy to the room, as always!

There was a fun Jack n Jill on Friday night that mixed the levels together: higher level leaders with lower level followers, and the opposite. 😉 This is always a fun competition because it makes the competition equal for everyone, and the people seem to really enjoy the contest. Of course there was also the normal Newcomer and Novice JnJ on Saturday night, which was great as well! Something really great about the contests that we loved were the awards!! The trophies were different for the mixed JnJ and the leveled JnJ…. very different and fitting for the event! Both were “anchor” or “boat” themed…. and were very cute! Everyone seemed to love them too!

Apart from our usual level 1 and level 2 classes, we also had a lady and men styling class! These are always fun for us to get some one-on-one time with the guys and girls. Maxime taught a fun line dance for the guys to do on their own, and also had the song played at the Saturday night party for everyone to get up and do. I had a fun time with the ladies and did a little combination with them to work on variations within their basics. I didn’t make them do the choreography at the dance because I promised them I wouldn’t 😉 hahaha

The only thing we regretted about the weekend is that we couldn’t visit the city of Hamburg that we hear is so beautiful! It was way too cold for us to enjoy being outside. Maybe next time, but only if it isn’t snowing!!!!!!

Thank you to the Anchor Festival team and to everyone who attended! We had a great weekend, and can’t wait to see some of you again at Euro Dance Festival…. and the rest of you at D-Townswing!!!!

Take care friends… 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

NEW DEMO VIDEOS!!!!!

By torrismith| 2016-01-14T02:55:46+00:00 January 14th, 2016|

We have posted quite a few new videos of our demos from recent events in our media section…. so go check them out if you get a chance 😉

We will post our favorite here so you can see….. our new show routine 😉

Hope you enjoy!

And yes…. it does mean what you think it means…. 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

BUDAFEST!

By torrismith| 2016-01-13T05:17:45+00:00 January 13th, 2016|

This event is so amazing in so many ways!!! It is crazy how many people attend this event, and how there is enough room for everyone to fit into a ballroom to watch competitions or dance!! Adam, Rita, and Gabor… You worked so hard all weekend and I hope you know it paid off!!! There are so many special and unique things about this event that no other event can have… And we were so happy to be a part of it!

The location! So beautiful…. On the river…. And being able to see this view when you left the ballroom was just incredible! The hotel was so nice too! Great rooms and restaurants and everything!

The staff! We had an awesome group of pro’s with us and had a lot of fun teaching, judging, dancing and just hanging out with all of them! Gary & Susan, Maxence & Virginie, Ben & Victoria, and Jordan & Tatiana…. Chuck Brown was the head judge… And Nicolas Handschuh and Emeline were 2 of the awesome DJs…. and lastly Mr. Victor Loveira as the MC, you were so funny my friend and we love having you in Europe! Thanks for the fun times guys!

The multiple workshop levels! Not only did this event have levels 2, 3, 4, & 5…… There were so many people signed up for levels 3 & 4 that they had to break them into 3 different groups…. who all learned the same material at different times! It was pretty nice for everyone because they now had the space they needed to move and learn the workshops without hitting each other and being miserable! We loved all of our levels and felt like we wish we had more time with each level by the end of it! 😉

The Pro-Winner JnJ! This is such a great concept that we both really loved! Each of the JnJ winners of Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced all getting to dance with a pro for the final show of the weekend! There were too many pros for all of us to dance, so we drew ahead of time which pros would dance in it… and we were lucky enough to both get picked! 🙂 I got to dance with the Adv winner (Jakub Jakoubek)… Thank you so much for this dance… it was so wonderful!! And Maxime danced with the Inter winner (Maina Cobarsi)… I know he enjoyed this dance so much as well 😉

Sunday night boat ride! This was just such an amazing way to end the weekend!! So unique and really a lot of fun! Last year they also did this boat ride, but one ship wasn’t enough! So how did they solve this problem…? Well by connecting another boat of course!!! I would have loved to see this image from the outside as well…. two boats connected and going down the river and back up again! We had such a good time dancing, drinking with friends, and just enjoying the views of the boat!

This was honestly one of the best events in Europe…. Everything about it was amazing!! This is definitely an event that shouldn’t be missed! Next year….. make it happen!!!!!

Thanks everyone for all the dances and we will see you all soon!! Next up…. Hamburg for Anchor Festival!! See you there our German friends 😉

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Westie’s Angels

By torrismith| 2015-11-24T19:56:08+00:00 November 24th, 2015|

This was such a fun and different event from what we are used to… Completely created for the followers and helping them work on their technique and feel more comfortable exploring new variations. Of course we also needed to have leaders at the event, so the group classes focused on how to let the followers create a variation and how the leaders can pick up on it and create something even better from the followers idea!! 🙂 Such a great concept for the event!! Originally, it was supposed to be a weekend with me (Torri), Emeline Rochefeuille and Virginie Massart… but since Virginie recently had baby Billie…. Maxime stood in for her and taught most of her classes! I know Virginie’s classes were missed, but I think having Maxime’s point of view as a leader teaching followers was a bonus for the girls who took part of the weekend!

Each of us were assisted by an awesome well-known European leader: I had Stanley Seguy, Emeline had Sven Allegaert, and Maxime had Olivier Duplay.

Overall, I think it was a really amazing experience not only for all the students who attended, but also for us as teachers… It pushed us to teach with the main goal being to help the followers… Which is so different from your typical weekend!! But I think I speak for all of us when I say it was a very challenging, exciting and successful weekend!!

Thank you Olivier Massart for creating this weekend for the ladies…. and thank you to all the ladies and guys who attended and really dedicated their whole heart into the weekend!! It was much appreciated by the others in the class, and especially by the teachers!!

We had such a good time with the weekend, and we really hope more events like this will start to show up all around the world!! Maybe even some more classes for men’s styling! 😉

This was our last event in Europe for the rest of 2015….. We take off for the US Open soon, and can’t wait to cheer all our friends on!! Good luck to everyone competing… and we will see you soon America!!

Until 2016 Europe…. 😉

Bisous :*

-Maxime and Torri

Sweden!

By torrismith| 2015-11-16T09:37:39+00:00 November 16th, 2015|

Jingle bells, jingle bells……

JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!

Hahahaha Sweden…. we had such a wonderful weekend with you in Falkoping (for all my American friends…its pronounced like Fall-Shopping….therefore I loved the place haha) Honestly, we really had a great time with everyone. The people are so nice and quick learners when it came to class time! We saw a few familiar faces, but for the most part met a lot of new people! We taught along with Dennis (from Sweden) and Oksana (from Russia)… both incredibly sweet people and a lot of fun to dance with as well!!! Caroline, Sandra, and Arvid took care of us all weekend and made sure we had anything we needed!

Like I said… everyone was so nice!! It made for a really great atmosphere for the weekend!

We loved our intensive on Saturday… It was cut off to only 12 couples, so it was nice to be able to look at every single dancer and give them personalized feedback. Thank you to those 12 couples who attended and made it a fun 3 hours… even if by the end we were pretty much all wearing no shoes because it was so slippery on that floor!

A Swedish word I will never ever forget…. Fika!!! The swedish people love their fika (aka coffee break) hahaha it felt like we had one every hour 🙂 Another thing that will help me never forget Sweden… My present from Dennis and Caroline…. that alligator bottle opener that I fell in love with over the weekend!!

Sweden, you really left your mark on us…. and during a very sad time in France, you made us smile when it was really needed. We really hope we will see you again next year…. take care until then!

Thank you everyone!

-Maxime and Torri 🙂

Rock Bottoms!

By torrismith| 2015-11-11T12:13:18+00:00 November 11th, 2015|

This post is coming a little late once again….. But it’s only because it has taken us this long to recover from the weekend!!!! 😉

We had such a great time with everyone at Torquay… Maxime had already met most of you 2 years ago, but this was my first time meeting almost all of you! I felt so welcomed by everyone and absolutely loved the energy of the event with the mix of Modern Jive and Blues 🙂

The staff…. SO MUCH FUN!! Tor, Andy, Hev, John…. You are all so crazy and wonderful! I didn’t know what to expect at the beginning of the weekend.. but by the end, I felt like I was part of the family!! You were always around when we needed you, especially when it was time to put together the fun Sunday night show… 😉 but I will get to that in a little bit… 😉 The rest of the teaching staff was so great as well! Lee & Fab are always awesome friends to have around.. Kevin & Aggie taught some Modern Jive, Nigel & Taz taught Blues, and Lee & Dawn had the wonderful pajama class (also part of the Sunday show)! Such a fun group to be with all weekend… really hope to see you all again soon!

Okay…. the show…..

I guess it is tradition that the staff puts together a funny skit for the event on Sunday night…and boy was it funny! The theme was “Back in the 50’s”…. so we each dressed up as a character from the 50’s… featuring James Bond (& his bond girls), the Queen, Captain Hook, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Dennis the Menace, & a yellow coat…. I would go into more detail…. but I’m pretty sure it would make no sense at all! hahahah You had to be there to see it! Very funny…and a night we will never forget!!!

To everyone at Rock Bottoms…. Thank you so much for an amazing weekend!! We really enjoyed ourselves and can’t wait to see you all again next year!!! It’s already on our schedule… we hope it’s on yours too!!!

-Maxime and Torri 😉

Annecy!

By torrismith| 2015-10-06T07:49:38+00:00 October 6th, 2015|

Sorry this post is coming a little late!!! We haven’t had wifi for a couple days, but we are good now!!

Annecy…. First of all….. what a beautiful city!!!! I can’t wait to go back and hopefully visit more! It was another quick weekend for us, but really nice. When we arrived on Saturday afternoon, we had a competition workshop for those who wanted to learn how to improve their JnJ dances. It was a small group which made it easy to focus on each person individually. After that class we had 3 more workshops with each of the levels: Intermediate 1, Intermediate 2, and Advanced. Annecy really has a great group of dancers, and we loved each of the workshops on both days!

The party on Saturday night was certainly something neither of us will ever forget!! A lot of dancers from nearby cities came by to dance and we all had a great time. We did a demo in the pro show, along with Olivier and Virginie Massart (& baby who is almost here!!) But the best part of all was the fun Jack n Jill….. We had all been brainstorming all day to figure out what we could do with the JnJ to make it crazy and fun and bring a lot of laughter to the party…. Of course Maxime brought up the idea of blindfolding the followers…. But then we decided that wouldn’t be enough…. So another idea came up about playing “Musical Hats”….. So in the end, the leaders were blindfolded, the followers all had hats on…. and the goal was to pass the hat to the girl to their left and whoever didn’t have one at the end was out….. But everyone was being too nice!! So we changed the rules from PASS the hate to STEAL the hat……. and man it got pretty ugly!!!!! Those girls were pretty vicious at times to make sure they had a hat!!!! Some girls even had 2 or 3 hats at a time!! We were all laughing so hard during this whole fun contest. Especially watching the leaders end up being dragged around by their follower because she needed a hat! Hahahaha

Thank you Annecy for all the wonderful memories and great dances we shared! We hope to be back soon!

As for now, I (Torri) am headed back to the U.S. for Boogie by the Bay, while Maxime heads off to Dusseldorf this weekend….

Thanks for reading and we will see you soon hopefully!

-Maxime and Torri 🙂

About torrismith

February 2016

Euro Dance Festival!!

Lille!

Clermont!!

January 2016

Anchor Festival!

NEW DEMO VIDEOS!!!!!

BUDAFEST!

November 2015

Westie’s Angels

Sweden!

Rock Bottoms!

October 2015

Annecy!