Smells like teen spirit and ballroom dancing

Late last night, I was watching the American Ballroom Championships on PBS. Ballroom dancing to me is like watching ice skating. I don't love it like I love ice skating, but I like watching it because there are similarities: different categories, pairs teams, flashy costumes, and mistakes. Although the mistakes here involve collisions and possible wardrobe malfunctions (I've never seen that happen). But it's dancing. And I like anything that has to do with dancing. One of my favorite movies is Strictly Ballroom.

There's this one portion of ballroom dancing called "Showcase." This is like exhibition skating with judges. They get to pull out all the tricks, choose less traditional ballroom music, step outside their comfort zone, perform lifts, etc. This one couple (I don't remember their names) did the foxtrot. To Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It. was. freakin'. AWESOME. I have never seen anything like it, but it worked for them. The guy came out first, hair spiked up, sunglasses, ripped jeans and a Nirvana concert T-shirt. His partner came out next dressed like Madonna back in the 80's: raccoon eyes, hair fluffed and teased, bright lipstick, black cutout gloves, black legwarmers, white flowy skirt (because, y'know it is ballroom), belt hanging low on her hips, black t-shirt with the arms cut out. Very 80's.

For those of you not familiar with the ballroom term, go HERE, but basically it's a combination of slow and quick steps. At one point, you stop in one place and jump up and down in a sequence of footwork before moving on. Very elegant and neat to see when it's done in a group setting (high potential of collisions with this dance, too), but when it's done in a headbanging style, just jumping up and down in tune to the music, it's Very. Cool. Needless to say, they won that portion of the competition. One of the reasons I like watching ballroom dancing, is because they broadcast it on a station that has no commercials. It's the public access station where it takes donations from the viewers to keep it going and bringing in quality programs.

Now, if only they could do the same for ice skating competitions...

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