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This
year blasted off to a great start, with dance students coming
from Dance Studios all over Sydney, NSW and interstate to
buy PRODANCE Dance Footwear. It's
also very pleasing to see a significant part of our new
business now coming from a broad
cross-section of Dance Studios. This I appreciate very much.
There has been
a lot of interest in our website and the new pages. For
some reason California and Virginia in the USA scored high
on our hit list, together with a lot of people from the
Australian Educational sector.
With
new styles to look forward to this year, 2004 can only get
better...........
A lot of effort
has gone into producing this newsletter in order to make
it more interesting and perhaps to add a little extra something
to peoples lives. So read, enjoy and send in those photos.
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"DANCE IMAGES 2004"
Every photo
tells a story. The above "Tango" photo is chock
full of emotional intensity and drama.
It implies the dancers are skillful in their art, and this
wonderful photo shows the art in their skill. Full marks
to those at Southglen
Estate in Perth, W.A.
The question
is "Can you create a photo, or photos as good as this
one?"
This is your chance to show your worth, not only as a dancer,
but as a photographer.
I
shall be soon creating a new page on the DSA website entitled
"Dance Images 2004". Everyone is
invited to contribute
photos to this gallery.
At the end of the year, the owner of the photo nominated
the best, will win a FREE PAIR OF PRODANCE SHOES.
The
conditions are:
1. The photos must be originally in a high quality photo
file format [usually about 3MB to 6Mb in size], then reduced
in size and converted to about a 60KB jpeg file. This way
they can be expanded to a reasonable size without pixelation
and there won't be any problems emailing the file.
Please check visual quality in an appropriate software viewer,
before emailing.
2. Entry is free and any number of photos may be submitted,
by email only.
3. The competition is open to anyone, in any country.
4. The photos should be accompanied by the senders first
and last name, city, country, name/type/style of dance depicted,
and a brief description of or story behind each photo.
Each photo should have its own label as well.
5. Photos must be dance related, depicting Latin, Ballroom,
Ceroc, Rock n Roll or Swing styles.
6. Photos can be either Black and White or Colour and may
be digitally altered in any way.
7. Any number of new photos may be submitted, but I reserve
the right to choose which photos, if any, I publish on the
"Dance Images 2004" web page.
8. Photos sent must not have been published previously on
the web or elsewhere.
9. Any entrant with a web site will have a link to their
web site placed adjacent to the photo entered, providing
they reciprocate with a link to our site,
www.dancingshoes.com.au
10. If publishing of a photo on our web page does occur,
no royalties will be paid to its owner.
11. Entries will be judged on artistic expression and visual
appeal.
12. The prize of one pair of Prodance men's or ladies' shoes
cannot be exchanged for cash.
[There may be a fee charged if the winner wants certain
non standard components, or the shoes have to be shipped
by post
13. No guarantee on fit will be made on shoes, where the
fit has not been physically checked by me, in our showroom,
in Sydney.
14. All Dance Studios we are associated
with will be given the opportunity to judge in this fantastic
competition. The only conditions are, that they not vote
for their own photos or those of any of their dancers. They
will only have one vote each, and that vote will need to
be emailed to me by December 5th, 2004.
So get those
cameras snapping. Remember you don't have to have a digital
camera to enter.
A good quality photo, scanned at 300dpi into your computer
and then reduced in size and saved as a jpeg image file,
will usually give a good enough result. If you don't have
a scanner, when you develop the film, you can usually have
all the photos put onto a CD for a small charge.
_________________________________________________________________________________
ARTHRITIS,
GOUT and BUNIONS - A PAIN IN THE FOOT or LEG
or HIP or BACK or ...........
A web resource and knowledge base of medical and alternative
treatments.
When I was down Bondi Beach the other
day, I made an impromptu survey of adult ladies feet, as
you do when at the beach. As it is considered improper to
stare at higher portions of the anatomy, I chose feet as
a last resort. I estimated about 25% had visible bunions
or flat feet. That's much higher than I expected, when you
realise that it excludes many with different forms of arthritis.
Most
of the dancers I see are relatively young, in good health,
enjoy raging into the wee hours of the morning and take
their lack of aches and pains in their joints for granted.
Those not so fortunate can often have an uphill battle in
dealing with their agonies. Many just grit their teeth,
keep quiet about their health problems and try and keep
up with their healthier friends.
Aches
and pains experienced come under many different "labels":
Arthritis,
Osteoarthritis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Joint Hypermobility
and Fibromyalgia,
Pronation [flat feet or low arches], Bunions and Gout amongst
others.
If dancers have any of these problems, then dealing with
them is of primary concern, not only to their dancing but
to their current and later good health. The time to deal
with these problems is always now rather than later. Left
alone these problems always get worse, unless treated.
If you are a sufferer, then understanding the different
aspects of your ailment is your first priority.
I've had so many customers ask so many questions about the
above ailments, I felt the need to provide a web resource
to try and answer some of their questions. The above web
page is the result.
This
collection of around 120 web site links is a comprehensive
and possibly unique resource of
information for
many types on inflammatory foot ailments such as bunions,
gout and arthritis and
associated problems.
When
putting together this page, I must admit I found the complexity
of these problems and dealing with them in a meaningful
way to be truly mind boggling. You will see from the many
different subjects discussed, that treatment is quite often
a confusing process, especially when the autoimmune system
is involved.
Whether you need to know medical causes and treatments,
or you require info on natural therapies
and diets, there are probably links to sites, that will
at least answer some of your questions.
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DANCE
HUMOUR
Why
is Salsa like Sex?
a] Your neighbours complain about the noise you and your
partner make.
b] After you have done it with someone really good, you
just have to tell all your friends.
c] You accidentally left one of your belongings at your
partner's house.
d] There are "protection" rules, but no one seems
to follow them.
e] It's best when you both are on the same beat.
f] You never forget the first one who taught you.
g] All the above.
Courtesy of ToSalsa.com
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DANCE
WEBUCATION
John
Bulmer writes about "Devil
Music: Race, Class, and Rock And Roll". He traces this
amalgam of African Rythms, Negro Spirituals and Blues
right through to current pop.
This is a massive piece of work that really deserves an
Academy Award.
HISTORY
OF DANCE --- By Jeff Bettany
(Saskatoon DanceSport Association)
Here we trace
the history of Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive.
BBC1
--- Clare Bowman from Staffodshire
in England explains Ceroc: A modern form of dance combining
the likes of swing, jive and salsa.
History-of-Tango.com
uncovers the fascinating and complex
world of Tango.
Tango
News Online --- I was just
emailed this link and thought it may be of interest.
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DANCE
MUSIC
Latinstuff.com.au
has CD's to buy from the Latin Grammy Winners of 2003.
SalsaPower.com
has loads of reviews of contemporary Latin music CDs.
Stephen
and Susan Brown explain how to build a collection
of Argentinian Tango Music.
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DANCE
STORIES RANGING FROM FAIR DINKUM TO FANTASY
This
one is from
SalsaUK and is called
"It looks dangerous, could I get injured?"
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SOFTWARE
FREEBEE --- FONT
EXPLORER LITE
It
sits on your desktop. It's visual. It's great.
It's FREE.
You see how each installed font looks, so it's very easy
to compare fonts.
Unload, uninstall, copy, move, delete fonts.
Print character map of selected font.
Save bitmap sample of selected font.
View comprehensive information about selected font (full
name, copyright, embedding info, available character sets,
installation status etc.)
Advanced, resizeable character map that displays all a font's
scripts, so you can see characters present in Cyrillic and
other scripts, if available, in the font.
Filter fonts by character set so you can see, for example,
only symbol fonts or fonts containing a full Cyrillic character
set.
Integrated Repair Wizard will solve most common problems
with fonts.
Whenever I want to choose a new
font to use, this is where I go.
_________________________________________________________________________________
ONGOING
CASH DISCOUNTS FOR PRODANCE, TO KEEP THE BALL ROLLING FOR
2004.
$10 [5%] OFF our normal
retail prices for all dance students.
_________________________________________________________________________________
PRODANCE LADIES PLATFORMS
HAVE ARRIVED
Our
new ladies 10 mm platform, combined with our new 80.00 mm
Spanish heel is now here, and we can start taking orders.
This platform can be used on any of the ladies styles, but
only be made with the 80mm Heel. It adds an additional $40.00
to the basic retail price.
NEW STYLES
FOR PRODANCE IN 2004.
We
have located a source of new components overseas, and hope
to have some news regarding this soon also. If all goes
according to plan we shall be able to introduce new styling
into our range over the coming months.
As soon as I have shoe samples made
up with new components, I will put together a double-sided
A4 laminated catalogue showing a cross section of Prodance
footwear.
DON'T
BE SHY.........
Should
you require more information give me a ring, send me an
email, visit me at the Showroom on Saturdays or peruse our
website
www.dancingshoes.com.au
.
GROUP FITTINGS
Appointments
outside our normal opening hours [Saturday 10.30am to 4.00pm]
can be made for groups of four or more individuals who require
shoes. Mutually agreeable times on other days or evenings,
including Sundays, are also possible.
_________________________________________________________________________________
TAKE
CARE OF YOUR FEET: CHOOSE YOUR FOOTWEAR WITH CARE
While you are at our website, have a look at my comprehensive
article on
Footwear
and Footcare for Dancers
. It contains a lot of useful
information and has been vetted by medical professionals.
PRODANCE
DANCE FOOTWEAR HELPS DANCING FEET STAY DANCING, by
giving you a choice of up to four width fittings, real half
sizes, adjustments for different size feet,
heels of differing heights, different ankle and instep strap
designs, four sole materials and a 10mm platform sole and
quality leather uppers, including our exclusive Black Kangaroo
leather.
_________________________________________________________________________________
On
a final note, please make sure
you let me know if you change your email address,
so you can continue to receive future newsletters.
Don't forget our slight
change of address,
it's very close to where we were previously at Five Dock.
Details on our web site.
Hope you enjoyed this newsletter as much as I did putting
it together.
We encourage anybody to contribute
to our newsletter with stories, CD and film reviews, interesting
websites and anything else they feel may be of interest.
Your contributions can help dancers
stay informed about their favourite dance style and keep
them entertained. All contributions used will be acknowledged
accordingly.
And send in those dance photos.
Looking
forward to catching up with as many of you as as possible.
Regards,
Garry
Abeshouse
Dancing
Shoes Australia
Web site: www.dancingshoes.com.au
Email: garrya@bigpond.net.au
Mobile: 0425 279 101
Showroom:
Shop 24, Marble Arcade,
207 Great North Road,
Five Dock, Sydney.
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