February 2006



Happy Valentine's Day to our members.
We will go on dancing.

It has been a furry sad monff fur us here. Our Mewsette, Phelicity's sisfur and E.T.'s wedwink, made her journey to Rainbow Bridge on January 17th. As mew know, the studio was closed the remainder of the monff. We are missing her an awful lot, and our hearts are so furry sad right now. We know she will be watching ofur us wif love, like she always did.



Mewsette loved to dance. She and E.T. were great instructors and furry inspiring to all of us. He does not wish to teach without her. Phelicity and Ginger will be teaching Ballroom and Latin classes, wif kind and talented dance partners who haf volunteered their assistance.

The studio reopens today. To start in any of our dance classes or attend Dance Nights, mew can check our schedule here. To apply fur membership in the dance studio, just send us an email here. Members needn't take classes to use the studio or attend dance nights unless they want to.



Last monff we spotlighted our popular Latin dance classes. We had a wonderpurr Latin Dance Night earlier in the monff. Our memfurs and partners were doing great flamencos and tangos, we was just astonished at how good mew all were. Thank mew all fur the great attendance we had. All of mew looked so great and seemed to haf a furry good time. Mew will find all the class and Dance Night pictures right here and linked again at the end of the newsletter.

Now in February, we are spotlighting our Jazz dancing class. The class has been growing, and sure is getting jazzy wif some good fun dancing in there! We love to hear the jazz mewsic playing, an some furry creative choreography has been seen! It will be time fur a class picture of all mew jazzed up kitties next. We will be sending a request to memfurs with specifics for pictures soon, so stay tuned and be watching!



We haf some new items in our Shoppe, including some cute purses fur mew girls. Also we now carry professional Flamenco dance shoes fur boys and girls. Please let us know if mew would like us to order anything else.

We will haff an article each monff about dance needs fur kitties, beginning this monff wiff:

Propurr Dancing Shoes
by Phelicity

As mew studio memfurs know by now, there's many fun dances we can learn and do! Since they mostly require different kinds of shoes, it's impurrtant to wear the right kind so we can dance our best.

Ballroom dancing shoes should be comfy and well fitted above all. They can haf low heels or high platform heels fur girls that are liddle an short like .... ummmm, .... but they mustn't go flying off your feet while mew's dancing! It doesn't gif a good impression if your dance partner has to stop an go find your shoe. One good way to avoid this is to tie dem on your feet wif ribbons; this works furry well.

Fur purrfessional Flamenco dancing, the boys mewsually haf low top boots wif a heel, which are furry good fur stomping, and the girls' shoes should be a medium heel and haf a strap across the top to hold dem on fur good kicking. We are now offering these purrfessional Flamenco shoes in our Shoppe.

All mew girls know that soft ballet slippers are great fur practice, but when we go to toe shoes it gets a liddle more difficult. Learning to stand and then dance on our toes is necessary fur ballerinas. Your toe shoes need to fit your feets purrfectly, but it helps a lot to haf a big, soft boy's sock stuffed into the toe. So leaf room fur that and borrow socks from your brofurs or winks. Hopefully clean ones.

Tap dancing shoes are the mostest fun of all! When making tappity-tap sounds wif our tap shoes, we really gets to be noisy and happy. Just a word of advice, the taps do leaf marks on a floor that isn't treated fur it like our studio floors are. So it's not a good idea to practice tappity-tappin on your meowmie's kitchen floor at 3 AM. It could wake her up, and she'll wonder what all dem scuff marks are from efen if she sleeps through it. I speak from experience here. So do your tap dancing practice in the studio, not at home.

If mew haf any questions about propurr shoes fur dancing, or shoes mew would like to see in our Shoppe, just ask Phelicity or Ginger. We are great shoe expurrts, and efury single shoe of ours has a mate that isn't lost. Almost.

Phelicity now reviews a new dance DVD that we just got in to the shoppe.

Strictly Ballroom

Strictly Ballroom is a bright, colorful story of ballroom dancing competitions, made in Australia in 1992, the year I was born. It's full of wonderful dancing scenes, exciting, furry entertaining, and funny too. If mew girls are like Ginger and me, mew will be drooling over the gorgeous dresses and gowns worn by the dancers, especially in the first scenes. Wowies, our eyes was poppin out.

The story is about a young competition dancer named Scott who trained all his life for the championship he seems about to win. His parents own a dance studio and teach dancing, so the studio scenes were fascinating to us. But Scott wanted to do his own fancy dance steps instead of conforming to federation rules, and his partner got so mad she threw a fit and stomped off to be someone else's partner.

Enter Fran, a plain girl, not flashy like the competition girls, who believed in what Scott wanted to do, and he taught her his steps. They practiced in the studio at night, and they soon danced perfectly together. Then Scott learned about Fran's old-country family and the traditional dances that Fran did with them. When he met her father, he discovered the real joy of natural dancing from that small, dark, and fierce man who was better than any competition dancer could hope to be. The scenes where he teaches Scott the traditional Armenian dancing are a joyful expression of what dancing is about.

The movie teaches us some things. It shows how the regulations of competition ballroom dancing can drain all the fun and creativity out of it. I don't think we kitties want that. It shows the passion and joy of dancing as something to grow in and have fun with. I think we feel that way, too. There are many kinds of dancing and many ways to learn for those who truly love it. The end of the movie is kinda fantastic, very funny and satisfying. Scott and Fran, of course, perform their dance, their way. It left me enchanted, and it will you too.

What? No Valentine dances to announce? Please let us know if you hear of one.
If you haff any dance related news you would like us to announce, please email us at cat_mountain2003@yahoo.com.


Our good furriend and studio memfur Annie has recently opened:



Be sure to visit; she has some great dance outfits, costumes and warmup clothes!



Mew may wish to visit Mewsette's Memorial. Just click on her rose. Thank mew.



Mew can still read previous monff's newsletters.
January 2006.
Nov-Dec. 2005.




Our business card, please link back to www.oocities.org/cat_mountain2003/studio Thank mew!