Balboa Dancers Honor the Legendary Hal Takier at ABW2012
The Balboa community honored the life and contributions of old timer and original jitterbugger, Hal Takier, with two incredible performances at All Balboa Weekend 2012. Atomic Ballroom instructors, performers and Orange County social jitterbuggers’, Jeremy Otth and Laura Keat, brought down the house with a stunningly accurate recreation of Hal and Betty’s Maharaja Soundie. Even Sweden got in on the action with a complex Maharaja inspired team routine.
Jeremy & Laura Kill It
Jeremy Otth and Larua Keat are no strangers to hard work and practice. These two seasoned performers have choreographed and performed a number of partnered and team routines over their years as dancers, however, recreating someone else’s routine is probably one of the most difficult challenges they’ve had to face. Not only did Hal and Betty have several takes to edit together, but they’re not actually dancing to the music being played over the edited video (they only had a piano).
Jeremy and Laura have done this routine before, but this time they diligently sought to recreate the set, costumes and nail the choreography. Each day I saw Laura after practices, she was exhausted and perhaps a bit frustrated that things were not yet perfect. Then the moment came…
Jeremy and Laura gave it their all! All of their energy! All of their sweat! If you look carefully, you can see the moment where their energy and excitement cause them to peck so hard they slammed their faces together! Jeremy, a stand-out jitterbugger in his own right, embodies Hal’s energy and style. And Laura, the incredible technician that she is, actually mastered Betty’s stylistic leg movements and embellishments as she kept pace with Jeremy and the driving beat. You could say Hal (and Betty)’s spirit seemed to be present…
Thank you Jeremy and Laura for sharing this magical homage and accomplishment with the rest of us.
*For more about Jeremy & Laura go here
Team Sweden’s Homage to Hal Takier
All the way across the Atlantic, this dance originating in Orange County almost 100 years ago, is alive and vibrant. Sweden – and many other places throughout Europe – has a burgeoning Balboa scene. Since Hal’s passing this January, a group of passionate Balboa dancers from Sweden choreographed a team routine based on the Maharaja Soundie. They masterfully used the elements of Hal’s flying basic swing out, lollies and toss outs to change partners and swing about the room…oh yeah, all of them in short shorts!
You’ll have to buy the video to see this routine, but we’d like to thank Team Sweden for their inspired routine in Hal’s memory.
Swede's Honor Hal Takier
* A Special Thanks to Webmaster Kyle Smith for his appearance as The Maharaja
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