I had the pleasure of attending the Shut Up and Dance performance this past weekend and really enjoyed the evening. First off I would like to commend all of the dancers that participated this year. It truly amazes me how they fit this into their busy schedules especially since they just finished with Carmina Burana the weekend before last. What a worthy cause and from the audiences reaction everyone seemed to really enjoy both the dancing and the choreography.

Aw, that's just a teaser, purely! Which ballets and dancers did you like best, and what did you like about them?

I was actually impressed by many of the works, especially keeping in mind that quite a few of these pieces were first time works by company dancers. As for the highlights of the evening, I particularly enjoyed the pieces by Heidi Cruz, Christine Cox and Hawley Rowe. I also enjoyed the piece that Barette Vance choreographed to Janet Jackson’s “Trust” and from the ovation that the audience gave this piece it seemed to be the highlight for many people that evening.

You can't forget the one with Dito aka "Martha Graham Cracker" performing a hilarious rendition of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" with Abigail Mentzer as his ballerina, and his version of "cold hearted Snake" was also fun. I thought Hawley Rowe's piece danced by Laura Bowman and Ian Hussey to Ella Fitzgerald's song "I want to be evil" was very cute. It made me really want to find a copy of that song too. And I was also impressed by Jermel's piece. Though the music was a little monotone(it was a repeating rhythm with little or no variation) I thought his choreography was pretty creative and showed off some interesting aspects of dancer's talent that I've never seen before. It was pretty fun and a good improvement on the piece he did two years ago. Good job to everyone in shut up and dance this year!!

Correction: "I want to be Evil" is an Eartha Kitt Song. sorry