Dancing with the Stars at Denver Language School

Courtney Graham ·


Dancing with the Stars

I have watched the show Dancing with the Stars for years now and was so thrilled when I was asked to be a judge for a Dancing with the Stars gala for Denver Language School (DLS) on November 17th at the Four Seasons Hotel.  This was a fundraiser for DLS a Chinese and Spanish immersion program.
They even created a website for the event where viewers could "meet" the dancers and “judges!”  The bios were pretty impressive and a bit comical.  As a judge, I certainly had my work cut out for me to decide the winner for the Critic’s Choice award.  You can visit the website at www.DancingDLS.org.
A few chosen faculty members, teachers and parents were asked to be the "stars" of the event. A professional dance company volunteered their time to be the "professional dancers."  The best part was that my queen sister Christina and her husband John Sasha were competitors!

My Queen Sister Christina Sasha and Her Beautiful Family
As a judge, I had twelve performances to judge. The contestants are vying for three separate awards: Best in Show (determined by the audiences $10/votes), People's Choice (determined by the dancer who brought in the most money PRIOR to the show) and CRITIC'S CHOICE which you three judges will decide!!

A little different than Dancing with the Stars on TV, we didn’t have you throw up 1 - 10 scores, instead my job was to give a 20 - 30 second comments after each performance. There was a score sheet for each dancer that I captured notes as I watched the performance.
The categories were:
1. Originality
2. Creativity
3. Crowd Appeal
4. Difficulty
5. In Sync/Partnership/Connection

The pressure was on as we had to decide the 3rd place, runner up and winner – all were presented a trophy. 

Preparing for this event was so fun.  I spent hours watching "Dancing with the Stars" (on line) to get a feel for the kinds of things I might say....things like "You danced with your heart..., great movement/footwork..., you have natural grace, that was deliciously dreamy, so artistic in detail, what an interpretation..."  This event was so fun!!  I also have to add that our little Mrs. Sasha won first place in several categories!  Really, I wasn’t surprised, because I knew my sister was competitive and completely fabulous.