love these posts. by the way the ProAm with Scotty Anderson name came back to me:Kathy Rotter. Anyone remember her? And I was not thinking of Corky when I mentioned Shirley having a fabulous student who briefly turned pro (still can't remember his name, as he left the busines), but Corky is the perfect example. Other ProAms who started late, married their teachers and competed were of course Al Boucher and Jim Maranto. Are there others? Of course the whole point here are ProAms who have real jobs and lives and have to work hard to come up with the time and money to take lessons and pratice and still do extraordinarily well. We eliminated Cathy Blondell becaue of her special relationship, but there are dozens of others who qualify.How many turn Pro is another story.
Oh, Am. I wouldn't take it so personally. We DID make choices. We MIGHT have chosen at some tender age to pursue dancing at all costs, but we didn't. For good, bad, or indifferent, we really DID choose not to sacrifice other things in our lives, and so here we are.
And as it turns out, either of us could have sacrificed a mere couple hundred bucks for plane fare, and walked away as the Western Regional Champs without so much as breaking a sweat over it. But we didn't do that, either. Go figure.
Actually, Chris, Didi Von Deck was a professional dancer who won rising star standard and was well on her way as a respected pro when she was allowed to return to amateur status.
Quote: Actually, Chris, Didi Von Deck was a professional dancer who won rising star standard.
Actually I think she was either in medical school, doing a residency, or practicing as an orthopedic surgeon. If this indeed the case, then while she may have technically been categorized as a professional dancer at some point, i would say that dancing was not, and is not, her profession - which is why she and Mark seem to make good examples for my argument.
Or did she put her real career on hold for a while to pursue professional dancing?
I love how people like to complain about the "unfair advantage" certain people have. Ok, Cathy got hours and hours of free practice with her teacher. Does that mean that dating her teacher automatically made her a fabulous dancer? Uh, no. She spent hours and hours practicing. She worked her butt off. As did every other pro-ammer that people are so jealous of. Sure, it sure would be nice to get free lessons and practice sessions. Sure, it would be nice if we all had huge piles of money. But, that alone does not a good dancer make. You still have to practice. You still have to struggle and work and sweat and cry and diet and whatever else it takes to get to the top. I'm sure there are just as many examples of people who had these advantages but didn't take full advantage of them, or just weren't talanted enough to become championship level dancers...how often do we hear about those? I know several dance teachers whose spouses either don't dance much, well, or at all.
As for the article, I did enjoy it, but I see the point that the author could have done more with it. I don't know that pro-ammers are necessarily heroes, but they certainly deserve respect and need some representation--the pro-am competition scene needs some work.
Quote: Actually I think she was either in medical school, doing a residency, or practicing as an orthopedic surgeon.
Med school I believe. She was also engaged to her professional partner, so she may have had some thoughts of making it her career (or he may have).
If you are going to exclude anyone who has another job or is going to school, you are going to exclude the vast majority of professional dancers in the U.S. Even ballerinas at top notch companies, who don't deem any ballroom dancer in the world (or any other nonballet dancer) good enough to be 'professional', often have day jobs in the off season.
In Didi's case, the point should be that she went through a fairly rigorous reinstatement process to get her amateur status back. Part of this process included an evaluation on the part of the reinstatement committee that she had not gained an unfair advantage from being a professional. She didn't get any free lessons, and her practice time actually decreased; any increase in her dance time was spent teaching pro-am students, which didn't help her dancing.
It seems to me that the reinstatement committee was correct, as her placements on return to amateur competition were no higher than they had been immediately prior to turning pro.
If you are going to exclude anyone who has another job or is going to school, you are going to exclude the vast majority of professional dancers in the U.S. Even ballerinas at top notch companies, who don't deem any ballroom dancer in the world (or any other nonballet dancer) good enough to be 'professional', often have day jobs in the off season.
If I recall correctly, the discussion started in this direction because someone claimed that the lives of top amateurs bear little resemblence to those of ordinary 'hobbyist' competitors.
But some of the statements that have come out to refute side arguments would almost seem to suggest that not only many competing ballroom pros, but even many professional ballerinas lead lives that are not radically different or privileged compared to ordinary folks.
Since this is a thread with a number of lists of dancers in it, can anyone think of other former professionals who went through reinstatement and danced amateur again?
And has there ever been a case of a former pro reinstated and allowed to dance pro-am as the amateur part of the partnership?
