24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon 2011 redux

It's a week later and I haven't properly written up the 24 Hour Cancer Dance-a-thon. Maybe I can't properly sum it up. The event this year was my favorite to date. The population was perhaps a bit smaller than in the last couple of years, but everyone who was there was there in a big way!


Video by Vince Fry


This clip from the Garden Grove News was probably shot around 12 hours into the event. About midnight, since they got Jonathan Stout and the Campus 5!

Our team, Old School, was a bit smaller than usual this year. I'd say we went in with a skeleton crew of about 10 members. That's five under the official minimum, but we didn't tell anyone about it. I made sure that we were all smart about conserving our energy for the weekend and we had a few folks who were working for the event so their work time was going to be our official representation.

I don't have a group pic of Old School ready. If anyone wants to send one I'll post it.

Here's a link to the story in the Orange County Register. It includes a short video and a photo slide-show. Dancers Fight Cancer, One Step at a Time. A direct link to the video is here: video


This is the 2am jam. I'm behind the camera and having a heck of a time! I kinda wanted to get on the floor but I'd have had to stop shooting. Plus my shoes were off at the moment. (Excuses, excuses.)

What I learned more than anything else is that it's effortless to put out a low quality video on YouTube. The resolution isn't great and the camera ain't steady, but it was really exciting to shoot, so it's share time! I also got two more videos of JS and the C5 playing, but I haven't been able to check those for quality yet. I'll assume that the audio on those clips are really poor.

Is there any footage of the Karaoke session run at 3am by Eli Charne? That was a hoot!


At 6:00, a small band of dancers made their way to KTLA Studios in Hollywood to shoot this for an hour.

This meant that I got to teach the Wake-up class at 6:30am. I pulled out my improv for dancers class "Adventures in the Groove" and abbreviated it to fit into an hour. I had intended to shoot at least a few moments of the class since I get to teach it so rarely. We started with a modified version of Pass the Itch, then I did bang, then I did noses and then it got crazy. (If you don't know what that means, you'll have to take one of my dance classes) Many dancers later told me that the class was one of their favorite moments that weekend. When one student said the class was inspirational, I got really weepy.

I guess there are plenty of things I didn't catch this weekend. I really wish I could have gotten some footage of that class.


Okay, let's move forward. At about 8, Danny Maika starts his set. He's a great talent and a good guy! Check him out!

There's still so much more, but I have to close now. In all, the dance-a-thon raised over $124,000.00. Next year we're aiming to more than double that to bring the total for the event to $1 million!