Ballroom Dance Music With Brent Thomas Mills

Todd Combs – Taras Denysenko – Brent Thomas Mills

Transcripts:

Todd Combs 0:01 So we are with our first episode of all about ballroom dancing and Taras and I were thinking what what should the first episode be? And we thought one question all of our students have is about music. Is it? Yeah, to know? Yeah. How to know when, what music goes with what and it’s and identifying music is a challenge. You can’t learn it here on just the podcast but understanding things. It’s a it’s the first step. Right? Right. So we thought we’d bring the man in. That’s right. The man

Taras Denysenko 0:33 the myth, the legend, the legend,

Todd Combs 0:35 the guy who writes if you’ve been to a ballroom dance competition, you have heard his music in your ears. And he does. I can tell you he’s so many events, ton of events. He goes from franchises in North America competitions, parties, their competitions, independent competitions, any kind of events that has music Brent is running it. I think he even went overseas Yeah, even they even let him in overseas was questionable for a little bit, but they let him in.

Brent Mills 1:04 I had to get a special passport. I know. Thank you so much.

Todd Combs 1:09 But everybody, let’s now welcome Brent Thomas Mills.

Brent Mills 1:13 What’s up, guys? How you doing?

Taras Denysenko 1:15 Good. Yes. Great.

Brent Mills 1:17 Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate I appreciate you having me there most. Most. Yeah, most want to talk about judges or technique or their feet. And in my brain, I keep thinking like, Well, you know, it’s, it’s the importance like the movement, it all is important. But like, if that tune is not there, then you look really funny.

Doing all that stuff

without any noise. Yep. And it’s not like people go out and be like, Oh, I move like this. And then a band says, Oh, look, they look like they’re doing a cha cha let’s do that.

It’s reverse. So if you

hear it, then you do it. So that That’s what I like, right? Everyone is listening, and then they do it.

Todd Combs 2:04 So first you have me on, I appreciate it. Absolutely no problem. And we were all kind of talking earlier about, there’s a big advantage of having a person run the music who is a ballroom dancer, not just a music, you know, fanatic or something like you. You’re a ballroom dancer, you know, dance. So that

Brent Mills 2:24 It did help. I’ve been dancing since I was 14,

actually, when I started.

Taras Denysenko 2:29 Wow. And how did you really? Yeah, how did you get started? And well, I

Brent Mills 2:33 just happen to have when I got into high school in the ninth grade,

my drama

teacher because I was starting to get into, you know, that type of thing, just so I could get out of math and science and anything else that actually made me think so I was like, yeah, drama easy, while the drama coach happened to be a former ballroom champion, danced on a Blackpool team. Per coach was Roy Mavor who is a very famous cabaret World Champion, choreographer and whatnot. So they did the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And that requires 14 male dancers. And I was in a little Podunk High School. So dancing was not you know, was not definitely part of the football or athletic league. Let’s say that. So we had to go out and recruit football players and baseball players to you know, dance Seven Brides, which was appealing to them because it was like jumping over logs and the big social, were there throwing the girls around. So it looked cool then. So we did the whole musical ran it. And then when it stopped, you know, we had to learn walls. For a scene, we had to learn lifts. We had learned the polka. So we was over and we were like, well, we like doing this. Can we Do this after school so that drama goes right. But let’s start a little ballroom team after school once a week for an hour. So that started and by the time I was a senior in high school, it was an official club. We had like 36 people in there. We were doing like performances for prom and preference and all that silly stuff. And then after I left, it became even larger, where students from other high schools would come after school to be on that team. And then they finally got their own team coach, and now it’s a state recognized playoff team match every year between probably eight high schools. And you can actually let her now in ballroom dance. You can walk around the hallway with your letterman jacket,

the pickle ballroom dance

icon, really, it is part of the art program now in many high schools and that high schools really started it out that way. Just the artistic part of it. And then the athletic and the competitive side. So it’s actually recognized by the state school board as a, you know, an estate competition. It’s crazy.

Tara...