Dance Floor

Why would someone like Dmitry, better known as Super DJ Dmitry Brill of the group Deee-Lite, be DJ'ing a rave in Baltimore? After all, he's enjoyed success with Deee-Lite, whose debut album "World Clique" took the group out of the New York club underground and made it a dance-floor senation.Why would he want to spin records at an all-night dance party in a Baltimore warehouse?The reason is simple: Dmitry likes to rave."I DJ for a rave practically every weekend," he said over the phone from his home in New York City.

"A DANCE craze hit America during the late 1930s and early 1940s," according to Goucher dance professor Chrystelle Trump Bond, writing in the current issue of the Maryland Historical Magazine. And what were local folks dancing during World War II?"Most popular of all was the jitterbug. Despite segregation in the armed forces, defense plants, and the USO, young Americans regardless of gender, race, or class danced the African-based movements of the jitterbug."Incorporating steps from African-American dances like the Lindy hop, boogie woogie, shag, trucking, Charleston, Susie-Q, Shorty-George, and camel walk, jitterbuggers pulsated to syncopated rhythms, especially when dancing to music of the Benny Goodman Orchestra featuring the thrilling drums of Gene Krupa.

The best part of this results show was Julianne Hough! She's one of my favorite pros on the show, although she hasn't been a cast member recently. She's been too busy, I guess, recording country music, dating Ryan Seacrest and cutting loose in the remake of "Footloose. " Her first dance sequence was to promote the movie and later in the show she danced with her brother, fellow-pro Derek.  At least it wasn't a rumba or samba -- that would just be creepy! Landing in the bottom three this week were Rob Kardashian, Chynna Phillips and Nancy Grace.

At the post-position draw for the 117th Preakness yesterday, everything that could go wrong went wrong -- especially for Dance Floor.The speed horses, Alydeed and Speakerphone, drew outside, instead of inside, posts.But it was Dance Floor, the horse owned by the family of rap star Hammer, who took the heaviest dose of bad luck. The colt drew the poorest gate -- 14 out of 14 in the first full field to start in the race since 1970."It isn't funny," Hammer said. "Four races and four bad spots.

Even during Saturday night's "practica," while perfecting spins, turns and leg hooks, participants at Baltimarathon, a weekend of Argentine tango lessons, dances and workshops, surrendered to the dance's alluring cues. The lights had not yet dimmed; men and women had not yet changed into their sultry tango finery for the all-night milonga - or social dance - that would follow. Already, though, couples, transported by the music's mounting intensity, were gliding across the floor - the women with their eyes closed - intuiting one another's most subtle dance desires.

Robert Raeke Jr. was a tall man who stood out in a crowd, his biceps — chiseled from military training —encircled with bold tattoos. The Iraq War veteran lit up the dance floor, cracking jokes and inviting friends over to party. But early Saturday, an evening of revelry for Raeke, 23, ended in tragedy. After a long night of dancing and drinking, the young man had invited several buddies to take a dip in the pool at his Glen Burnie home, when a fistfight broke out. Raeke fell, struck his head on the pavement, and was pronounced dead shortly afterward.

FOR MANY YEARS now, behavioral scientists have attempted to discover exactly why it is that men are such lousy dancers.Sadly, we seem no closer to the answer now than we ever were. This was made blindingly clear during a recent wedding reception when, with the band playing a spirited version of Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll," I spotted a fellow on the dance floor who appeared to be having some sort of seizure.As a concerned citizen, my first reaction, naturally enough, wato call for an ambulance and a paramedic with an adequate supply of phenobarbital -- at least 400cc's, judging by how agitated the man seemed.

These are tough times for the dancing-impaired. I say this because the country is absolutely nuts about dancing. TV shows like Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance? get top ratings. The dance-happy movie High School Musical 3: Senior Year is a box-office smash. Dance studios report business is booming, even with the economy tanking. This only makes the dancing-impaired feel worse about themselves. Look, we know we have no rhythm and no timing. We know we're incapable of making any fluid movements or moving any part of our body to the beat.

The jazz band played a swing number. Couples spun and swirled on the dance floor beneath the white twinkle lights strung from the ceiling of the Seton Keough High School cafeteria. And Mary Koch wasn't about to sit there at her table, sipping Shasta. She had broken her neck in an elevator accident last year, but that wasn't going to stop her. At 95, Koch was attending her first prom. She took the hand of the director of admissions at her retirement home, twirled around, shimmied her hips and swung her blue pleated skirt to show a little more leg. Growing up in Locust Point, Koch had quit school at 14 to take a job in a sugar factory.

They start the show with a ridiculous graphic of Gavin in his rowboat on the dance floor, getting overwhelmed by a giant wave. Oh, silly dancing show, it's fun when you have a little bit of a big budget. It's Motown night and one can only hope that they've managed to rescue 71-year-old Fontella Bass for a performance on Motown night. That song is absolutely on my "Desert Island Jukebox. " Oh, cool - they've got a  spotlight replica of the Motown logo on the dance floor. And we start off with a performance from Smokey Robinson, "Tracks of My Tears" while the troupe dances.