Dance Floor

At 10 p.m. on a recent Thursday night, Red Maple, the lounge in Mount Vernon, was as quiet as an Old West movie town before a gunfight. Even the tumbleweeds were away, possibly pre-gaming somewhere else. Then, at 10:30 p.m. on the dot, like Daniel Craig in "Cowboys & Aliens," the crowds materialized as if out of nowhere, looking just as surprised to be there. The reason for the sudden change was the lounge's special that night: an open bar until 11 p.m. Yuengling and rail vodkas flew from the behind the bar as an overburdened bartender struggled to keep up with demand.

Five way-cool dudes, fedoras lowered to their eyebrows, shuffle in sync onto the dance floor as the theme from "Mission: Impossible" blares. After several impressive leaps and splits, they step dance and clap with military precision, then file into a straight line. Marching in place, they form the letters B-A-S-A-C with their arms and finish their dance with a thunderous cheer. "Diagnosis: Dance Abilities!" the quintet yells in unison. These guys, all participants in The League for People with Disabilities Career Services program, have often heard much different assessments of their abilities.

With just five weeks until wedding bells ring, there are seating charts to be made, flowers to be ordered and playlists to be finalized. But Bri Fletcher and Matt Terry put all that aside to spend their Friday evenings following the directions “slow, slow, quick-quick” over and over ... and over. They, like a growing number of couples, want their first dance as husband and wife to rise above the hug and sway. They want a dance floor debut that sparkles (not to mention twirls, turns and dips)

The Baltimore Sun Henry Michael Cedrone, a retired machinist and musician who had an "uncanny ability" to keep people on the dance floor, died of respiratory failure Sept. 18 at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 89 and lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was raised on Granby Street in what was an Italian-Jewish immigrant neighborhood near the Shot Tower and Little Italy. As a child he heard his father playing the accordion with other neighbors who played guitar, tambourine and piano.

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.

Most guests at the Alzheimer's Association's Memory Ball had to worry only about getting ready for the gala a few hours before, but there were more than a dozen who spent months in preparation. As part of the ball's "Dancing Stars" theme, contestants competed a la "Dancing With the Stars" in the ballroom at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel. "She had all her friends in to watch her rehearse in different dresses and then tell her which dress worked best," Tim Rhode was telling friends about one of the competitors: his wife and fellow co-owner of the Maryland Athletic Club, Liz Rhode . "This is the one they picked out," added Liz Rhode, as she shimmied in a mini dress with shiny fringe.

Baltimore is about to have a situation on its hands. Not just any situation. The Situation. The Situation is the nickname for one of the stars of MTV's infamous new reality TV show, "Jersey Shore." The 27-year-old from Staten Island has a real name - Mike Sorrentino - but that's inconsequential. What matters is, The Situation has six-pack abs so well-defined that he calls them "the situation" (hence, the nickname). Every opportunity he gets - at work, on magazine covers, on the dance floor - he lifts his shirt to show them off. Like the other guys on "Jersey Shore," The Situation is a self-declared guido's guido - with carefully gelled hair, perma-tanned skin and alpha-male attitude.

B altimore is about to have a situation on its hands. Not just any situation. The Situation. The Situation is the nickname for one of the stars of MTV's infamous new reality TV show, "Jersey Shore." The 27-year-old from Staten Island has a real name - Mike Sorrentino - but that's inconsequential. What matters is, The Situation has six-pack abs so well-defined that he calls them "the situation" (hence, the nickname). Every opportunity he gets - at work, on magazine covers, on the dance floor - he lifts his shirt to show them off. Like the other guys on "Jersey Shore," The Situation is a self-declared guido's guido - with carefully gelled hair, perma-tanned skin and alpha-male attitude.