Dance Party

Mary Ann McCruden was on her way to midnight Mass and a Baltimore County police officer was rushing to a fire late on Christmas Eve when their cars collided in Fullerton.An air bag helped save the life of the officer. The mother of two, who had just left a holiday party, died."It's Christmas," said her husband, John McCruden. "It'll never be the same."Mrs. McCruden, 47, of Perry Hall, had just left the party where she had been celebrating with her family, said Mr. McCruden, a fire department paramedic stationed at Brooklandville.

Artist Sophia Dixon wanted to ward off the dreary days of January. So when the Baltimore native learned that Current Gallery would be closed this month, she decided to curate an exhibition that would battle winter's bleakness. Glow Worms, which opens Saturday, is designed to do just that. Works in the exhibit are meant to generate light and warmth, Dixon said. Some actually do light up or glow. "I conceived of this show as something that would bring a lot of people together and be focused on work that was somehow just, I guess, sort of in opposition to the weather, in certain ways," she said.

Gay Pride festivals are in season. Washington's Capital Pride was last weekend, and so was Philadelphia's. Chesapeake Pride is coming up in mid-July at Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds. But this weekend, it's time for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Baltimoreans to celebrate. The Baltimore Pride festival , which officially kicks off Friday and ends Sunday, includes an opening garden party, a performance by Deborah Cox, a block party, a high-heel race and the annual parade.

Have a go at the tango It takes two to tango. So grab your partner, and dance to the sounds of an eight-piece orchestra fronted by a Latin vocalist at Creative Alliance, 413 S. Conkling St. Two sets of teachers offer beginner and intermediate Argentine tango lessons at 8 p.m. tomorrow, followed by a 9 p.m. dance. Tickets are $10 ($8 for CA members). Reservations recommended. Call 410-276-1651 or visit www.creativealliance.org. Shake that belly! Belly dancing, psychosis and super egos?

Come this weekend, mild-mannered Harford Community College student Brad Brooks will transform. He'll slip on a black and silver outfit, complete with a black vest, big collar and silver belt. He'll don a turquoise blue wig "that's supposed to be really spiky." And then he'll slip down to the Baltimore Convention Center, and he'll fit right in. For this is Otakon weekend, when fans of Japanese pop culture gather from all over the world. They'll attend concerts by Japanese performers rarely seen on these shores, watch the latest in Japanese animation (called anime, by those in the know)

Have you heard the one about the woman with the ham in the grocery store? It goes like this: A portly woman wearing an overcoat is walking down a supermarket aisle when a full-size ham falls out of her coat and lands on the floor. Fearing she'd be caught shoplifting, the woman looks around and yells, "Who threw that ham at me?" The story, which has gone around for years, was the basis for the new single by B-52s frontman Fred Schneider. Schneider filmed the music video for the song "Who Threw That Ham At Me?"

Detectives investigating the mysterious killing of 19-year-old Debra Ann Goodwich are looking for possible clues on The Block, where the Greenspring Valley woman had been working as a dancer unbeknown to many of her friends and family.Ms. Goodwich -- who was repeatedly shot Friday in her family's sprawling rancher in Stevenson when she is thought to have interrupted a burglar -- had worked at the downtown adult entertainment strip for about two months before her death, police and Block sources said.

With catch words such as "North to Baltimore" and "Come o back to Slayton House," you, too, can learn to tango.Personalized directions, coupled with simple steps and a breezy atmosphere, are all part of the curriculum in "Ballroom Dancing with John Taylor," a popular four-week course returning Monday to Slayton House in Columbia.From the exotic mambo to the frenzied jitterbug, novices from 20 60 years old are picking up the basics of the ballroom."Now I feel more comfortable going out there [on the 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.

They came, they saw, they danced and -- amazingly -- no one was arrested. No one was choked. No one was slammed to the ground or struck in the face.  Saturday at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C., protesters led by Russia Today show host Adam Kokesh (a former U.S. Marine and Iraq war vet) danced (rather poorly, I'll add) around the monument while police watched with no show of force. After letting the protesters dance for a significant amount of time, the officers closed the memorial and escorted protesters out peacefully -- without arrests or violence of any kind.