Every year, in New York City, Dance Teacher Magazine invites over 900 dance teachers from all over the country to take classes from teachers like David Howard and listen to keynote speakers including Jacques D'Amboise.

The Bloch booth welcomed teachers and gave away our staple brown canvas Bloch Bags!! At the Dance Teacher Event we debuted the latest shoe for Bloch; the Splitflex (SFX) Character Shoe!!!

The SFX (style number S0390) is a versatile character shoe suitable for character dance and interdisciplinary demi-character work; designed to enhance the dancer's pointe.

We had such a great time speaking and listening to everyone's feedback! Thank you to all of those teachers who visited our booth! It was a pleasure to see so many returning faces! We look forward in seeing you all in 2008!!!

Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" winner announced! Congratulations to Sabra!!!

Check out the footage on the website:

http://www.fox.com/dance/showinfo/

Bloch Star, Jason Samuels Smith appeared on the show late July. It was very exciting to see him perform!

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA / NEW YORK, USA: BLOCH International, world-renowned makers of professional dance shoes and apparel, proudly presents a stunning new series of ground-breaking short dance films, starring a selection of the world's greatest contemporary dancers.

This first series of BLOCH shorts is made up of three films, all shot on location in New York, and are available free and exclusively on BLOCH's redesigned website at www.blochworld.com

Each mini-documentary concentrates on a contrasting dance discipline and, in particular, a leading team or exponent of that form. The films capture these remarkable artists in full flight, highlighting not only their unique and incredible talents, but also providing an insight into their private lives, a glimpse into the dedication required to stay on the cutting-edge of dance in the 21st century.

For this initial trilogy, BLOCH's cameras focus on tap, hip hop and ballet. The purpose of the films is to give everyone - professional dancers, non-dancers and aspiring young dancers alike - an understanding of what dance is today. Each movie features awe-inspiring, innovatively-shot dance sequences, along with exclusive interviews with the stars.

Representing tap is the extraordinary talent of 26-year-old New Yorker, Jason Samuels Smith, whose credits include an Emmy and an American Choreography Award. A Broadway professional since the age of 15, Jason talks about what it was like growing up in Hell's Kitchen, where wanting to be a tap dancer wasn't considered too manly a pursuit. As Jason explains, he had little choice in what he would become, because it was only through dance that he could truly express himself. Jason's interview is interspersed with footage of him performing a most amazing rapid-fire tap routine.

As far as genuine hip hop dancing goes, another of the three films is dedicated to the celebrated New York recording artists and street dancing crew, Amount Boyz. Filmed on the same city streets where this most modern form of dance first evolved, a lot of the moves these guys pull are as much daredevil as they are dance. The crew joke about the injuries they all regularly get - the “B-boy scars, the stuff that comes with the territory”. But as one of them points out, “It all starts when you're young and you catch that beat.”

The third film in the series has a more traditional bent, albeit with a very modern twist. It tells the story of the extraordinary husband and wife team of Max Beloserkovsky and Irina Dvorovenko, principal dancers in New York. The pair have known each other since they were 10 and 11-year-old students at the Kiev School of Dance, they were married in 1993 when both were dancing at the Bolshoi Ballet. The following year, they moved to America. Now in their 30s and at the absolute peak of their art, Irina talks about the “incredible discipline” required to remain “gorgeous, glorious and artistic.” The piece they present for the cameras, filmed inside a studio set high among New York's skyscrapers, is simply breathtaking.

These first three BLOCH shorts were filmed and directed by the celebrated Australian music video maker, Anthony Rose of the Sydney-based One Trick Pony Film Co. Anthony's credits includes over 100 video clips for many of Australia's leading recording artists. Production of the BLOCH films was conceived and overseen by BLOCH's Managing Director, David Wilkenfeld.

Each of the BLOCH shorts runs under five minutes and can be viewed exclusively

on BLOCH's website at www.blochworld.com. Thirty-second teasers of each movie will be distributed on public domain sites such as YouTube to entice dance fans to blochworld.com.

BLOCH was founded in Sydney in 1932 by David Wilkenfeld's grandfather, Jacob Bloch, and is one of the most distinguished names in the production of dance shoes and related apparel. To BLOCH, dancers are everything. This new series of short films is a celebration of their artistry, dedication and continual exploration for innovation.

Check our new ads out on Dance.net and Answers4dancers.com!! Two of the best website resources for dancers to blog and check out upcoming classes; including workshops, competitions and auditions!!!

www.dance.net

www.answers4dancers.com

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