Dance: Showcase weekend, and "What should I do if I want to be good at dancing?"

For me, 1/24-25/2015 weekend was an eventful weekend.

I danced an WCS routine for iDance studio showcase on Saturday. The song was "Hit the road Jack", a blues version by Omar and the Howlers. Since we did not have contest rules to be restricted by, we added some acting, prop and group swing jam for the choreography. The audience seemed to like the idea.


During the after party, one girl asked me; "what should I do if I want to be good at dancing?"

My answer was like this.

"You need to define what "good at dancing" means. If you want to have fun dancing socially, you don't need show-dance skills for competition or showcase. For having fun with many people socially, work on your basics. What most people do on social dance floor is rudimentary, and it's not about showing off."

"But if you are more extroverted and want to show off, or going for competition, then,...well, the question "good at dancing" is still too vague. There are many different dances. You got to choose your battle. Pick a dance you like, preferably the dance you already are good at and love/enjoy. Work on your strength, and be very good at it. It will bring everything else up."

"Work with a Professional and work on a routine is a good idea. You can learn competition moves that you can use in social show off as well, if there is a partner who can lead them."

And she said, "it's so harsh".

........Sorry, I was just honest.

My friend told me that WCS legend Buddy Schwimmer was visiting the after party. He has a brother who lives here and he was visiting this city.  I only realized that someone (him!) was wearing a jacket the Schwimmer's name on it, but I was only assuming he was a visitor from California. I knew only his name and did not know his face. Because of it, I did not notice who he was. Afterward, I could only joke like, "wow, so we spotted the Unicorn?". Too late.


On Sunday, there was a 2-hour Argentine Tango workshop by Jose Abundiz from Dallas. He is a Salon Tango-milonguero style specialist, and has very nice soft/gentle lead. I tend to go for more showy Tango, and for some at times, the lead can be too strong and the stride too big. In a Salon workshop, I am always reminded how subtle the Salon Tango lead should be (it really depends on the partner, though). I am hoping that writing it down here helps me to remember the subtlety in social Salon Tango.

Dance: Doing research--Interviewing Hugo Patyn

Dance world is a diverse world. Among the diverse world, public performance makes a big segment of it.  It is very different from social and improvisational dance we do in party settings.

Public performance also is a diverse world by itself.

There are stage productions by local dance studios for young people or by school clubs. They function as introducing (mostly younger) people to the stage dances. Some may grow to professionals. Who knows?

There are life event occasions for adults (e.g. wedding, anniversary) that provide opportunity and a taste of public dance performance.

There are Pro-Am dances. There are Am-Am dances.

And, there is a world of dance shows by all Professional performers. They dance for entertainment of the audience. They provide something amazing and inspiring, something that is well worth the money.

I wanted to take a glimpse of the Professional world, and know how they prepare for their Stage shows.


Meet Hugo Patyn from Buenos Aires. He is the director, producer, choreographer and dancer for his company ACADEMIA HUGO PATYN's Argentine Tango shows. He has done many world tour travels (US, Europe, Japan, etc) for Argentine Tango and other dance productions for theaters, hotels and stages. 

He was a dancer in 1999 "Tango Argentino" show tour to the US. By pure chance, I saw the show on Broadway, and it ignited my interest in Argentine Tango. Now I feel like it's a strange Karmic connection.

While his friends George and Jairelbhi are off to China for their Tango show tour until February, Hugo and his partner Celina are temporarily taking over teaching for George's students in Dallas area. And they made an weekend tour for Oklahoma for teaching.

I've liked his professionalism in his work greatly. It was apparent through my previous interactions with him.

Taking the opportunity, today I was asking an interview with Hugo as a part of my research for Stage Tango. The central question was, "how they do it".

As expected, it was quite different standard and practice from local studios and college club-level productions. After all, it was from a top-level Professional. It was a perspective from an extreme end of spectrum of all Stage Tangos.

For an example,... for local productions, we teach and grow students from scratch. At the Professional level, they can choose only "good" ones with audition. One of my questions was what he looks for for his dancers.

Abbreviated answers were like these; "Responsibility (this one came first), ..how they look,..personality (important),..will to constantly improve,..have a special presence,.. shows connection to the music..."

Well, people who wish to be Stage performers. Do you have these?



Since there was so much information, I'm going to take time to organize the message to do justice for what he said. It was definitely an interesting interview. Thanks, Hugo.

                                       (with Hugo and the Oklahoma tour host David)

Dance/Life: Answer this question; "How do you stand out?"

There are many kinds of dancing, and they are practiced at many levels.

Among all people who dance, only a small fraction of the people act as professionals, or teachers, or are outstanding performer-dancers. By definition, "outstanding" are rare.

I wonder, among all the people who dance, how many asked themselves, "how do I stand out?"

This question will lead you to think hard for identifying your strength, and also your own preferences. Try to answer this question, if you have not. It's a good practice, and I say answering this question is mandatory for all who want to act at a Professional level.


If you read a dance Professional's biosketch (bios), you notice the different emphasis in what they can do and are good at.

Teacher's bios come with their student's success and  teaching award history, like "Taught Mr. X and Mrs. Y (famous champions)". Contribution as an educator can belong here too, like "developed a dance syllabus XYZ ", "published books" and "write articles" etc.

Performer's bios come with their history of performance, success in competition, and description of their strength, like "known for precise foot placements","elegant and smooth execution","playful and master of improvisation" etc. They are usually with videos and performance photos.

Bios for a community leader type are like "Owner of XY studio for 25 years", "Teaching Ballroom dance in city Z for 20 years" , "Event Director for the successful Seventh annual ZZ event", "Helping the community weekly dance party for 10 years" etc.

These branding remarks are all valid. They have different appeal for different audience.


You can dance for 30+ years only for your personal fun. It is good for you. 

But there are smaller number of people who actively try to develop something to show. Something that contributes others in addition to your own personal fun. 

You don't have to be an outstanding performer to own a studio. You don't have to have the "right kind of body for Ballet" to choreograph a college salsa formation. There are many ways to stand out.

Give this question a thought.

Science: Science and metrics

Happy New Year 2015 to you all. Hope 2015 is a great year for you!


At the end of 2014 December, a review result for a submitted manuscript came back. It started with "We are pleased to inform you that...". Good news. It's going to be published!

The work took much efforts for the write-up and for two revisions. In the review process, the reviewers made good constructive criticisms. I see such criticisms as "friendly" ones, and am appreciative for these anonymous reviewers. Now I am very happy to see the manuscript going to be published.

The category for this entry is "Science". It's been a while to write for this category.

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Some time ago I wrote about how to access/read recent scientific works. For the works published in biomedical science field, it can be done through pubmed and other database.

"Science: How can you know the latest science" (6/22/14)

However, the entry did not address a question of assessing the quality of the works. How to distinguish whether the published paper is something highly regarded among the experts, or no other scientists acknowledge, was not mentioned. 

And it is important to know which work is considered more "trustworthy". After all, you can find all kind of "evidence" in the net, and assessment of quality is not accompanying them. But if a grad school student cites too many obscure works and misses many classic/landmark works in the field in his thesis, I doubt he can get the degree.

Although current system is not perfect, it would be meaningful to tell how scientists evaluate other scientists' works. 


"How do you measure your science?" has been a long standing question. It is not really easy to compare works from different scientific specialties, like immunology and molecular genetics.  Evaluation for scientific work is not necessarily a popularity contest. Yet, we scientists currently resort to a form of popularity contest among experts.

First of all, there are many scientific specialties, and each specialty research field has a limited number of experts. Evaluation is done by a peer review system. That is, experts of a field review works by other experts in the same field. The review is usually done anonymously. 

For example, I have no idea who reviewed my manuscript, and I can only assume someone in the same field or close specialty did. Probably I've read his/her paper before, or perhaps they are among the potential reviewers I specified when I sent the manuscript to the journal.

To maintain integrity of this peer review system, we have to  know who are experts in the same field. Reversely, when I am asked to review a work somewhat outside of my core expertise (that can happen), I would have to excuse myself from reviewing it.

The overall structure of science is like a collection of highly divided specialties. It's not democracy, but government of the experts, by the experts, for the experts.

Searching for a metric to be applied over the many specialties, we started using "Impact Factor (IF)". IF is a number how many times a scientific specialty journal's article is cited by other researchers. If an article in a journal is cited 5 times on average, the IF is 5.0 for the journal. Over a time, the IF became a standard to measure the journal's ranking. The IF also aided forming a hierarchy among the journals.

There are some prestigious journals (for example, general commercial journals "Cell", "Nature", and "Science"). They boast 30-40 IF. They come on top of the hierarchy of journals. Getting 8-10 IF and the journal makes top tier in a specialty field ("Cancer Research" or "Oncogene" in cancer research field for example). So if you want to have a general idea about how the published work is regarded among experts, check the journal and the IF.

A journal's IF is an average for all articles in the journal. Among published articles, there will be some hits (e.g. 20 citations for an article in IF 5 journal) and duds (e.g. 1 citation for an article in IF 5 journal). It will be better if you check the citation of the particular paper you are interested in.

Note that citing a work cannot be done immediately. It takes 6 months-3 years (or longer) for the work be well-known, acknowledged and cited appropriately by others. Even if I read a new paper today and think it is a good work, for the work to be "cited", I need to publish my own work and cite the work in the text of my work. And it takes time to do so.

That said, there are more "cite-able" works and less "cite-able" works. I am sure that some metrics-savvy researchers are pursuing more "cite-able" works.

This is how "experts" (tend to) estimate the impact of the works in their field. In recent years, there are some websites that compile IF and calculate a researcher's overall "IF". Of course, there are many inside factors and built-up reputation that play a role in evaluation. These factors are not always friendly to metrics.


Another important metrics for a researcher is the funding situation of the researcher. Not all science projects are funded equally, even if the quality is comparable. Funding is allocated considering needs of the public or funding body. General population will appreciate "big" breakthrough-looking advancements, like Ebola medicine, stem cell-based regenerative therapy, easing PTSD, cause identification of autism, or cure for difficult cancers. A part of research fund certainly goes to these "hot" projects. But not all researchers jump in hot projects. It doesn't work that way.



One thing about scientific expertise is that it takes time to develop. Knowing a subject inside and out, what worked and what did not (that may not be published thus may not be learned from literature), requires substantial time, efforts and adherence to a specialty. The cultivated and broad-based infrastructure and human resource are priceless.

Business-oriented view for science can overlook the importance of variety. Business tends to focus on something successful here and now. A broad based science yields variety that allows cross pollination of specialties. Historically, many Nobel-prize winning breakthrough came from somewhat useless-looking or not-the-hottest- researches. A research specialty does not appear from nowhere, but has some roots, and usually has been maintained in a linage. Although it is true that national projects made nuclear bomb and sent people to the moon, I would like the public to be aware of the importance of broad-based science. 

Ebola research budget was cut for a while, because someone thought the research lacked urgency and was a waste of money. Then the Ebola scare in 2014 happened. Was the budget cut short-sighted or what.

Science has an aspect of an art. Metrics are good, but they can indicate only limited aspect. Metrics for scientific works are different from the numbers of facebook likes, website visits or of viral video view counts. "Who said" factor still counts heavily in science.