She's a Maniac, Maniac on the Dance Floor...

Let me preface this post by saying that I have never, ever been to a dance competition. Sure, I've seen some gymnastics shows and watched skating on TV, but never dance. Luckily, in an effort to broaden my horizons, I decided to change this last Monday.

One of our program directors, Elena, who is one of the cutest adults I have met in my life, is an amateur hustle dancer. No, she's not a hustler...apparently, the hustle is a mix between salsa and some obscure dance I can't remember the name of. She let slip at dinner one night that she was participating in dance contest at the end of February, so we of course had to attend.
I was expecting something out of Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights and hadn't prepared myself for Dirty Dancing 3: Patrick Swayze in a Sailor Outfit. When we arrived at the dance studio, the coat check was full and had closed, so we draped our coats over our arms and tried to enter. Turns out bringing your coat inside is a big no-no, at least at this particular dance studio. The ticket collector 1. wouldn't let us in with our coats then 2. had to verify with the coat check that it was indeed closed then 3. went on a personal mission to find a new coat check area, only to discover that 4. the one upstairs was also full. She then 5. found a new coat rack, 6. pulled out of a remote closet somewhere in the studio 7. allowed us to hang our coats and 8. finally let us enter. We were worried that we'd missed Elena's dance but luckily had about half an hour to spare, as everything in Russia runs at least 45 minutes late.
In the meantime, we amused ourselves by taking pictures of the wide variety of outfits Russians thought appropriate to wear to a dance competition:

– suspenders

– hot pants (held up by suspenders to keep the skin-tight shorts from falling during a particularly energetic move)

– frilly...spandex?

– 80's-style prom dresses

– sweatpants

– halloween costumes ranging from lingerie to sailor outfits

– dayglo ANYTHING

As you can see, some contestants chose to match

their partners, while others threw on their Sunday best:

And finally, last but not least: our all-star. Not only did he manage to change outfits for every new song, he managed to change GIRLS with his outfits. He started out in a red spandex devil(ish) outfit, changed to a flowered hawaiian shirt with tiggght jeans, and ended with the winning outfit you see above. To top it all off, he had a skullet (think mullet but bald). In my book, any man who can rock a skullet and get that many girls is a real man.