World Champion Dancer Melanie LaPatin!

All Photos:  Alan Mercer    Lighting:  Eric V.

Melanie LaPatin is professional ballroom dance champion and choreographer, originally from Brooklyn, New York. LaPatin formed a professional partnership with Tony Meredith in 1981, marrying him in 1989, traveling the world representing the United States twelve times in the Professional World Latin-American Dance Championships, and eventually moved to New York in 1991 to train and open a studio.

With Tony, Melanie has represented the United States for over a decade in the World Latin American Dance Championships and has taken home over 100 championship titles. Their titles include: The United States Professional Latin Champions, Dirty Dancing Champions, 1999 DanceSport World Cup Champions, Four-time Champions of the North American Latin Championships, The World Trophy Title Holders, American-Swing World Cabaret Dance Champions, Three-time Champions of the "Championship Ballroom Dancing", Copacabana Mambo Marathon Finalists, and Twelve-time United States Representatives for the World Latin Championships. 

Melanie is in high demand as a coach of top dancers around the world and as a choreographer for actors in film, television and Broadway.  She has choreographed and appeared on film in such major motion pictures as 'Dance with Me,' 'The Thomas Crown Affair,' 'Let It Be Me' and 'Last Days of Disco.'  She has most recently appeared as a choreographer on FOX’s 'So You Think You Can Dance' and 'So You Think You Can Dance Canada.'  Melanie is currently the associate choreographer of 'What To Expect When You're Expecting" starring Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison and Jennifer Lopez. 

As a dance coach and choreographer, she has worked with some of the most renowned film and television personalities including Pierce Brosnan, Renee Russo, Vanessa Williams, Tim Robbins, Mary Steenburgen, Sonya Braga, Susan Sarandon, Steven Dorff, Patrick Stewart, Leslie Caron, Jennifer Beals, Harvey Keitel, Campbell Scott, Nancy Butler, Rob Schneider and Barbara Walters. She filmed a movie titled 'Leading Ladies,' in which she not only serves as choreographer, but stars as Sheri Campari, a mother who swears off men and lives vicariously through her daughters. In 2008, she choreographed a photo shoot for Harper’s Bazaar called “Dancing with the Designers” that featured Jessica Biel and high-end designers Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Diane Von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein and Zac Posen.

 

Upon retiring from the demands of the competitive floor in 1998, Melanie and Tony created Dance Times Square Studio, a home base in New York’s Times Square where, despite their subsequent amicable divorce, they continue to choreograph for film, television, Broadway and a new generation of competitive dancers as well as celebrities. She is co-owner and co-director of the studio dubbed by Vogue Magazine as "the most fashionable place in New York City to learn to dance…”

My friend Charlie Mason in New York introduced me to Melanie LaPatin knowing she was perfect for this blog!  We met while Melanie was in Los Angeles working on 'So You Think You Can Dance.'  These photos were taken at the Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood.  Besides being a World Champion Dancer, Melanie is a delightful and charming woman who is a lot of fun! 

AM:  Melanie, why don't you tell me a little about your upbringing?

ML:  I was born in Brooklyn and moved to Long Island when I was six years old.  I graduated from high school a little early when I was seventeen.  I was kind of unhappy in New York so I visited my sister in San Diego and I never returned home.  Now I'm back in New York since 1991 after fourteen years in San Diego and traveling around the world. 

AM:  Do you like New York better now?

ML:  I love, love, love New York.  I've been around the world several times and there is no place like New York. 

AM:  You've been around the world as a dance champion.  Can you tell me a little about that?

ML:  I started competing with my partner of thirty years, Tony Meredith in 1981.  We've had quite an interesting life together to say the least.  We won the first competition we did together.  We won our last competition together in 1999.  We did lose many competitions in between. 

AM:  What are some of the highlights from this life?

ML: We had lunch with the Queen of Denmark in her castle.  We performed at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.  We danced at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I consider myself very lucky and I am very grateful!   It was not always easy as a matter of fact it was a struggle as all dancers struggle.  It's all about my passion.  In the Eighties I lived on a plane.  I didn't know what was happening in the world at that time. 

AM:  You retired in 1999 didn't you?

ML:  Officially it was 1998 but we were asked to come back out of retirement to dance in a competition at Madison Square Garden. 

AM:  Did you naturally go into choreography after retiring from competition?

ML:  We had been doing our own choreography since the beginning.  We were always quite creative.  Several other dance champions said we were the innovators that changed the face of ballroom dancing. 

AM:  This is long before it became so popular in the United States.

ML:  Absolutely! 

AM:  Did it surprise you that all of a sudden that culturally we care about ballroom dancing more?

ML:  I always knew it was just waiting to happen.  Anytime I meet someone on a plane or start talking to people they tell me they have always wanted to learn to dance.  They love 'Dancing With Stars' and 'So You Think You Can Dance.'  They want to take lessons and change their lives.  I've seen people walk into a studio the first day and two months later they are a whole different person. 

AM:  What do you think people get from dancing and what do you get from it?

ML:  It was my drug of choice.  I was obsessive/compulsive with it.  I was a crazy person with tunnel vision.  I used to drive Tony crazy!

AM:  That's how you ended up a world champion!

ML:  Probably. 

AM:  Obviously you are a top performer, but teaching is another story all together.  Do you like one more than the other?

ML:  Performing satisfies the soul.  I don't care who I teach.  I teach many average people who want to learn to dance.  The joy that they get from learning a dance step is also satisfying.  That's what I can give back. 

AM:  How did you get hooked up with 'So You Think You Can Dance?'

ML:  The producers knew of us because we have been in this business for quite a while.  We've always been known as innovators and a little bit out of the box.  We were rebels in our day. 

AM: I have watched the videos of your dancing and it is ahead of it's time.  Now more people dance like you were doing.

ML: Yes I can look at things that are being done now and I think, "How many years ago did we create that?"  It will be twenty-five years ago.  Of course things have evolved but I do think we opened the box for ballroom dancing.        

AM:  Another thing you do is choreograph movies with big stars.  Is that intimidating?

ML:  It's so easy.

AM:  Are all the stars easy?

ML:  They are and it's because this is their career.  They want this information.  They soak it up just like a professional. 

AM:  Some must have more talent than others...

ML: Yes some do have more talent than others.  We give them what they can do and we don't want to make them feel intimidated.  That's not what our job is.  Putting them into an acting mode with a character to play helps.  This works for a lot of them.

AM:  If you have been dancing your whole life and someone has danced for a year...are you a better dancer?

ML:  It absolutely depends on the person.  I don't consider myself talented.  I am determined and musical.

AM:  What is talent then?

ML:  My partner Tony is talented.

AM:  But you're not!?!

ML:  I'm hard on myself.  I think some people would say that I'm talented, but I'm just passionate about the music and the movement.  When I was younger I was physically unable to do anything so when I walked into my first dance class when I was eighteen, I knew this is what I had to do.  I never looked back.  For me it's more about sheer determination and will power. I did know I had something special.  I didn't know what it was, maybe it was just my sheer determination, focus and intensity.  I knew the other girls were much more talented physically than I was. 

AM:  Yet when I watch your dance videos you slink around like you have no bones!

ML:  Thank you, that is a very nice thing to hear.  I just did what I had to do.  There was nothing more important to me.  I knew how good Tony was.  We did fight like cats and dogs. 

AM:  Do you think that's natural under the circumstances for most creative partners?

ML:  Oh yes we were together seven/twenty-four/three sixty-five days a year for years and years. 

AM: That's a challenge for any two human beings.  What do you think dance does for the average person?

ML:  It brings people a sense of joy.  It brought me freedom.  I was sick with nerves before every competition or performance.  Once I stepped onto the floor I was free. 

AM:  Can you tell me how you got involved with this new CD that's out called 'Melanie LaPatin Presents Ballroom Remixed?'

ML:  Well I'm always involved in about twenty things at once...OK not twenty but a million things and I always need music!  So I thought "Hey I know people!  Let me see if I can get them to work with me to make some!"  Luckily a friend introduced me to these amazing producers in the UK, Ricardo Autobahn and Richard Hymas, and they totally "got" the idea of "Let's do something that's ballroom but not strictly ballroom.  We were lucky enough to get some amazing singers, who were all gearing up for doing their own things as well.  Now it seems like half the kids on the album have their own singles out too, Kyle Brylin, Linda Tiodosiu from Germany, Romy Low from Spain, and our little theatre nerd Joshua Desjardins, and they're all doing great!   

AM:  Do you see yourself doing what you're doing now for the rest of your life?

ML:  I hope to be asked to choreograph these shows for as long as they'll have me.  I want to produce a Broadway show.  It gives me chills just thinking about it.  I'm looking for the writer.  The show will be fantastic.  I just want the dancers to get some recognition.  That's what I hope to create on Broadway.

Here are some links to learn more about Melanie LaPatin  WWW.BALLROOMREMIXED.COM   WWW.DANCETIMESSQUARE.COM   LEADINGLADIESMOVIE.COM