Dance

Contract negotiations. Flight reservations. Venue selections. Itineraries. Sponsors. Fruit baskets. Putting together the annual Laguna Dance Festival is never a smooth sail, but the finished project is worth all of the bumps, founder Jodie Gates said. She brings in top talent from around the county, state, country and world for the annual event, which opens Saturday in Laguna Beach. ?Coordinating the schedule just takes my breath away,? Gates said. It?s very, very complicated, and requires a lot of organizational skills, but fortunately I?

The official title of Sunday's show at Golden West College is Bands and Bellies VIII. To a scorekeeper, though, it's more like Bands and Bellies 1, Community 7. Over the last two years, producers Alec C. Marken and Sarah "al Nour" Baxter have hosted seven Bands and Bellies shows, which bring together musicians, dancers and other artists. Of those shows, only one was a for-profit endeavor. The rest of the time, Marken and Baxter have diverted all of their net proceeds to nonprofits or charitable causes.

Huntington Beach resident Elle Macy, 16, won the Teen Miss Dance of America Solo Scholarship Competition on July 7 in Washington, D.C. Elle performed a lyrical dance routine choreographed by her mother, Shelly Macy. She won the title over 26 other competitors from all over the United States. Elle has trained at Orange County Dance Center in Huntington Beach for 10 years. She is a junior at Huntington Beach High School. Recently, Elle was asked to stay year-round at the School of American Ballet.

The Gallimaufry Performing Arts CaDance Festival is bringing in heavy star power: Patrick Swayze will be the featured guest at the gala reception Saturday night at Laguna Art Museum. Swayze fits the bill with his outstanding acting and dancing ability, perhaps best showcased in the 1997 hit movie "Dirty Dancing." His career includes popular favorites "Ghost" and "Point Break." Swayze's dancing career is esteemed as well. He has been with the Houston Jazz Ballet Company, Harkness Ballet Theater School in New York, Joffrey Ballet Company and Eliot Feld Ballet Company.

A restaurant that kept neighbors awake for months is about to get back into the nightlife, and the owners are contending that the best way to keep the peace is to go strictly ballroom. Le Petit Paris, the recently renamed and remodeled French restaurant at the corner of Adams Avenue and Brookhurst Street, has quietly gotten its entertainment permit back and has asked the city to allow ballroom dancing, swing, tango and a little cha-cha-cha. Neighbors are wary of the request -- they remember fistfights, loud music and drunken debauchery in the parking lot of the restaurant and karaoke bar that used to be called Moulin Rouge.

THEATER "You're going out there a chorus girl, but you've got to come back a star." It's been more than 70 years since Warner Baxter admonished Ruby Keeler thusly in that mother of all show business-themed movie musicals, "42nd Street," but that flick inspired a plethora of successors and eventually became a hit stage production in its own right. The latter version -- faithfully set in 1933, the year the movie was released -- arrives tonight in the Huntington Beach High School auditorium as a project of the Academy for the Performing Arts, and audiences are invited to "come and meet those dancing feet."

Two sister ballerinas from Huntington Beach want to take you on a magical journey where dreams come true. Quinn and Aubry Mason, a dancing duo with the Maple Youth Ballet in Irvine, will share the lead role of Clara in the Maple Dance Conservatory’s spin-off of “The Nutcracker” Saturday through Monday. Charles Maple, founder and director of the conservatory, said what sets his version of the story apart from the original is that it is a ballet about ballet, and a young girl’s passion to dance.

If you?re heading downtown this weekend, be prepared for culture shock. Main Street will be closed for A Taste of New Zealand, a showcase of the South Pacific island group?s culture. It touches on multiple aspects of Huntington Beach?s sister city, Waitakere City, New Zealand. It will be a crash course in New Zealand?s unique brand of arts including dance, cooking and film. ?It?s kind of bringing a new culture down to Main Street,? said the event?s planner, Nova Punongbayan of the Economic Development Department at City Hall.

Clad in thigh-high ruffled pink shorts and hot-pink lipstick, dancers rehearsing for “Show: the Supper Club” looked like refugees from a racy version of “Guys and Dolls” as they gyrated through their burlesque dance moves at Code Restaurant and Lounge in Newport Beach one recent afternoon. “We’re really a perfect fit for this event, because of our whole style,” said singer and dancer Monique, as she scrambled to change out of a glittering, vintage evening gown into a ruffled skirt to do a can-can inspired number.

Samba dance steps in Brazil. Mandoo dumplings in South Korea. Origami lessons in Japan. Boomerang-making in Australia. It was a busy day to be a Girl Scout. The scouts? Service Unit 2 held its annual World Thinking Day on Saturday at Sowers Middle School. ?This fun event teaches girls of all ages that they are part of a worldwide organization, one that teaches them how to discover, connect, and take action ? the three keys to leadership in their own lives and communities,?