Living Line Dance Magazine, March 2016 The Munich LAD’s become 20 Formerly founded as a gay C&W dance group the Munich LAD’s are still together and now opened for every interested dancer. The secretary and dancer Alexandra Berndt will give you an impression about the 20 years of history. Back to the beginnings how everything has started. Who were the persons who had the idea to found that group? The first training was held in April 2096 by Richard Lootens, a trained Caller and an enthusiatic line dancer. The club owner Randy Michaels had the idea to offer once a month a training at his club The Stud. From this time the club had the name “Some Afternoon Dancers” (SAD). But these sad abbreviation realy doesn’t fit to the dancing and to the group and so it was changes in 2002 into Lucky Afternoon Dancers (LAD’s). What kind of evolution had the club? Are the amount of members increasing and take the members part at championships? In former times the LAD’s were a gay group but during the time they couldn’t find more interested male dancers to join. In 2004 they had a voting where the members decided that also the ladies, who already had joined the group at this time, could take part at the performances. Some of the old members still didn’t liked the changing of the group and so they left it. In nower days we have 80% women and 20% men. The amount of members was still the same during the last year and it is about 27 members. When our former trainer Richard left the group in 2003 Ralf Kelbch (died in 2006) and Kurt Fluger became the new trainers. Kurt is still doing that job. At the same year we became part of “Team Muenchen” (hearorganisation of gay/lesbian sports). Cause of the high costs we decided to found an official club on the 15th of December 2005. The club should be opened for everyone, no matter if gay or lesbian, man or woman - everyone who loves to dance is wellcomed. Also the times of training changed during the years. From once a month it changed quickly into a weekly training. And after a while also a training for advanced dancer were installed. We had all kinds of different performances. Highlights were a performance at a TV-show, invitations do different cities like Rome, Stuttgart or Regens- burg. But we were also dancing on small stages and street festivals in Munich. Since we were founded we are part of the International Association of Gay and Lesbian Country and Western Dance Clubs (IAGLCWDC) and so some of our members toke part at the competions at the World Out Games in Copenhagen and also at the Gay Games in Cologne. But we are normally just hobby dancers but everyone in the group can start a career as a professional competition dancer, supported by the group, if he/she likes. How’s club life during the years? We are a very open minded group where you can speak freely and it is also welcomed if the members inspire the group, i.e. how the training should be whom we invite for our parties or what kind of day trips we plan. So we organized some nice club tours and internal events like ski and hiking weekends, we visited Country events for a weekend, visited several christmas markets in differnt cities, BBQs, Halloween Parties and many more. We also visiting line dance events from nearby clubs and also from more far away clubs. Cause these events are the highlight after the hard training we do. We can dance together and we also can socialise with other groups. How often you have your trainings? For the beginners 3 - 4 times a month and for the advanced dancers 2 - 3 times a month. The actual times are published on our homepage. At every training we learn a new dance and so we have about 50 dances a year. Who’s at the committee at the moment? Our offical committee members are our 1st president Kurt Fluger, Richard Braumandl as the Co-president, Alexandra Berndt as the secretary and Martina Tribohn as our cashier. Next to Kurt we also have several dance trainers. These are Andreas Hein, Sylvia Noack and Eugene Stark. Karin Frost helps us with checking the bills for our annual report. Our oldest member is Karin Fluger (79 years) who helps us with the entrance control and the cash point at our parties if she’s not on tour around the world. What kind of music the group likes? We love all kind of music. The good mix from Modern to Country, from Waltz to Funky makes it fine for everyone. How often and what kind of dances do you teach and from where you get the inspiration which dances you should learn? We get inspiration of national and international dance charts, also by befriended Clubs whom we are visiting and where we saw a few wonderful dances. We also get newsletters from famous choreographers and if we like them we also integrate them in our training. Some of our members travel to inter- national events like Eurodance in Southport or to the Las Vegas Dance Explosion and they bring the newest dances home. We also like to invite international choreographers to our Workshops and Party events. Guyton Mundy was visiting us in 2011. For him it was the first workshop ever in Germany. Other guests like Robbie McGowan Hickie, Ria Vos, Niels Poulsen, Alan Haywood (retired already), Robbie Hahn, Manuela De Guire, Kirsi-Marja Vinberg and Rose Grimmer and together with other clubs we had Daniel Trepat and Jo & John Kinser. For our 20th Anniversary Party we allow to oneself 2 choreographers: We’ve invited Yvonne Anderson and José Miguel Belloque Vane for a whole day workshop followed by a party in the evening. We’d like to reach a wider range of audience; Yvonne Anderson for the more traditionell line dancing and José Miguel Belloque Vane for the modern line dancing. There are still tickets available, Infos at info-at-munich-lads.de or at the Living Line Dance Event page. Come partying with us! Alexandra Berndt (If you like to see the german version with the pics just click here