Jennik's blog



ZUMBA at St John's Wood and Marylebone

By Jennik, April 17, 2011

Ditch the workout, join the party!

Sign up NOW for our calorie-burning fiesta!

The heat just got turned up at Simply Dancing Partners with the addition of ZUMBA®, the biggest dance craze of the decade!

Join us for ZUMBA® classes. You don’t even have to know how to dance!

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Join the tango aficionadoes at St. Johns Wood Liberal Synagogue

By Jennik, March 9, 2011

I am so excited about bringing tango to St. Johns Wood on Thursday nights, and thrilled Rabbi Alex Wright
invited me. She saw my class at Upper Berkeley Street shul hall, where we started Simply Dancing Partners,
and asked us to bring tango to her own hall, starting on March 10.

The great thing about this class is that no-one will have to be a wallflower, since Simply Dancing Partners

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Tango Thursdays at St. Johns Wood Liberal Synagogue

By Jennik, March 1, 2011

I'm starting a tango class at St. Johns Wood Liberal Synagogue at the invitation of Rabbi Alex Wright.
She was coming through the hall at Upper Berkeley Street, where I also run classes, with some other female
rabbis, and decided she'd like me to bring tango to NW8, in her own hall opposite Lords Cricket Ground.

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DON'T MISS ME ON TONIGHT'S ONE SHOW!

By Jennik, May 27, 2010

Thrilled to be getting some recognition for my sister Karen and myself for restoring tango teas to the Waldorf after
a hiatus of several years. The hotel started these in 1910, but needed our dancing school expertise to revive them after they were dropped, in the mistaken belief they could no longer be profitable. Now the tea dances are a sell-out, and I am so proud of the tribute being paid to our small contribution to a century of tango in London by the BBC's One Show on May 27.

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OUR TANGO TRIP OF A LIFETIME

By Jennik, May 4, 2010

My sister Karen and I have just returned from the trip of a lifetime. We finally managed to get to Buenos Aires on our first shared holiday in 30 years after having had to postpone three times.

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MY DANCING SCHOOL'S TANGO TEAS ON THE ONE SHOW

By Jennik, April 12, 2010

On Sunday the BBC’s One Show came to the Waldorf to make a film about the tango teas Simply Dancing Partners has restored to the hotel. I was interviewed by the very attractive Des Coleman, who asked me about the history of Tango and how it came to Europe. 

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PINEAPPLE STUDIOS - AT LAST I CAN SEE THE POINT OF LOUIE!

By Jennik, March 26, 2010

My heart leapt as episode five of Sky’s Pineapple Studios opened with a burst of the high-energy dancing associated with this famous Covent Garden space used mainly by professional hoofers.


Then it sank, as the classful of leaping, swivelling and swaying boys and girls gave way to Louie, Pineapple’s middle-aged artistic director, who can’t get enough of posing, often pointlessly, for the camera.

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MORE DANCING, LESS SHOWING OFF, PLEASE, AT PINEAPPLE STUDIOS

By Jennik, March 19, 2010

It’s curious to hear Pineapple Dance Studios has been inundated with a new generation of wannabe Pan’s People since the show started a month ago on Sky. Because although they have a unique opportunity to show the tough, exacting and often bittersweet lives of professional dancers, the producers have chose to show less dancing than almost anything else, including blatant exhibitionism.

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YOU DON'T NEED LEGS TO BE A DANCING QUEEN-JUST THE WILL TO THRILL ON THE FLOOR

By Jennik, March 12, 2010

I’ve never seen anyone take to the floor with more exuberance or sheer joie de vivre than Diana Morgan-Hill in this week’s final of Dancing On Wheels.
She doesn’t have any legs to dance with - she lost them 19 years ago in the prime of her life - but boy, did she dazzle partnering Olympic swimmer Mark Frost in the quickstep.

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HELP ME SAVE STRICTLY FROM THE BBC EXECUTIONER!

By Jennik, March 4, 2010

I was aghast to hear that the reorganisation of BBC programming could put all the wonderful dance programmes we have been enjoying on television for several years now at risk. It seems Strictly and the like could be thrown out of the mix in favour of yet more costume drama.

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DANCING ON WHEELS INSPIRES US ALL

By Jennik, February 25, 2010

Dancing On Wheels, the new BBC3 series in which the wheelchair-bound show off their own stunning moves, is very dear to my heart.
The show came on air around the time of the death of my father, Martin Chaplin, who never allowed disability to stop him taking to the floor. He may have walked with a zimmer frame, but nothing was going to stop him gearing up to stand up without one for a few minutes at the tango teas I run at the Waldorf, and do his best to get around the floor.

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SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE - JUST LIKE STRICTLY, THE BEST MAN DIDN'T WIN!

By Jennik, February 17, 2010

The shock of last week’s final of So You Think You Can Dance was a standing ovation for Robbie - but it was nothing to do with winning the contest. The shock was that the Stockport Spider had been forced out of the competition by injury - how gutting that must have been for him, after all his hard work. And gutting for me, because of all four dancers,
he was the one, as a dancing school principal, I thought deserved the prize.

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DONE IN BY A PASSIONLESS PASO DOBLE, MANDY AND ALASTAIR LEAVE SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE

By Jennik, February 9, 2010

A damp squib of a paso doble, strangely British in its limp half-heartedness, spelled the end of the road for a talented couple in the semi-final of So You Think You Can Dance.
Those of us who returned to dancing in middle age have been so invested in Mandy, who came out of retirement at 30 to be the oldest dancer in this competition. She survived time and again in the dance-offs, and was lucky to find herself paired for a second time with athletic Alastair, the gorgeous farm boy who became a ballet virtuoso.

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WILL THE BEST MALE DANCER WIN SYTYCD? ONE OF THE JUDGES' TOP TWO HAS BITTEN THE DUST ALREADY!

By Jennik, February 3, 2010

Does being one of the best two dancers in a competition guarantee you a place in the final? Not if you don’t give your absolute best performance every single week, as Drew found out to his peril in the fourth round of So You Think You Can Dance.

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CHARLEY DOES CANCER- WITH SURPRISING CONVICTION FOR A DANCER OF JUST 17

By Jennik, January 26, 2010

The third round of So You Think You Can Dance was all about surprises - and those surprises were as much about the back-stories of the participants as the results.

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PETER PAN BECOMES A MAN-AND A RIVAL TO SHAPE UP TO ON "SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE"

By Jennik, January 19, 2010

It was the dire and the close to dazzling clamouring for attention on the second round of So You Think You Can Dance. Flawed performances by the first three couples were followed by bravura displays revealiing unexpected levels of talent.
In particular, Hayley and Drew, who both lost their partners last week, showed sides of themselves that had not been seen before. Hefty Hayley might be a first in having the strength to lift her man, though the slightly-built Drew did manage to lift her back: “Tonight Peter Pan turned into a man!” as Arlene so succintly put it.

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SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE? PUBLIC VOTE THREATENS TO KAIBOSH THE JUDGES' EXPERT OPINION

By Jennik, January 13, 2010

Only two weeks into the show, I’m left wondering whether So You Think You
Can Dance might suffer the same syndrome as Strictly - the public vote calling
the shots on popular appeal vs. the judges’ expert opinion of skill and stage charisma, and the best man - and girl - ultimately not winning the contest.
I couldn’t figure out any other reason for the bottom two couples coming down
to Hayley and Chris - who according to Nigel, displayed “so much chemistry you
should open a chemists’ shop” - and Anabel and Drew, whose electrifying jive

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WELCOME BACK ARLENE - AND THE NOT SO NASTY MR. LYTHGOE

By Jennik, January 8, 2010

Just when I feared I was going to suffer from post-Christmas Strictly withdrawal, a new television programme has come along to brighten up winter weekends. So You Think You Can Dance follows real dancers vs. celebrity wannabes, and has a touch of The X-Factor about it, too.

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OUR MOTHER SYBIL CHAPLIN, ALVA'SHALOM

By Jennik, January 7, 2010

Our beautiful mother Sybil died this week and my sister Karen and I wanted to write something today in her memory.

As a young woman she became a teacher and particularly specialised in dance and drama. Her love of music and dance continued and she helped to organise the tea dances for the forces in WWII at West London Synagogue, where we now run many of our classes.

Sybil met our father when they were members of a ballroom dancing club. They fell in love on the dance floor and their beautiful dancing was seen by many at events they attended during their lives together.

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MY DANCING SCHOOL ON TELEVISION'S FILM 24 NEXT WEEK

By Jennik, December 30, 2009

I’m so thrilled that the documentary filmed in my dancing classes has finally made it on to the small screen.
Strictly Tango, which had its cinema debut first - as “London Tango” it opened at the Notting Hill Film Festival this summer - has now had its first outing on the Sky digital station Film 24.
Viewers who did not catch it the first time around will have a chance to watch “Strictly Tango” again on January 7 at 8.10pm, and the film will get further repeats on January 9 and 16at 8pm.

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