Dancing with starry eyes -- and skill

BY CARYN EVE MURRAY
caryneve.murray@newsday.com

March 12, 2008

Swaying modestly to the acoustic guitar of Jack Johnson for the first dance at their wedding reception, Norm and Renee Cauntay soon found a way to make "Better Together" even better.

They threw in Michael Jackson.

Without warning.

And without missing a beat.

Suddenly, they were waving their arms and gyrating their hips to "The Way You Make Me Feel." The guests at their May 2006 party in Ventura, Calif., went wild.

"People still talk about our big dance," Norm, 30, said in a recent e-mail.

For some newlyweds, a marriage no longer starts with cautious steps set to music. Now a couple may unleash twirls, high kicks, moonwalks and a whole lot of randy rump-shaking. YouTube videos show couples like the Cauntays busting a move to Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back," Michael Jackson's "Thriller" or Tupac Shakur's "California Love."

This is old-fashioned romance mixed with modern surprise theater. Still, most Long Island couples opt for a good-looking embrace-and-sway, said a number of local dance instructors. "The first wedding dance is still usually standard, and that is always going to be there," said Jeff Sherman, owner of Bet U Can Dance in Commack.

But the few who do think outside the box step often turn to TV's "Dancing With the Stars" and Broadway for inspiration.

At their Crest Hollow Country Club reception, Irene and Danny Fabrizi of Franklin Square cut the cake and then cut the rug: Eighteen months of lessons at Starlight Ballroom Dance Studio in New Hyde Park prepared them for a well honed, choreographed fox-trot to Dean Martin's "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"

"It was kind of nice to have something from the past, a romantic comedy-type song that says don't take yourself too seriously," said Irene Fabrizi, who got married in April 2005.

But in the end, seriousness is what it's all about, said their instructor, Ahmed Selim.

"The key is time," said Selim. "We usually suggest wedding couples come no later than six months before the wedding." Then there's cost -- about $2,000 for a year of weekly lessons.

Avid theatergoers Jonathan and Michelle Golub turned their wedding night into opening night. At their Broadway-themed wedding last April, their first dance, "All I Ask of You," from "Phantom of the Opera," was showcased by special effects and a surprise introductory setup by event planner Bella Notte Productions, Manhattan. Broadway performers garbed as catering "staff" first sang a brief theater medley, then announced the surprise.

What the Copiague couple rolled out was the result of 21/2months of twice-weekly lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Merrick: a fox-trot and box step they danced on a cloud created by the DJ's machine.

"I figured people would be watching, so let's put on a show," said Jonathan Golub, 41, a chiropractor and a biology teacher at Deer Park High School. Golub said the hardest part was his two left feet, which were, he joked, hidden by the mist. Michelle Puttlitz-Golub, 35, said it was difficult "not telling people about it ."

Since then, though, people haven't stopped talking about it.

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