"Go Ballroom Dancing"
'The battle goes on and on.' A leading dance web site, Dancesport UK, describes. The competitive side
of dancing Standard and Latin-American styles, where couples dancing is
judged by judges and purpose of it is to achieve the highest possible placing.
Dan
cesport is made of 3 branches: Standard, Latin-American and 10-dance. 10-dance
is a combination of Standard and Latin, to take part in 10-dance competition
you have to dance 5 Standard and 5 Latin dances.
On the other side of the scale we have Social dancing, where you dance
for your own pleasure and to meet people. Here the divisions between style
are not that important, so we still quite often say that we "Go Ballroom
dancing".
DanceSport UK
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Do NOT miss this fabulous 50-minutes streaming video clip!
"DANS 2004" Dutch Open Championship
What is American Style? In the early 1900s, America was taken over by a
dance craze and everybody was doing fox-trot, waltzes and tango in their
living rooms and open outdoors alike to His Masters Voice. Came Arthur
Murray, Freddie Astaire and Ginger Rogers and presented the artistic side
with beauty and grace that very few can match. Murray and Astaire became
successful in franchising Dance studios all over America and standardized
a Syllabus, which became the American Style.
What is International Style? During the same period the dances were being
studied in England and were given an English form with a little more emphasis
on Hold, feet positions and footwork. Interestingly enough, G.R. Anderson,
an American and an English lady Josephine Bradley shook the world by showing
SLOW FOXTROT that was never seen before. They won the most prestigious
trophy "The Star Ball" in London in 30's? A faster version of
Foxtrot became Quickstep and so developed an English style with Diagonal
Lines in all other ballroom dances. Mr. Walter Laird is credited with the
Latin development in England. The world took over and accepted this style
and so came the term "the International Style". Are the two Styles
different? Well Well Well, Yes and NO! , The two styles are different in
Figures and Patterns etc. but any good teacher or top-level dancer will
tell you that technique is more or less the same. Let's consider some aspects
in ballroom category.
Blackpool Dance Festival (British Open)
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