What Dance Moves Your Feet?
American Tango - Born on the back streets of Buenos Aries, the Tango is a passionate and expressive dance. The dance has an earthy and dramatic nature. Its movements can be slow and stealthy, other times sharp and staccato. While the Tango Argentina is more personal and stylized for the bar scene, the American Tango is more appropriate for the social ballroom dancer. Learning the dramatic Tango is exciting, and increases your dance stamina, creativity, and elegance.
Cha Cha - Dance one of the most popular of Latin-American dances. Similar to the Mambo and Rumba, the Cha Cha rhythm splits on the fourth beat, creating a 2-3-4 & 1 beat. This allows for fun and infectious dance with movements filled with turns and breaks that let your own personality shine through. A fast dance designed for small spaces, you'll love dancing the Cha Cha.
Foxtrot - appropriate for all 2/4 and 4/4 time signatures, the slow-slow-quick-quick steps of the Foxtrot make it a classic and timeless dance technique. The Social Foxtrot is ideal for confined spaces and, for more advanced dancers, the Slow Foxtrot provides a graceful posture to which most dancers aspire. On the faster end, the Foxtrot gives way to its speedier slow-quick-quick-slow variant - the Quickstep.
Mambo - expand your knowledge of the American Style Rhythm dances and add the Mambo – translated as ‘shake it.’ A Latin dance and parent to Cha Cha and Salsa; Mambo is a mixture of Cuban and American jazz dancing using ‘cuban motion,’ flirty movements, and earthy rhythms. Generally following a quick-quick-slow beat, this fun dance helps develop your own expression, confidence and style!
Merengue - this popular Latin style comes from the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. Following an explicit one-two rhythm, the purposive slow-slow-slow-slow steps of the Merengue are ideal for club dancing, as the partners can repeat many of the eight-count steps in a relatively small area of dance space.
Rumba - it is said that, if Tango is the dance of passion, then Rumba is the dance of love. Both the male and female dancers demonstrate strength and power in this intense Cuban classic. Rumba music follows a 4/4 beat, with the emphasis placed on the last beat of the bar. The action of the forward and backward walks of the Rumba is a dance step recognized and loved around the world.
Salsa - a 1928 music piece, Echale Salista ("spice it up"), gave rise to the Salsa beat and eventual corresponding dance style. Often, the term Salsa is used as a generic term to refer to all forms of Latin style dances. Broken into four equal beats, the Salsa step generally includes three equal steps and a tap, though some variations use a quick-quick-slow (two count) pattern. The most important element to a good Salsa is enjoying yourself on the dance floor.
Samba - Originating from Rio de Janeiro, this Portuguese style is the dance of celebration and joy each year at Carnival. Over the years, the 2/4 timed style has developed its own unique pattern of quick-quick-slow followed by a slight knee lift. Heads held still, Samba dancers flow gracefully and joyfully around the room.
Swing - you've all heard it...."it don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing.... " With the slow-slow-rock step as its foundation, the variants of this 1920's American dance creation manifest themselves in such styles as Boogie-Woogie, West Coast, Jive, and the Lindy Hop. Okay Dance focuses mostly on the East Coast Swing and the Jitterbug. If you love the Big Band era sound and high-energy movements, the Swing is the dance for you.
West Coast Swing – West Coast originated from an earlier dance know as the Savoy Style Lindy, which was done at the Savoy Ballroom in New York in the early 1039’s. Although WCS was not invented by, it was indirectly spawn by a man whose name was Dean Collins, who danced at he Savoy while living in New York.
Waltz - one of the favorite and most romantic social dances, often associated with special events such as weddings. Stemming from an 18th century Austro-German folk dance, the waltz has evolved over the years to reflect changing times and fashions. Danced to music in 3/4 time, the waltz is characterized by a graceful rise and fall, and allows for fluid movement around the dance floor. The American Waltz is especially elegant.
Night Club Two Step -
“Great dancers aren’t great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion.” ~~ Unknown