Dance Styles

Learn about dancing and dance styles

Waltz

Waltz is a smooth progressive dance characterized by long, flowing movements, continuous turns, and rise & fall and is very graceful and elegant. The tempo is slow but the expressive quality of the music often invites very powerful and dynamic movement from dancers. The Waltz is one of the favourite dances of all time.

Viennese Waltz

Traditionally, the name Viennese Waltz refers to a very specific musical genre: The relatively fast Waltzes of the Romantic era in Vienna. The most well-known of all composers of Viennese Waltz music is Johann Strauss, responsible for such notorious works as the Blue Danube and Tales from the Vienna Woods.

Tango

Tango is a supremely sensual dance that captures the full gamut of human emotion, hope, disappointment and life itself. It is a smooth and sensuous dance meant to be danced by two people for each other rather than for performance.

Rumba

The Rumba often called the dance of love has music with a slow, pulsating rhythm. The inspiration for these dances almost certainly comes from a variety of sources – the native Indians in North America, Chile in South America, Spain and ritual dances from Africa.

Cha Cha

The Cha Cha Cha, originating in Cuba, is one of the most popular Latin-American dances. The Cha Cha Cha is danced to 4/4 time and the splitting of the fourth beat of the music gives that unmistakable and catchy ‘cha cha cha’ rhythm. The dance is vibrant, flamboyant and playful and music can range from the traditional Latin music to modern dance tunes.

Samba

This is a ballroom dance of Brazilian origin made popular in the U.S. and Europe in the 1940s. It is danced to music in 4/4 time with a syncopated rhythm, and is characterized by simple forward and backward steps and tilting, rocking body movements.

Foxtrot

Foxtrot is a smooth progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. The foxtrot provides an easily repeatable basic movement that first-time dancers can enjoy. The Slow Foxtrot, as its name suggests, is a slower version of the Foxtrot. The quicker version of the Foxtrot evolved into the Quickstep.

Salsa

Salsa is danced in 4/4 time. Once you have learned to separate the underlying beat from the rattle of maracas, it is hard to ignore the rhythm. Couples do not travel around the floor but rotate and turn in their own space.

Jive/Swing

Fast and showy this can be danced to a variety of tunes of which rock and roll music is a hot favourite.