At Strictly Dance we will teach you all the dances you have seen on Hit BBC1 show "Strictly Come Dancing". We have listed all the dances you will learn and a brief description of the dances. You can also see videos of the dances on offer.
The Waltz has its history in a peasant dance from the Provence area of France in 1559. It's based on a piece of folk music called The Volta. Partners had to hold each other in such a close embrace that many declared it immoral at the time; Louis 13th even had it banned from court for this very reason. The Waltz is danced to a three beat track and is often one of the first Ballroom dances taught to new beginners. The Waltz is probably the most romantic of the Ballroom dances.
The Argentine Tango spread to Europe the early 20th Century when wealthy Argentineans moved to Paris, and by 1913 it had become a worldwide phenomenon.
The dance is a very sensual and intimate dance. The couples' upper bodies should remain close together and their lower bodies apart. the lady can even rest her head on the man's chest or their faces will be very nearly touching.
The Argentine Tango is about the relationship between man and woman and can be danced in two different ways.
The dancers can perform a battle of wills between the man and woman using different dance moves to overcome the each other. Alternatively the couple can come together and dance as one, creating the illusion of a fused couple dancing with four legs.
During the 1920s many bands played the Quickstep too fast and some couples couldn't keep up. Over time, a faster version was born, absorbing extra elements of ragtime such as the Charleston. This led to the creation of what we today call the Quickstep
Samba is the national dance of Brazil. Many versions of this dance, from Baion (pronounced: Bajao) to Marcha, are danced at the carnival in Rio. To achieve the true character of the Samba, a dancer must give it a flirtatious and exuberant interpretation.
Before 1914, the dance was known under a Brazilian name "Maxixe". The first attempts of introducing Samba to European ballrooms are dated 1923-24, but it wasn't until after World War II that the Samba became a popular dance in Europe
.
The origins of the Viennese Waltz, so called to distinguish it from the Waltz and the French Waltz, date back to as early as the 12th Century and are found in the dance called "Nachtanz".
This is a difficult dance because it's very fast and there are limited steps to it. There are only three moves: natural turns, reverse turns and change steps.
A dance developed from a Cuban Rumba step. English dance teacher Pierre Lavelle visited Cuba in 1952, he realised that sometimes the Rumba was danced with extra beats. When he returned to Britain, he started teaching these steps as a separate dance.
The Cha Cha is a lively energetic dance that all new comers to Latin American dance fall in love with and new comers to dance will find it easy to follow and great fun to dance.
During the summer of 1914, actor Harry Fox was appearing in shows in New York with Yansci Dolly and featured a new dance in his performance. People at the "Jardin de Danse" on the roof of the New York Theatre soon started to copy the act that Harry was putting on downstairs, leading them to refer to the dance as "Fox's Trot".
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of the blues, and . Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s. An early form of rock and roll was , which combined country and with influences from traditional Appalachian folk music and gospel.
This style of Tango is thought to have been demonstrated in Paris in around 1906, but was so different from the other dances of the time it was considered somewhat obscene. It was modified to match with European tastes in dancing, and later became the first dance to be codified as a ballroom dance in the 1920s. Additional staccato movements were added in the 1950s to produce the Ballroom Tango as danced today.
The Paso Doble is based on the bullfight. The man represents the bullfighter, 'Torero', and the lady the red cape or 'cappa'. It is danced to the characteristic march music used for procession at the beginning of a corrida.
From its beginnings in 1927, the dance soon became associated with youth. Older people disapproved of it and tried to ban it from dance halls, claiming Jive was non-progressive and disturbed other dancers on the floor. It was brought to Europe by American G.Is during the Second World War, but the dance was forced to go underground due to its 'corrupting influence'.
Still relatively new compared to other Latin American dances, Cuban Salsa is the most original form of Salsa. It was created by Cubans who immigrated to New York and mixed Salsa with elements of Rock and Roll, the main difference from the New York Mambo style is that in the Cuban Salsa dancers move around the floor and around each other in a circular motion.
separate dance.
The dance relies on the age-old premise of the lady trying to dominate the man by means of her womanly charms. Incorporating all the elements of teasing and withdrawal, it is considered the most sensual of the Latin dances.
The Rumba otherwise known as the dance of love is a slow latin dance which requires you not just to dance but also to act out the role of two people in love. The woman tempting her man bringing him in close and then withdrawing making her man want her all the more.