Dancing Blog South Africa

Yes. At Elise School of Dance we offer vouchers. This is how they work. You choose the course that you wish to attend or you can buy a voucher for private lessons. Once the classes are paid for we prepare a voucher for you and e-mail it to the recipient whenever you wish them to get it. You will be cc’d on the mail so that you know that it has been sent. All vouchers are non-refundable but they can be transfered. If you buy a voucher for someone that doesn’t want to use the voucher they can give it to someone else to attend in their place.

If you would like to purchase a voucher you can call 082-955-4604 or CLICK HERE.

Learning to dance like anything has a learning curve and it is important to be taught by someone that is good and teaching and not necessarily someone that is good at dancing.

The saying those than can do and those that can’t teach is absolutely not true. I know a lot of great dancers that cannot teach and a lot of great teachers that are not such good dancers.

At Elise Krog School of dance we focus on good teachers that make you feel relaxed and comfortable. They do not show off in class and their focus is on the pupils and not themselves. If you can’t get it right the first time then we try again. We keep trying until we explain it in a way that you understand. Everyone has a different way of learning and our teachers are trained to pick up on that.

Our focus is people that cannot dance. We teach moves simply and very very slowly with a lot of time to practise. For more information go to http://www.dancing.co.za.

Group dancing classes are good to teach you the basics of a lot of different dances so that when different music plays you know different moves which makes dancing more interesting and exciting. When preparing your actual opening dance it is great to have at least 1 but at least 3 private lessons where you can prepare an opening on how to move onto the dance floor and also choose which dance to do to the music you have chosen. This is also assuming you have been to group classes to learn the basics. If you are total beginners and wish to do only private lessons then 3-6 lessons would be recommended.

Both Ballroom and Latin American dances are a lot of fun and I prefer my pupils to do a combination of all dances. At my studios we focus on Waltz (for those odd occations that you may need it socially), Foxtrot, Hustle and Cha-Cha-Cha at the beginning as these are the dances that you are the most likely to use when going to a party or office function. After mastering a few variations in those dances we move onto Quickstep, Salsa, Rhumba and Jive while continuing to teach new variations in the Waltz, Foxtrot, Hustle and Cha-Cha-Cha. The longer you continue with dancing lessons the more dances and variations you will learn.

Both forms of dance are danced with a partner but that is where the similarity ends. To explain in a few lines so that anybody can understand here goes – Ballroom Dances are smooth and graceful whereas Latin American is funkier and use the hips. Ballroom Dances are Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Tango, Passo Doble and the Latin American dances are Cha-Cha-Cha, Samba, Rhumba, Jive, Mambo. Salsa and Hustle are also Latin American dances.

Here is an article that I found at http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~don/pubs/modern.html

ABSTRACT

This article traces the history of the International Dancesport championship “Modern Standard Ballroom” dances: Viennese Waltz, Modern Waltz, Tango, Slow Foxtrot, and Quickstep.

INTRODUCTION

The five ballroom dances: Modern Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Slow Foxtrot, and Quickstep, are danced the world over both socially and in DanceSport competitions.

The word ‘ballroom’ denotes a room where balls may be held: that is: formal social dances. Balls were important social events in the days before radio and television (as in ‘having a ball’). The word ‘ball’ derives from the Latin ‘ballare’ meaning ‘to dance’. This is also the origin of the related words : ballet, ballerina, ballad, etc. Note that this origin is quite different from that of a ‘ball’: a round object used for games. This derives from the Old Norse : ‘bollr’, meaning ‘to inflate’.

The figures in the modern ballroom dances have now been standardised and categorised into various levels for teaching, with internationally agreed vocabularies, techniques, rhythms and tempos. But it was not always so.

These ‘Standard Ballroom’ dances have diverse origins. rhythms, tempos, and aesthetics, but have one thing in common: they are all danced by a couple (usually a man and a lady) in ‘Closed Hold’, maintaining five areas of contact between the partners while performing all the figures of the dances.

THE HOLD

The closed ballroom hold requires the maintenance of five points of contact between the partners while they are dancing. These consist of three hand contacts:

1. the man's left hand holding the lady's right hand,

2. the lady's left hand resting on the top of the man's
right upper arm (behind the arm in the Tango),

3. the man's right hand placed on the left shoulder blade on the
back of the lady.

In addition to these 3 hand contacts, there are two more areas of contact:

4.  the lady's left elbow rests on the man's right elbow,

5. the right area of the chest of each partner touches that of
the other.

Ideally, in this hold, the lady’s upper arms are both held horizontal by a suitable placement of the man’s arms and hands. This not only makes it comfortable for the lady to follow the man’s lead, but also gives the couple a deportment of regal appearance. This deportment is a characteristic of dances coming from Western Europe , and is a heritage of the origin of ballroom dancing in the royal courts of Europe. The erect and fixed torso is even more evident in Classical Ballet, which had the same origins (Clarke, 1981,96).

The peculiar ballroom dancing “Closed Hold” possibly had its origins in the time when men wore swords while dancing. This can be seen in the print by Hans Sebald Beham (1500-1550), and in the illustrations in Fabrito Caroso’s “Il Ballarino” of 1581 (Lindahl, 1996), although illustrations predating this time show men dancing without swords but with the ladies on their right nevertheless.

s most men are right handed, it was conventional to wear the sword and scabbard on the left-hand side of the belt, to facilitate the drawing of the sword with the right hand. It is hard to draw a sword with the right hand with the scabbard on the right. Thus if a man was to put his arm around a lady’s back, she would have to be on his right, or she would keep tripping over the sword.

For a simple promenade around the floor, the man would naturally take the inside of the circle, so that his sword did not hit the legs of the audience around them, and the woman would be on his right arm on the outside of the circle. They would then have to promenade anti-clockwise which is probably the origin of the anti-clockwise progression of the ballroom dances around the floor.

As most women are shorter than most men, it might be considered natural for the man’s right arm to be above the woman’s left. The resting of the lady’s left elbow on top of the man’s right elbow is probably a hangover from the days when lady’s were socially restrained from making advances to a man: the man always had to take the initiative: he offered, and the lady either accepted or rejected. He would offer his right arm for support, and if she accepted, she would lay hers on top. One aspect of this elbow contact is that the man must keep his right shoulder over his right hip and not twist at the waist, and he must also keep his right elbow in front of the line of his shoulders, if the lady is to feel comfortable.

The man would reasonably then offer his left hand for the lady to hold for additional balance while dancing. The facing of the palm of the man’s left hand and the lady’s right hand has its origins in the same social gender constraints as described above: the man offers his hand (palm up), and the lady accepts by putting hers on the man’s (palm down). This orientation of palms has the advantage of allowing each partner to keep their wrists straight, and the hand in line with the lower arm, giving aesthetically pleasing lines. This is hard for the man as he also has to keep his left elbow up at the same height as the shoulder, and the left shoulder down, and so it requires the maintenance of a 180 degree twist in the man’s wrist. Thus many teachers advocate other easier but less elegant palm alignments.

The social expectation of male initiative is of course also the reason that conventionally in ballroom dancing, the man “leads”, and the lady “follows”: i.e. the man is basically responsible for the choregraphy and directions of travel. The non-trivial female responsibility is to follow this lead without apparent effort, and to look beautiful. A common saying is that the man is the ‘frame’ and the lady is the ‘picture’.

Here is an article I found here http://www-staff.it.uts.edu.au/~don/pubs/latin.html

INTRODUCTION

Many dances popular around the world have originated in Latin America, for example the Bolero, Carimbo, Conga, Cueca, Cumbia, Joropo, Lambada, Macarena, Mambo, Merengue, Rueda, and the Salsa. Three such dances : the Samba, Rumba, and Cha Cha, plus the Paso Doble from Europe and the Jive from North America, have been singled out and are now performed all over the world as Latin-American dances in international DanceSport competitions, as well as being danced socially. These dances are for couples, usually each consisting of a man and a lady. The holds vary from figure to figure in these dances, sometimes in closed ballroom hold, sometimes with the partners holding each other with only one hand. The figures in these dances are standardised and categorised into various levels for teaching, with internationally agreed vocabularies, techniques, rhythms and tempos. But it was not always so. These ‘Latin-American’ dances were only been introduced into Western-European society in the twentieth century, and have some diverse origins in previous eras.

The Romance languages (for example : Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Rumanian) are derived from the ancient Latin language, and define a culture that has spread over a substantial part of the Americas. Three dances from this area plus one from Spain/France and one from the U.S.A. constitute the set of dances now internationally standardised as the ‘Latin-American’ dances. Note that the term ‘Latin-American’ here is an abbreviation of ‘Latin and American’ rather than a reference to the geographic area of ‘Latin America’ (Margolie, 1975, 1).

The three dances from Latin America evolved as a fusion of Indigenous, European and Negro forms. The European conquerors imported Negro slaves from various parts of West Africa into a large part of the Americas at an early stage, mainly because of the difficulty the Europeans had in persuading the Indigenes to work for them. The African slaves were imported in such number that by 1553, they outnumbered the Europeans in Mexico, and the Viceroy, Luis de Velasco, urged Charles V of Spain to prohibit further influx (Sadie, 1980, 10/522).

Dancing played a substantial part in all three component cultures: European, Negro and Indigenous. In 1569, the Viceroy of Mexico ordered the Aztec Calendar Stone to be buried because the main recreation of the Negroes had become dancing around it. Subsequently, Velasco decreed that dancing be confined to Sundays and feast days only, and then only in the afternoons between the hours of noon and 6 p.m. (Sadie, 1980, 10/522).

Through the 17th and 18th centuries, a gradual fusion of the three cultures occurred to produce a new culture: Creole. As European dances were imported into Latin America, they were adopted and ‘creolized’ (Sadie, 1980, 10/529). In Cuba, the Contradance became the Contradanza Habanera (i.e., from Havana) with the adoption of a syncopated rhythm: (Sadie, 1980, 5/86)

There are many ways that you can go about doing this evening of dance. The costs differ substantially so that is often the deciding factor as to which option to choose.

You can start before the time and get the couples that are going to compete to learn their dances before hand. There are a few options for this as well. The people can dance with each other from the office or their partners at home or each person could dance with a professional dancer as they do on the television version of Strictly Come Dancing. For each person to dance with a professional dancer is the most expensive option. Within the format of coupling people from colleges at work or with partners from home a few options are available. They can each do a choreographed dance or they can all learn together and improvise on the dance floor using the steps that they have already learnt.

Another option is to get the competing couples to come a few hours before the function to the venue to learn some moves and then dance in front of the other guests doing the moves that they have just learnt. This is the cheapest option of all three.

If you need any more information you can click here and fill out the contact form on the website.

I have not had this request many times but I don’t recommend dancing without your partner. You need to learn to dance with each other as much as you need to learn the moves. If one partner is much weaker than the other then some extra lessons for the weaker partner can be a good idea to catch them up to their partner. Half of the fun of dance lessons is the together time that you get to spend.

Hi Everyone. We started some new classes in Midrand last night and everyone had a great time. Thank for all of those that participated and we look forward to seeing you during the course of the month. For those that are interested in starting in October you can CLICK HERE.

The classes in September are going great guns. They are looking fantastic and learning really quickly.

Not too late. It is too late to do something spectacular but not too late to look decent on the dance floor for your opening wedding dance. You will need private lessons only at this stage but 3 private lessons can be enough to do a nice intro and some cool moves. I have even had a couple once that only had time for one lesson and they learnt enough simple moves to not make fools of themselves on the dance floor. The feedback was that everything went well and they are glad that they rather had one lesson that nothing at all. If you would like to book some lessons you can go and have a look at our times available for private lessons.

I always think that if people can dance then weddings are always so much for fun for them. I think that it looks really great for the bridal party to be the first to join the wedding couple on the dance floor. If they all join in a group class it can be a fun family activity and then they all know the same dance moves which enables the bride and groom to easily dance with their parents. For more information click here.

I once did a dance with the bridal couple and 4 other couples for the main wedding dance. They all came on to the dance floor together doing the same move and then lined up and did the same sequence of moves of the cha-cha-cha. It looked fantastic. We all had a lot of fun in class and the dance came out really well in the end. I wish that I could have been a fly on the wall at that wedding. It really is something to consider as it introduces a great vibe to the wedding which gets everyone in the mood to dance and party and have a great time. It is also a conversation piece after the event. Your wedding will be more memorial if you do something different.

If considering doing a group dance then remember that you need to have comitted and reliable people dancing in the group.