A Tale of Two Dances Part 2: Quickstep – by Cassie Tucker
In today’s instalment, DK Ballroom Instructor Cassie Tucker looks at the origins of one of Standard Ballroom’s newer dances, the Quickstep…
A Tale of Two Dances Part 2: Quickstep
Quickstep has a very unique history of originally being a march…
A Tale of Two Dances Part 1: Foxtrot – by Cassie Tucker
In today’s instalment, DK Ballroom Instructor Cassie Tucker looks at the origins of one of Standard Ballroom’s newer (and elegantly smooth) dances, the Foxtrot…
Once upon a time in the year 1912, ragtime music was all the rage and a new dancing sensation was emerging in the African America Nightclubs…
What makes a dance Progressive? – by Cassie Tucker
DK Instructor Cassie Tucker asks, What makes a dance Progressive?
Here is an interesting fact you might not know. The term progressive can mean different things when used in conjunction with dance. For one, it simply means a dance where you keep changing partners; where one partner “progresses” to the next.
New Vogue vs Sequence Dance: Is there a difference? – by Cassie Tucker
DK Instructor Cassie Tucker discusses New Vogue and Sequence Dancing.
You would have no doubt heard the term New Vogue mentioned at DK. On occasion, you may also have heard the term “Sequence Dance” used, maybe while searching for routines on the internet, talking with people from different studios or even heard the term used by guest teachers.
Follows. Not following but Follows. – by Chris Bruce
DK Ballroom Instructor Chris Bruce explains what Follows are in regards to Ballroom dancing (in Standard & Latin).
Generally, when we think of follow in dancing we think of “lead and follow”. In ballroom dancing one partner (traditionally, the man) is the leader and the other (traditionally, the lady) is the follower.
Aspects of Standard Ballroom Music, Part 5, Time Signature – by Chris Bruce
In the previous article in this series we looked at how music is divided into groups of beats called bars or measures. But how do we know how many beats are in each bar. To determine this, we need to look at the Time Signature. The Time Signature describes the number of beats in each bar (or measure) of a piece of music, and the type of beat.
Aspects of Standard Ballroom Music, Part 4, Bars or Measures – by Chris Bruce
DK Ballroom Instructor Chris Bruce
In this series to date we’ve looked at Beat (the rhythmical pulse in music) and Tempo (the speed at which music is played, focusing on measuring Tempo in Beats per minute). We listened to some soundbites in the last post which demonstrated the range of Tempos used in Standard ballroom, but those soundbites consisted of a monotonous series of drumbeats. We could march to this. Possibly we could dance to it.
Aspects of Standard Ballroom Music, Part 3, Tempo – by Chris Bruce
DK Ballroom Instructor Chris Bruce
Tempo defines the speed at which the music is played. In Ballroom Dancing Tempo is typically measured in bars (or measures) per minute. Musicians, on the other hand, will often refer to Tempo in beats per minute. Both are commonly abbreviated to bpm (though bars per minute may also be abbreviated to mpm for measures per minute).
Aspects of Standard Ballroom Music, Part 2, Beat – by Chris Bruce
DK Ballroom Instructor Chris Bruce
We can define Beat as the steady pulse in a piece of music. It’s that pulse that you’d naturally clap along to or tap your foot to. A Beat is a pulse of time. A ticking clock is a good example. Every minute, the second hand ticks 60 times, and each one of those ticks is a beat.
Aspects of Standard Ballroom Music, Part 1, Introduction – by Chris Bruce
Let me start with a quote from George Balanchine, Artistic Director of the New York Ballet for more than 35 years:
I don’t want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.
I love this quote. I have it on an old T-shirt that I can’t bear to throw away, even though it’s way past its use-by date.