
Dance Styles
Slow Waltz:
A partner dance in 3/4 meter and danced at 28-32 measures per minute time, with the count one-two-three, one-two-three often used. This dance is a progressive dance and is danced in a counter-clockwise direction around the dance floor. Waltz is a smooth dance style characterized by its graceful rise and fall motion. Generally, it moves with a weighted step on every beat.
Viennese Waltz:
A partner dance in 3/4 time and danced at 54-60 measures per minute time. This dance is a progressive dance and is danced in a counter-clockwise direction around the dance floor. Viennese Waltz is strongly characterized by the circular motion of the partners rotating around each other as they progress down line of dance. The Viennese waltz dance is the original waltz danced to Strauss’s three beat music compositions. Slower tempo waltzes evolved in England and the United States to fit the slower waltz music that became popular later.
Fox Trot:
A partner dance in 4/4 meter and danced at 28-34 measures per minute time. This dance is a progressive dance and is danced in the counter-clockwise direction around the dance floor. The Foxtrot is characterized by long continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. While Foxtrot is a smooth dance it is customarily danced to the same music as swing, and is an excellent dance for slower tempo music. It uses both six and eight count patterns, although breaking from the rhythm is also a common practice; for example, using all quicks or slows.
Quickstep:
A partner dance in 4/4 meter and danced at 50-52 measures per minute time. This dance is a progressive dance and is danced in the counter-clockwise direction around the dance floor. It is an elegant but quick tempo dance characterized by high-energy and an exhilarating sense of flight and gliding. It moves briskly using runs, lock steps, quarter turns, hops, chasses and a syncopated rhythm. The Quickstep is sometimes considered a choice to any musical selection that is too fast for Foxtrot or that contains a swing rhythm.
​Polka:
A partner dance in 2/4 meter and danced at 60-62 measures per minute. The Polka originated in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in the middle of the 19th century. It is a folk dance and the style can vary from a beer barrel party to a smooth Strauss march style.
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East Coast Swing:
An upbeat Dance characterized by the a-2, a-4 snychopation in the beat. This term typically includes Jitterbug, Lindy Hop, Charleston, Balboa and Collegiate shag.
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West Coast Swing:
A more modern contemporary version of Swing that is
