Usually when music starts, people start to dance. People tend
to think that the music should fit a particular dance style, and they all dance
the same thing when the music starts. I used to think that way too and sometimes
got confused whether a piece of fast music should be Jive or Quickstep, a very
fast song with heavy Latin feel should be Samba or Salsa, a neat two-beat sounded
quite like Tango but also Paso Doble-able.
After some more professional exams and some more of studying,
I now know that it is not impossible to dance different dances at the same time
to the same music on the same floor. The Dance
Floor Etiquette explains a lot. It is because our floor, ideally, should be
zoned in which different dances are danced in the specified area. If there is
only one dance on the floor, we will not be required to study the etiquette.
But how does it happen? Surely we need some basic dance
musicality so that we can match the dances and the music. To start with, we
need to have a basic knowledge of the features of different dances, “Musical
Fact Sheet for Different Dance Styles” is just a quick note for you, from
the chart we can see that Bolero and West Coast Swing can share common music; East
Coast Swing, American Rumba and American Foxtrot can be danced to the same
song, Salsa and Mambo are a pair too. Check it carefully and you can find a lot
of possibilities. And of course, Line Dancing can be danced to all music so
Line Dancers can always stay at the centre.
So we can see that it is possible to have East Coast Swing at
the centre, American Rumba in the inner circle, and American Foxtrot in the outer
circle. It may take time to build the courage to Foxtrot when the rest are all
Swing-ing- you may told that you are dancing the wrong dance (I am always told
not to dance differently), BUT always remember you are not wrong.
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