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| internet source: Social Dances |
As a dance learner, it is quite straightforward to think like focusing on one and only one dance means to dig the deepest of that one favourite dance, and so such a specialist should be an expert in that. If I am doing that intensively and constantly, I can develop all necessary skills to follow or to lead even a beginner, I am going to have fun and be pretty when the right music is played. So I am really going to shine on the floor with that dance!
As a social dance goer, I probably would like to know as many dances as possible even though I may not be god at each of them. Social dancers need mainly to have fun in most of the social nights, and a few basic moves for each dance will be enough as anyway partners are just random and quite unlikely to develop highly advanced skills with anyone in clubs.
Good point for both. But there is one thing that neither the one-dance geek nor the causal dancer thinks about: all dances actually share the same elementary foundation. It is so true that technique for one dance always inspires the others, and they influence each other during the evolution (read Dance History at a Glance, & Dance History Intertwined).
If you dance the International Style, you are already dancing ten dances, which cover almost all tempo, time signature, style, and commonly used patterns such as Chasse, rock, whisk, ball change... If you are just a party goer, you can just stay at this level and still be having enough fun with these skills. If you are keen, the ten dances have quite a coverage and at the same time very organised. Learning International Style systematically can absolutely bring to the next level in terms of dance technique. If you are crazy about it, International Style is by far the most widely danced Dance Style on the world that you can enter competitions with a range of international organisations. If you are serious enough about dancing, the very tidily developed syllabi ensure you to acquire the needed knowledge to improve your own dancing, or even to make you eligible for teaching dancing.
The best of all, if you are good at these ten International dances, it is extremely easy for you to handle the other Latin dances (Merengue, Mambo, Salsa, Bachata, Lambada, Kizomba, Zouk etc), Swing Dances (Hustle, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Rock n Roll, Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, LeRoc Modern Jive) or any other partner dances, even Line dances (Para Para included) become pieces of cake. Therefore, if you learn ten dances, you actually have a number of bonus dances! Even though Argentine Tango has quite a different frame from the Ballroom Tango, the footwork, surprisingly, does not go too far away from Latin dances, thus you can probably pick the dance up much faster than the others.
Surely if you are really into one particular dance, there is no reason why you shouldn't focus on that one and only one dance that makes you crazy. There is absolutely fine until one day you want to be a teacher of that dance.
What happens when you want to one day be a dance teacher yourself? Talk about it next time.
Why 10 Dances?
part 1- 10 dances give bonus dances (you are here)
part 2- more is more
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