Choreographed Ballroom or Round Dancing is fun and for Everyone!
Information and Places to Learn More About Round Dancing
For more information on Choreographed ballroom dancing:
http:www.danceroundoutyourlife.com
http://www.you2candance.com/
http://www.rounddancing.net/dance/
http://www.roundalab.org
What is Round Dancing
It has been called Choreographed Ballroom Dancing
Round Dancing is basically choreographed ballroom dancing with all couples dancing the same figures around the floor at the same time, similar to a formation dance team or to sequence dancing. Over the last 50+ years thousands of routines have been choreographed to match specific music in almost every dance style imaginable. A routine done to a specific piece of music in Colorado USA is almost always the same routine you would do to that music in Japan or any other place worldwide at the same level of difficulty.
Another distinguishing characteristic of Round Dancing is the use of a "cuer". Since there are far too many routines to memorize, a cuer calls out the name of each figure in the routine just before it is to be executed. If you have a memory lapse or are unfamiliar with a particular routine or figure, you can continue progressing with the dance flow until you get to a spot or a figure that you recognize.
Round Dancers learn from day 1 to associate each foot pattern with the figure name. This makes it easier to teach future routines since the dancer has a repertoire of figures at their fingertips (okay ‘foottips’). The average dancer has a repitoire of hundreds of routines and will typically dance 20-60 of these routines during the average evening. Clubs and classes in addition to putting on known routines will also typically teach part or all of a new routine or work on figures each evening.
Round Dances are phased -- There are 6 levels of round dancing called phases. Phases 1 & 2 are "easy level" and include 2-step (similar to a type of country western dancing) and waltz . Phase 3 & 4 are the intermediate levels and include additional waltz figures in addition to introductions to other rhythms in the International & American styles. Phase 5 & 6 take dancers into the upper levels of dancing, including most of the figures you see at ballroom competitions.