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Variation**Vertical
Motion**Verve**Vibes**Vibrate**Viennese
Waltz
Video
Instructional Tapes**Vine**Vision
Mixer**Visual
Marking**Vows
of the competitor
VARIATION is a varied and
more advanced figure, additional to the basic figures.
VARIATIONS: Any movement of footwork that is different from the original footwork.
VARIATIONS are the step patterns beyond the basics, which add change, variety and fluctuation to the dance.
VARIATION: A solo dance.
VERTICAL MOTION is an up and down movement or style used in Samba. To achieve this action, place an object on the floor and dance the basic Samba (forward and back) over it. This style adds buoyancy to the Samba - also known as the Samba bounce.
VERVE is the dash and energy or force and life with which a dancer or a couple dances (see animation).
VIBES: An attitude or atmosphere that exists among dancers that is either good or bad - 'we've got a great vibe going' or 'there's a bad vibe between us'. Vibe is an abbreviation of vibration, so the tone or pitch between two dancers can be either pleasant or noisy.
VIBRATE is a high velocity quiver of the shoulders, limbs and body to effect a double-up action to the music. Vibration is purely a show of delicate choreography and extreme musical prowess and belongs mainly to the advanced dancers.
The Sakkie Waltz is the South African 'Boere Musiek' version of the Viennese Waltz which has a pronounced dipping action on count 1 and an abrupt rise on counts 2, 3. The Viennese Waltz is a dance performed to music with 3 beats to the bar. This means that if a step is taken on each beat, then each bar starts with the opposite foot to that of the previous bar. This can be a source of great difficulty for the beginner, but when mastered gives the dance a delightful romantic lilt.
The first record of a dance to 3/4 rhythm is a peasant dance of the Provence area of France in 1559, as a piece of folk music called the Volta, although the Volta has also been claimed to be an Italian folk dance at this time. The word 'volta' means 'the turn' in Italian. Thus, even in its earliest days, the dance appears to have involved the couple turning as they danced.
During the 16th Century, the Volta became popular in the royal courts of Western Europe. Arbeau describes it as like a Galliard (done to 3/2 music) but done to slow 6/4 music. Actually both it and the Galliard had 5 steps to 6 beats (and hence also alternated feet in alternate measures).
The Volta required the partners to dance in a closed position but with the lady to the left of the man! The man held the lady about the waist, and the lady put her right arm on the man's shoulders, and held her skirt with her left. This was necessary to stop it flying up, because the dance involved the man lifting the lady. A famous illustration of this dance is a contemporary painting said to be of Elizabeth I of England dancing the Volta with the Earl of Leicester, being lifted in the air by her partner (at Penshurst Place, Kent). This description is probably facetious, as the painting appears to be from the French Valois court.
The Volta appears to be similar to a present day Norwegian Waltz folk-dance. As in any turning dance, as the couple performs their steps around their partner, they have to take a larger than usual step to get from one side of their partner to the other. In this Norwegian Waltz, the man assists the lady to do this by lifting her into the air as she takes this step (thus neatly accommodating the general difference in leg length of the partners).
In those days, to dance the Volta, the partners had to hold each other in such a close embrace that many declared it immoral. Louis XIII (1610-1613) had it banned from court on this account. Thus, although the Volta may have originally been in 3 time, it evolved to be in 5 time. One of the first published dances in 3 time was 'Hole in the Wall' published by Playford in 1695. In 1754 the first music for the actual 'Waltzen' appeared in Germany.
In 1812 the dance was introduced into England under the name of the German Waltz. It caused a great sensation, and Lord Byron, when he first saw it, found his lady friend clasped closely by 'a huge hussar-looking gentleman, turning round and round to a confounded see-saw, up-down sort of turn like 2 cockchafers spitted on the same bodkin' The 9 steps of the Waltz in 1816 by Thomas Wilson.
Through the 19th Century, the danced stabilised, and was further popularised by the music of Josef and Johann Strauss. Currently, the Viennese Waltz is danced at a tempo of about 180 beats per minute or 60 bars/measures per minute, with a limited range of figures: change steps, hesitations, hovers, passing changes, natural and reverse turns, (travelling or on the spot as Fleckerls) and the contra-check.
TIME: 3/4. Three beats to the bar.
TEMPO: Music should be played at 54-60 bars a minute.
BASIC RHYTHM: There are no 'Slows' and 'Quicks' in the Viennese Waltz. Count 1, 2, 3 with the 1st beat accented.
VIDEO INSTRUCTIONAL TAPES are audio and visual recordings of dances, their step patterns and the technical instructions that pertain to these dances.
VINE: A continuous travelling step pattern to the side with crosses behind or in front - a weave action (see grapevine).
VISION MIXER: The person who controls the succession of images from one camera to another, in television.
VISUAL MARKING is when the marks of couples are displayed publicly or visually, straight after the dancers have completed their performance, as is done in Ice-skating.
