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Quick Links: Introduction, Dances and Styles, Informative Files, My Dancing (separate page), Ballroom At Maryland, Schools, Studios, and Organizations, Other Links

My Ballroom Dancing Page

Welcome to my page on ballroom dancing. I've been dancing for a while now and I figured that it's about time I made up my own page devoted solely to the one form of dancing that I enjoy. You'll find various things here including links to other pages, any good information I can find, stuff I feel like putting up here for my own information so that I know where it is and don't lose it, and anything else ballroom related that I want to put here. I have a separate page for information about my ballroom dancing, both socially and competitively, in case you're interested. Hopefully you'll find at least some of the information and links here useful.

The Dances and Styles

There are two main styles of ballroom dancing -- American and International. American style is danced primarily in, you guessed it, America. :) It's also not as standardized as International style, which is danced just about everywhere else in the world (and in the US, too). Here in the US where I am, American style tends to be used more often for social dancing while International style tends to be used primarily in competitions. This doesn't mean that you can't compete in American style or dance International style socially. Personally, I prefer International style and dance it socially all the time. :) People will dance either American or International style socially, as they choose, and competitions normally include both styles as well, so it's good to know both styles (at least in the US).

As for the dances themselves, they are grouped into two categories for each style. In American style, the categories are called Smooth and Rhythm and in International style they are called Standard and Latin. For the most part, the Standard and Smooth categories contain the same dances and the Latin and Rhythm categories contain basically the same dances. Here's the breakdown of the dances (at least the ones used in competitions) by style and category followed by the usual abbreviations used for each. There are placed in the order that they are danced in competitions.

And for anyone who may be interested, I found my copy of a file that lists the 1993 ISTD standard syllabus changes. The revisions to the ISTD latin syllabus have just recently been completed and here are the 1998-2000 ISTD latin syllabus changes (the info's there now, but I may try to clean it up a bit later). Since most web pages with the latin syllabus still have the old one, I've put the new one along with the standard syllabus into one page with the ISTD standard and latin syllabi (or jump straight to the new latin syllabus). Also for your information, the ISTD has issued samba technique errata; these are the corrections that should be made in the new samba technique book. I expect that the old syllabus will still be used in competitions for a while, but at least you'll know some of the changes to expect later. I was also going to put up some descriptions of the dances, but found a site that did it already -- check out The 10 Dances which are listed for the International style dances and include a little about the history of each dance and its characteristics. Here's another section specifically on dancesport history. Both of the above pages come from The World Dance Plaza. If you're having some trouble recognizing what dance you can do to the songs being played, check out this nice basic article called What Kind of Dance Are They Playing? by Will Adams. I'm hoping to add some more information about the individual dances when I decide what what would be good to say about them and I have the time to put it up here.

For completeness, I ought to mention the other dances that also tend to be done at dances I go to even though they aren't strictly ballroom. When any of these dances are done at comps, they are put into the "fun" or "non-traditional" category. The ones I can recall include hustle, salsa, merengue, polka, west coast swing, argentine tango, and lindy. I don't really know these dances yet, but I do hope to learn them someday.

If you're watching ballroom dancing and wondering how to distinguish between International and American styles, here are two points to look out for that may help. What dance positions are used is probably the easiest way to tell apart the Standard and Smooth dances. International Standard is danced almost exclusively in closed dance positions while American Smooth allows more open work where the partners can separate from each other and dance in open positions. The Latin and Rhythm dances tend to be a bit harder to tell apart. The dancers' leg action is probably the best clue as to which style they're dancing here. In American Rhythm, the dancers will use a bent leg action allowing them to delay their change of weight on the step, so you will frequently see them with bent legs. However, in International Latin, the dancers usually have the look of two straight legs which comes from the faster change of weight on the step. There are of courses differences in the moves/steps/figures allowed as well as other things, but it can get complicated and I don't know all the differences myself anyway.

Assorted Informative Files

Steps, Figures, Combinations, etc.

In my travels around the web, I've come across various pages with information on ballroom dancing that I found useful. The Rec.Arts.Dance FAQ is a good place to look for info on ballroom dancing. The newsgroup rec.arts.dance is for the discussion of all forms of dancing, but ballroom dancing is usually one of the dominant forms discussed there. Looking for routines or dance steps and descriptions? Well, luckily I've found some places for you to look. There are both dance steps and routines at the Gotta Dance site, there are American style steps (and other things) available at BallroomDancers.com, some basics are provided by the Ballroom Dance Group, and lots of steps in different types of swing are on the Swing Dance Server. If you're into mambo/salsa dancing, you might want to check out these salsa dance patterns and there's quite a few of them. :) In addition, if you're interested, I wrote an article for my local chapter of USABDA (the Mid-Eastern Chapter) on on the different ballroom dance books that I own. It was published in the Fall 1998 edition of the Capital Dance Connection. The article here is the full version that I submitted; it was trimmed down a bit to fit the available space in the newsletter, but nothing important was taken out. I have bought some more books since then, so if you'd like my comments about them, feel free to ask. I've got a pretty good collection of technique books. :) I've also collected a list of dance steps and step combinations from the classes I've taken so far. Also, a new addition and something that seems to be next to impossible to find on the web, the phrasing for Spanish Gypsy Dance. As you may know, this is the song traditionally used for paso doble in competition and if it's not Spanish Gypsy Dance, then it's at least got the same phrasing. Many thanks to Henry Neeman for providing this information and allowing me to post it; just note that some versions of the song do vary the phrasing a little, so this may not exactly match your favorite version of the song.

Dance Etiquette

I've also found a few files on dance etiquette: there's a page on the Elements of Dance Etiquette and a sort of sequel called Beyond Dance Etiquette, some short articles about dancing graces mixed in along with a bunch of other articles, another one on ballroom dance etiquette from the Harvard Medical Area Ballroom Dance Club, and a whole set of articles from the Rec.Arts.Dance FAQ on general tips and social graces. Just about anything you want to know about dance etiquette should be answered in one or more of these files. However, I have also tried to put together some of the more important ones into my own file on ballroom dancing etiquette.

Competition Help

For a little competition help, you might like to check out a list of things to pack to a competition from the CMU club, a page on the essentials of dance competitions, or take a look at my notes on competitions that I took from a workshop given by our dance teacher (it's geared towards beginners, but there's still a bunch of useful information in there). If you're interested, here's an article about How a Dance Competition is Judged, a description of the skating system used to judge ballroom comps, and you can read through the USA DanceSport Rulebook on line. I've also put together a page with some very abridged rules about comps (mainly info on the dances, levels, and music). Some of the information comes from my friends at GW and their competitor's FAQ and the rest comes from the USA DanceSport rulebook. Please note that since Fall 1999 the rules have changed for college competitions and a new proficiency point system has been instituted for determining level eligibility.

The Ballroom At Maryland Club

As a grad student at the University of Maryland, I'm part of the ballroom dance club here at school. The club is called Ballroom At Maryland (BAM) and we're one of the largest college clubs in the DC area. We arrange weekly outings every weekend to a local dance studio or school or something. The outing for this week is on the main page if that's all you want to know where we're going this weekend. Some of our club members like to compete as well and those that do join the competition team and attend a number of different comps through the year. Our club has also arranged to give dance classes and there are a lot to choose from. We offer dance classes in both American and International style ballroom as well as nightclub dancing (mainly hustle, merengue, and salsa/mambo) and recently added in classes in Lindy swing. In addition to all this, we host a competition each year with help from the other DC area ballroom clubs. We now also have a partner matching service available thanks to our friends up at MIT who are hosting this on their server for us. I don't think I'll say too much more about the club here because otherwise I'd basically be reproducing the club's web page. :) Check out the BAM web page (which I help to maintain :) ) to find out more about our club and ballroom dancing in general. BTW, a number of the links on the club's link page were borrowed/copied from my list below so don't be surprised if you see a bunch of repeats.

Schools, Studios, and Organizations

Colleges and Universities:
Here are links to the ballroom dance clubs of some other colleges and universities that BAM has contact with. Some are nearby schools, others are places we go to for competitions and/or social dances.

Studios:
These are a few of the dance studios that we go to for social dances. You can find information about the dance classes they offer and their upcoming dance parties on these web pages.

Organizations:
Just a few links to some of the ballroom dance organizations that exist.

Ballroom Sites Around the Web

If you're looking for more information than I've presented here you can check out some of these locations.

And if you're looking for dance steps, etiquette information, or a few competition tips, then you'll have to head back up to the informative files section of this page. Some good sites are listed there, so I didn't include them all again down here.

James Marshall
dronak@yahoo.com (plain ASCII text only, please, here's why)
This page was last updated on December 2, 2005.

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