PE 103-Physical Fitness Towards Health and Fitness 1

SOCIAL DANCING

Introduction to Social Dancing

Social dancing is partner dancing that is informal, relaxed, and danced for the enjoyment

of the partners - rather than to meet the criteria of a dance school or an audience. Social dancing

is danced for enjoyment, socialization, recreation and health. The test for social dancing success

is how much the dance partners have enjoyed the dance - not how they have danced in the eyes

of others or how "correctly" they have danced.

Social dancing has no standardized teaching or learning curriculum. Social dance teachers

teach steps and techniques they have come to prefer or what they hunch their students will prefer.

The steps and techniques taught by one instructor can vary considerably from those taught by

someone else. Social dancing is also dynamic. The types of social dances and styles change with

the times.

Social dancing is different for American ballroom dancing which is sometimes called

social ballroom dancing. Ballroom dancing is meant to be danced in ballrooms, and social

dancing is suited for dancing on small or crowded floors, such as dance floors found in

restaurants and pubs. If ballroom dancers wish to use their dancing skills in social dance

environments, they do need to change and adapt their style and steps. Tips on how to adapt

ballroom dancing skills to social situations can be found under Floor Craft.
Types of Social Dances

 Spot or Slot Dances

Spot or slot social dances are dances a couple dance in one spot or slot. Once a couple

establish their dance spot or slot on the dance floor, they do not drift around the dance floor. Spot

or slot dances are best suited for nightclub type dance floors.

Salsa, Cha-Cha, Rumba, Samba, West Coast and East Coast Swing, Jitterbug, Charleston, Lindy,

Blues, Street Hustle, Nightclub Two Step, Nightclub Freestyle, Tango Nuevo, Neo Tango, Hip

Hop and related dances are examples of spot or slot social dances.

The style of social style spot dances is different from ballroom spot dances of the same

name. In the Latin dances for instance, the steps in social dancing are smaller and the arms are

not thrown out in a New Yorker type flourish as someone else dancing close by may get hit in

the face. In general, social spot dances use compact steps and a compact dance hold where the

arms or elbows do not stick out to the side.

 Progressive Dances

A progressive dance is a dance that travels around the dance floor in an anti-clockwise

direction. Progressive social dances generally need a somewhat larger floor than those best

suited for spot dancing - a floor size that permits travelling around the dance floor - but not one

as large as a dance hall or ballroom.Traditional Argentine Tango, Country Two Step, Social

Waltz, and Social Foxtrot are examples of progressive social dances. The close embrace, small
steps and absence of embellishments in milonguero style Argentine Tango makes it well suited to

dance progressively on smaller floors.

DIFFERENT SOCIAL DANCES

gets you moving on the dance floor. Quite similar to the

Rumba and Mambo, Cha-Cha took the slower steps of

both dance and added a triple step. The Cha-Cha has

become a must learn for beginning dance students.

Throughout the years gaining popularity due to its

simplicity and energy.

The History of Cha-Cha

First introduced to the United States in 1954, the popular dance was at one time referred

to as Cha Cha Cha. By 1959, the dance movement gained so much popularity that it eventually

replaced the Mambo as the most popular dance. By this time the name has been reduced to the

famillar Cha Cha. By far the biggest reason of the cha cha explosion is its versatility. Allowing

dancers to create their own hybrid dances.

The basics moves of the cha cha are very simple. The leader starts off with their left foot

and the follower starts with their right foot. During the next beat, the follower counts one or three

of the measures. At the same time, the leader would adjust their movement to the follower’s
location on the dance floor. The follower walks forward in the first two beats of each pattern then

steps three times at the end of the movement. This is known as the anchor step.

There are two versions of the origin of the name Cha Cha. The first gives credit to a Cuban

violinist named Enrique Jorrin. Jorrin coined the term “Cha Cha” to vocally mimic the shuffling

sound of the dancer’s shoes when it hits the dance floor.

Pierre Lavelle is credited as importing the Cha Cha to the continent of Europe. During the 1950’s

Lavelle would travel to Cuba to observe and study the culture’s style of dance. He noticed how

the dancers added additional steps to the normal Rumba and Mambo dances. When he returned

home from Cuba, he began teaching this hybrid dance we all know now as the Cha Cha.

The second version of the origin of the Cha Cha states that it hails from religious

ritualistic dances from the West Indies. Historical studies show that Voodoo band leaders used

small rattles created from Cha Cha plants to create a unique sound. The distinct rattle combined

with bells and drums were used as a metronome to measure time when dancing and singing.

Different Styles of Cha Cha

When dancing the Cha Cha there are two distinct styles being performed, International and

American Rhythm. The international style is mostly used competitive dancing and is more

advanced. It is recommended that a dancer should learn the American rhythm style before trying

to master the international. Both styles share similar characteristics such as:

1. Steps are small, most movements coming from hips and pelvic area
2. Danced to a steady 4/4 beat

3. usually dance to some form of Latin style music

Swing dance is actually a group of

dances that developed with the swing style of jazz

music in the 1920s through 1940. Historically,

“swing” referred to the style of jazz music that

inspired the dance. During that time, hundreds of

styles of swing dancing developed. The ones that

have survived through the decades since are the Lindy Hop, Collegiate Shag, and the Charleston.

The most popular, and the one that is most widely known, is the Lindy Hop, which originated in

Harlem in the early 1930s. The category of “swing dance” was not commonly used to identify a

group of dances until the latter half of the 20th century.

The term “swing dancing” includes other dances that don’t have certain characteristics

shared in traditional swing dances such as the Carolina Shag, East Coast Swing, Jive, and Rock

and Roll. These as well as other related dances were developed during the 1940s and later.

How Swing Dancing Started

As we said above, swing dancing originated in Harlem during the 1920s with jazz music,

and it was called “Lindy Hop.” Cab Calloway was one of the band leaders who developed the

type of music that lent itself to the bouncy movements of swing. The Lindy Hop, also called the
Jitterbug, is purported to be the original form of swing dance. It combined elements of both

partnered and solo dancing using movements of African-American dances along with the formal

eight-count structure of European partner dances.

You can see this in the basic Lindy step called the swingout. However, the core of the
Lindy

Hop is characterized by a lot of physical vigor and a tap on the dance shoes. In the 1930s, the

Savoy Ballroom in Harlem was the center of the dance as it continued to evolve. In the decades

afterward, more professional dance troupes formed around the dance, making the popularity

more widespread.

Types of Swing Dances

Lindy Hop

 The Lindy Hop is still one of the most popular types of swing dance even today. Lindy

hop uses six- and eight-count swing dance patterns. It is danced as a social dance, a

competitive dance, and a performance dance. It is a dance that lends itself to

improvisation, which is a central part of social dancing and many performance and

competition pieces.

Balboa

 The Balboa evolved from the Lindy Hop and Charleston and originated in Newport

Beach’s Balboa Peninsula in Southern California. This dance has more upright dance

steps than other swing dances.

 The East Coast Swing emerged in the 1940s with Arthur Murray’s dance studio

throughout the U.S. Other names for this dance are the Jitterbug, Triple Swing, and

American Swing. The East Coast Swing uses six-count patterns and is a spot dance

with moves in circular fashion and ending in a rock step.

West Coast Swing

 The West Coast Swing developed from the Lindy Hop and other genres of swing

dance in the 1950s. This is a much smoother version of Lindy Hop and is the most

sensual types of swing dance styles. Hollywood movies added to the dance’s

popularity.

Jive

 Jive was first performed by the American swing dancers who showcased the dance in

Europe. Now, Jive is part of the five dance styles and genres that form the

International Latin dance style competitions. It is very similar to the East Coast

Swing and is performed within a circular area with lots of kicks, spins, and underarm

turns.
3. Samba

Samba is a fun, upbeat, lively dance that

progresses counter-clockwise around the floor. It is

characterized by its syncopated timing, bounce,

rolling hip action and pelvic tilt and a great deal of

rhythm is expressed throughout the torso. The Samba

frame is similar to a bolero frame with more

separation between the partners.

Samba is the national dance of Brazil, celebrated every year during Carnival where hundred

of thousands of costumed revelers parade in the streets singing, drumming and dancing. This

style of Samba is not a partner dance unlike Ballroom Samba.

Samba music originated on the Brazilian plantations where the African rhythms of

slaves fused with European music. This new Samba music served as a kind of oral history,

relating current events, aging against inequities or simply celebrating the joys of a great party.

The dance is a solo art form with rapidly moving hips and quick transfers of weight.

Samba was introduced to the US in the late 1920’s via the Broadway play, Street

Carnival and more widely exposed through films. Fred Astaire and Dolores del Rio danced to a

Brazilian beat in “Flying down to Rio” and Carmen Miranda shook her hips in films such as

“That Night in Rio”. In the 1960’s Brazilian music became widely popular with the release of
Stan Getz “Jazz Samba” and “The Girl from Ipanema”. These bossa-nova standards combined

samba rhythms with “cool” jazz.

In the US, Samba evolved into a couple’s dance performed in most ballroom and was

standardized as a ballroom dance in 1956. In Brazil however, samba remains a solo form, danced

at street festivals and other celebrations with nationalistic pride.

4. Jive/Boogie

Jive dance is one of a collection of different dance styles

that originated with swing music in the early twentieth century. It

is an energetic, upbeat partner dance with one partner leading and

the other following. Jive dance relies heavily on kicking and

spinning, which makes it very similar to East Coast swing dance.

A Brief History of Jive

Jive first rose to popularity as a Black American social dance in jazz dance halls and

swing clubs in the United States in the early twentieth century. Its name is derived from “jive

talk,” which was a vernacular slang term used in the Black community at the time meaning

“deceptive talk.”

In the 1930s, swing musicians like Cab Calloway attracted large crowds of jive dancers at

big band venues like New York’s Savoy Ballroom. Later on, jive became the generic term that
referred to several forms of swing dancing, including jitterbug, boogie-woogie, and the Lindy

hop.

The dance gradually moved across the United States, diverging into separate styles of

East Coast swing and West Coast swing as the dance mutated. Jive eventually made its way to

Europe, with “jive” becoming a synonym for “swing.” In 1968, jive was accepted as the fifth

International Latin dance in competitive ballroom dancing. A modern jive rendition called

French jive developed in the late twentieth century, which is typically performed to popular

music.

4 Characteristics of Jive Dance

Here are some of the qualities that differentiate jive dancing from other styles of ballroom dance.

1. Fast-paced: Jive dancing is one of the fastest styles within the International Latin dance

category. Competitive jive dancers perform their routines at a tempo of 176 beats per

minute. Jive is often performed to swing or rock music, giving it a faster speed and a

higher energy.

2. Bouncy: Jive dancers move lighter on their feet than many other dancers. It is an

energetic, peppy dance that is characterized by bouncy footwork full of small jumps and

kicks.
3. Energetic partner work: There is a heavy emphasis on attached partner work in jive

dance, including sharp changes in direction, quick spins, as well as the leading partner

lifting the following partner and throwing them around.

4. Uses a small part of the floor: Partners that are performing jive typically stay within a

small section of the dancefloor, while other ballroom dance styles involve a lot of

movement throughout the floor.

4 Basic Jive Dance Steps

1. Basic jive: The basic jive step is a 6-count step with the dancers in a closed position. It

begins with a rock step, where both dancers step back and forth over two counts, followed by a

chassé step to the side and another chassé step back to the other side.

2. Throwaway: A throwaway is the same as the basic jive step, but the dancers transition to

an open position during the second chassé.

3. American spin: The American spin begins with the dancers attached in an open position.

The dancers perform a basic jive step, then the leading partner spins the following partner into a

spin on the second chassé. The following partner lets go of their hold during the spin and catches

their partner’s hand at the end.

4. Chicken walkers: Chicken walkers begin with both partners taking four steps. The

partners place their free foot towards each other as they swivel their hips. The move is done with
an open position hold, and the leading partner travels backwards as the following partner steps

towards them.

5. Line Dancing

Line dancing is one of the most fun county dances

out there because you can do it anywhere, and you do not

need a partner! Line dance steps can vary greatly as there

are a million of combinations that you can learn.

Tips for getting better better in Line dancing:

1. Learn the counts.

Line dancing is not hard when you can count the entire choreography as you do it. Each

single step, hip movement, or wobble has to be timed to the music.

2. Distinguish between a “step” and a “touch”.

A step is when you change your weight on the foot and a touch is when you do not

change weight on the foot. Touches are very commonly used to switch directions so

make sure you know when its a touch versus a step.

3. The magic is in between the steps.

While the steps and the counts are set, the way you dance in between is what counts. Put

your own style into the steps. You can do many different things with your hips, upper

torso and arms to stand out.

Social dance is dance which is recreational and usually performed with a partner and in

groups or as a community activity for fun and enjoyment. Sometimes it does not require a partner

but simply a number of people in a group. There are different social dances such as cha-cha,

swing, samba, jive/boogie, and line dancing.

These social dances have different techniques and procedures in performing it. In

dancing, rhythm must be observed so the movements coordinates with timing and beat of the

music. References https://www.learntodance.com/line-dancing- online-for-

beginners/ https://www.masterclass.com/articles/jive- dance-explained

https://ballroomdanceacademyla.com/the- dances/descriptions-of-dances/samba/

https://www.dancingfads.com/about/news/histor y-of-swing-dance

https://carolinadance.com/about/news/what-is- the-cha-cha

Group 3
Dela Cruz, Renzo Albor, Renzo

Brinosa, Kynt Mark Bartolo, Albert Dominic

Bernabe, Mike Evander Londete, Lloyd Andrew

Apolinario, Hanz Michael Palma, Klien Charles