Waltz - 1, 2, 3

In these videos, Michael Mitchell and Amanda Melton demonstrate the basic for waltz. The basic consists of a basic box step and the rotating box step. The rotating box step, allows dancers to move counter clockwise across the floor. This rotating is what gives waltz its characteristic spinning effect and gives the dance movement across the floor.


The Basic Box Step

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The Rotating Box Step

Back to the Basics

In ballroom dance ‘The Basic’ refers to the most simple and fundamental steps of any dance. A dancer could easily go through any entire song with only the basic steps, it would however become dull very quickly. More often the basic is used as ‘home’, a place to come back to after doing special moves to regain the feel of the dance. As dancers become more advanced they return the basic less and less, filling the dance with strings of combination of moves that flow into each other.

Waltz- Its not just for Princesses

The waltz is probably the most recognizable of all the ballroom dances. Immortalized by Disney and other movie corporations, it is burned in our mind as the dance of prince and princesses. It is romantic yet distanced, unlike its Latin counter-part the Rumba which displays more of the physical understanding of love.

Waltz is considered a Standard or Smooth dance, as opposed to a Rhythm or Latin dance.
Its danced primarily in Closed position. The movement is conducted in ¾ time in which the down beat or beat #1 is emphasized. The movement of the dance has long smooth steps and follows a gentle rise and fall pattern. The most characteristic movements are pivots, hesitation and dips.