Samba Basic: one- uh - two

Per Ashley's request these next posts are about Samba.

Samba is not a dance that we cover very often here at UGA for a couple reasons: 1) most of our regular teaches don't feel comfortable with teaching dance 2) its really quite hard to pick up. While the moves themselves are not all that difficult there is a great deal of styling in Samba, which is crucial to making the dance look and feel like it is supposed to.

This video is Dance Vision and explains the basic. It does not go it in to how the styling for the abdominal muscles work. I'm still searching the web for a good styling video, if know of one please feel free to leave a comment.

Learning Lindy

In the 20s and 30s, Harlem was bursting with new life. Jazz, the black literary renaissance and new swing dance the Lindy hop swept through the city and the nation forever changing American culture. Lindy hop or the subway swing was a fusion of popular swing dances like the Charleston's and African dancing. The name Lindy hop was thought to be coined when famous dancer Shorty George, while dancing in 1928 dance marathon, was asked by a New York Times Reporter what he was dancing. With out missing a beat he replied,"The Lindy Hop... Were flyin' just like Lindy did!" He was referring the Charles Lindbergh's famous quote about flying non-stop from New York to Paris as doing the 'Lindy hop.'

The dance is most recognizable by its sling shot movement in which the the lead throws out and pulls back in the follow in one basic count. The the most prominent styling is a very cool, grounded, with a kind of gorilla bounce. In this video Randall Barnes and Rachel Holland teach the basic footwork and styling technique.

Couldn't get enough of Latin Week--Get some style

Last week's Dancing with The Stars featured the spicy Latin dances, the samba and the rumba. These dances along with cha cha, paso doble, mambo and tango all use basic Latin styling.

While it may seem like Latin styling is just a lot of ‘booty shaking’ it does take a lot of practice to do and look good. The key is to the keep control of your hips and to move fluidly into to each weight change. Most challenging part of styling is that while your hips and legs are moving your upper body is isolated and still. Working your abs to keep to your ribs and hips separated is quite a work out and explains why all those dancers have pretty flat mid sections.

In this video Randall Barnes and Rachel Holland explain the Latin styling from the waist down.

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

\

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.

Closed Frame- Getting close with your partner

Frame is the relationship of positions that you dance in with your partner. There are many stylistic variations on frame, but generally there are two frames: open and closed. In closed frame dancers hold each other closely while dancing, whereas in open frame dancers merely hold each others hands allow for an open space to form between them.

This video demonstrates how to dance in closed frame. This frame is used in all ballroom dances but is most recognized in dances such as waltz, foxtrot, rumba and tango where many of the moves originate from closed frame.