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home pageI helped start the Usenet newsgroup, rec.arts.dance, and sometimes respond to threads there. And with my travel schedule, you'll frequently find me asking questions like "Where can I find swing dancing in... (insert destination of the week here)."
Victor Eijkhout is a very avid amateur dancer in the L.A. area. His dance pages include links to just about anything related to the field, so except for a few special-interest areas of my own, I'll just maintain a link to his site: Dance links of Victor Eijkhout
Dancers in San Diego (or dancers travelling to San Diego) will also be interested in:
("How did such a diehard tech-weenie get involved in something like swing dancing?")
With some group classes, near the end of 1986.
Those classes were among the hardest things I'd ever done... but somewhere in there the dancing bug bit me, and it's been an important part of my life ever since.
I do most of the standard ballroom dances (waltz, cha-cha, rumba, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, a little tango, a little mambo), but my favorite dances are mostly what many studios call the "nightclub" dances: West coast swing, hustle, and jitterbug (in about that order of preference). I do private lessons with Ann Britt, once or twice a week, whenever I'm in town... which hasn't been often recently.
I still recommend jitterbug to anyone who wants to try partner dancing; you can learn enough of it to have fun with, faster than any other dance. And it's versatile: There is jitterbug music in big band swing, rock and roll, country-western, blues... even Madonna has recorded a song ("Hanky Panky") that's great for Jitterbug.
I have a special interest in Viennese waltz, because there is a local event that makes it pretty special. Called "Night in Vienna", it's a twice-annual benefit, by and for the San Diego Youth Symphony. They set up in the Balboa Park Club (13,000 square foot suspended wood floor) and play Strauss for four hours. We show up in formal attire (tuxedos and ball gowns) and let the music sweep us away to a more romantic time. Some people attend in period costume (1860's or so), adding to the illusion of being transported to a different time and place.
A friend of mine, Shirley Millard, and I have been entering the dance contests held during Night in Vienna for a few years now. We won first place the first time we did it, and hadn't even practiced together. We've continued to do well; they no longer pick a single "best" couple but we have almost always been in the top group.
Even if I had some non-copyrighted video handy that I could show you here, you still wouldn't see it from watching other couples dance. At least, I don't think you will.
However, I can tell you this: If you watch the ballroom dance competition programs that are shown on PBS stations every so often (usually during Spring pledge drives)... what we do in social dancing looks nothing like that. The "moves" are nowhere near as fancy, and we don't wear special costumes.
Another source I can point you to is the "high school dance" scenes in Back to the Future parts 1 and 2. That was, essentially, jitterbug (choreographed by Debby Ramsey). Again, in real life, it doesn't look like that: Most of us don't do lifts and drops -- acrobatics -- anything like routinely.
But... social dancing can feel like that. From the inside, when you're doing it, it can feel every bit as graceful, romantic, joyful, exuberant, playful, and so on, as the competition and show couples look from the outside.
I can demonstrate the music. Sooner or later I'll have .wav files here so you can hear the types of music these dances work well with. As you'll see, a lot of popular music works well with the "nightclub" dances.
Soon after I got really into this I was trying to get everyone I know into it. "Try it. You'll love it!" Um, no, most people didn't. It's like any other hobby: For some it's a way of life; for some it's just a hobby, one of several interests; and most just can't see the point (but have a different hobby of their own).
I don't compete; this is all strictly for fun. Competing would make it too much like work... except for Night in Vienna with Shirley (see above).
I have utterly no use for line dancing. This includes country-western, electric slide, Macarena, and all others.
I don't do country-western two-step, either. I took about two and a half levels of it and it just doesn't interest me. But I can say that I gave it an honest try.