DANce StepsNotes from Dan

Download Dan Calloway’s Class Notes – GUBDT – 20140423

Pre-MIT Class

All Dancers: Keep your dancing sharp this summer. Go to USADance.org for information on where to dance in your area.

Gold Paso Doble: Review routine (without Farol)

Comp Prep Rumba/Cha Cha/Samba
Vital Tip for Competitors: What your dancing feels like never matches what it looks like. The kinesthetic sense is notoriously unreliable. Put more energy into your dancing than seems appropriate. Dance “over-caffeinated.” Otherwise, your dancing will look lifeless and dull.
Other important tips:

1. Speed and power are achieved by using both legs on every step. The two parts of a step are the closing, then opening, of the legs.
2. The legs and feet are faster than the body so the body requires a head start on every weight change: Body, then foot.
3. No dance makes sense without showing constant partner awareness. Do not waste your focus on looking down.
4. Do not “pull the covers over you” with the connected hand. The body weight moves the arm.

Standard Technique

1. Use of the legs comes before everything else.
2. Pull with the legs and feet to create contact with your partner, to maintain it and to recharge it constantly. Over-followers cannot do this. They follow at the expense of their own dancing and never really produce more than the bare minimum.

Beginner Viennese Waltz

Begin facing DC                                  # of Bars

1. Natural Turn                                 4
2. Forward Change Step                   1
3. Reverse Turn                                4
4. Forward Change Step                   1

VW Rules

1. Tango has more rise than VW
2. Master the inside and outside of turn principles: Use smaller steps to go backward and larger steps to go forward.
3. No Change Steps at corners.

Heel Turns

1. Start with a big step, not straight back, but slightly to the side.
2. Leaders should rise entirely on step one. Followers should not over-follow this rise.
3. Remember, “Close to exit.” Do not close too soon or for too long.

Double Reverse Spin

1. Anchor the couple when going backward; Kite past your partner on the forward actions.
2. The Horse and Cart exercise demonstrated the need for using the head weight to accelerate the turn. Be the wet sock on the inside of the dryer.

Samba: Review Bronze routine through the Criss Cross Voltas.

Silver Tango: Review routine with emphasis on Line Figures

VW

Begin facing DC                                  # of Bars

1. Natural Turn                                 7
2. LF Back Change Step                   1
3. Reverse Turn                                7
4. LF Forward Change Step              1

Jive: Review silver routine

Rumba/Cha Cha: Speed and Power

1. Speed and power are achieved by using both legs on every step. The two parts of a step are the closing, then opening, of the legs.
2. The legs and feet are faster than the body so the body requires a head start on every weight change: Body, then foot.

Newcomer Waltz

1. Keep back straight: You are always judged from the back.
2. Rise and Fall gradually. Practice without moving your feet.
3. Use heel leads when going forward on the one count.

Foxtrot: Basic Amalgamation

Begin facing DC.

1. Feather Step                SQQ
   Begin with leader’s RF, use one heel lead, end outside partner.
2. Reverse Turn              SQQ SQQ
   End outside partner. The Follower’s Heel Turn closes on step two.
3. Three Step                  SQQ
   Begin with leader’s LF, use two heel leads and stay in line, not outside partner.
4. Natural Turn               SQQ SSS
   Heel turn closes on step two.

Rumba

1. Alemana
2. Closed Hip Twist
3. Hockey Stick
4. 1-3 Open Basic
5. Backward Walk

Restart with 4-6 of Alemana.

Rumba is sensuous because the feet are moved sharply but the hips never stop moving. Melt the hip action.

Cha Cha: Review

Jive: Add the Mooch before the Walks.

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