I'm guessing that anyone who replies will do ballroom or latin as this is the Strictly forum.


I do jazz and commercial.

Have tried ballet as a child/ hip hop/ ballroom and latin for a few weeks and salsa.

I did tap and ballet as a child, tap again for a few years in my late teens. Now I go to ballroom and latin lessons with my husband.

I have had a few one-off lessons in AT, salsa, ceroc, hip hop as well.

Err similar.....

Ballet and tap and some general stage schooly type dancing up to about 11 years old (nothing serious, appeared in some local stage productions, mainly pantomines).

Now private ballroom and latin lessons once a week (taken medal exams to silver and just starting to compete at medallist level) and argentine tango (again once a week, but just for enjoyment).

Have tried salsa (adds up to about one lesson at the most I think). Can't think of anything else. Oh yes some bossa nova.

Admire anyone who can dance jazz, kochspostulates and can't even start to imagine dancing hip hop (even when I was younger).

My gym has Strictly Fit classes with elements of Jive, Samba, Salsa and Quickstep. They plan on introducing Waltz and Tango into it shortly.

I enjoyed the Samba and Quickstep elements, even if I didn't have appropriate footware.

When I was younger I danced almost exclusively to rock'n'roll - jive, bop and boogie etc. Some ballroom but never got further than a stumbling waltz! I've never liked the latin dances or music so I've never tried any of them. My mum and dad were keen dancers but gave up trying to teach me............
Nowadays my back and knees don't like being danced on so I'm just an armchair SCD fan now..

I danced Ballroom, Latin and Disco as a child. Disco and Ballroom were very shortlived, but I continued with Latin until last year, when I stopped dancing altogether.

Irish dancing when I was a child for a few years.

Now I dance ballroom and Latin - quite intensively last year, less so this year as I'm too busy with uni work. I'm looking forward to getting back to regular classes though, it's a New Year's resolution!

As a child I did ballet, modern and tap. I gave up modern and tap as a teenager but kept up ballet until I was 18 and went away to uni.

At uni I took up ballroom and Latin and did that all three years I was in Sheffield, then took it up again for a year or so when I first moved to London.

Salsa I've learnt for... probably about 2 years, all told, but with gaps. I'm dancing salsa again at the moment.

Plus random short-lived attempts at English/ Scottish country dancing, "Ethnodance" (odd course I did in Austria where we learnt things from around the world), merengue, non-acrobatic rock and roll and (for one routine) Chinese dance.

I think that's it. I have never seriously attempted hip hop because I just can't get the feel of it at all! I do slightly wish I could have tried to take up break-dancing as a teenager though, just because it looks like so much fun... I'm definitely not brave enough for it now!

Out of curiosity, did anyone take up ballroom/ Latin due to Strictly influences or did people find Strictly after starting ballroom and/ or Latin? Or did the two co-incide but not really relate to one another? I started to take a real interest in Strictly only after I started ballroom dancing, although I'd seen little bits of it before.

Only ballroom and latin properly and both of those I started as an adult (I started at uni). I've had a couple of argentine tango and salsa lessons from the uni ballroom teachers, but others on here would argue that neither of them were taught properly or correctly . I went to one salsa lesson run by a salsa club but I'm not sure of their credentials either after I got told that I could turn the woman under my arm if I had spare beats (I was acting as a man as I went with my friend). Spare beats! what is all that all about???? I've never heard of having spare beats before. In all these dances I thought that step patterns fitted neatly into beats and bars.
Oh I've had a couple of lessons of rock and roll too. I really enjoyed that.

My starting dancing pretty much coincided with the start of SCD series 1 but the two events were unconnected. I only went along to ballroom and latin as my housemate persuaded me that otherwise I'd have been spending a lonely night on my own in my student house. I loved it and never looked back!
Last edited by Ballroom-B. : 01-01-2012 at 21:52

I was already dancing a good while before Strictly Come Dancing ever existed, and I watched the first series as I thought it would be really interesting to see famous people trying to do 'my' dancing and I wanted to see how they got on!

Other way round for me. Started ballroom dancing after Strictly and was definitely inspired by it, even though my parents did ballroom dance socially when I was younger. Did some lessons sporadically after the early series, and then started more seriously just after the Tom and Camilla series I think, although not sure that was particularly signficant - just didn't find a dance school that suited me until around then.

Ballet, Tap, Modern and Theatre/Musicals

would love to learn Ballroom/Latin dancing

BIB

IMHO What a great and interesting idea for a thread of its own

Could well inspire some /many
comparing others experience / involvement
explaining someones motivation the trigger that started .....
I think a good number will relate to/ be a trigger for

sorry could nt stay away managed half a day

What kind of dance is itconfused:

Bossa nova "She's not there" from the best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaubRAEK-MA

The Strictly audience clapped a pedestrian 4 beats to the bar, which somewhat drowned the characteristic onflowing rhythm of the bossa nova, wellknown as in "The Girl from Ipanema".

oh thank u. I still remember when I first saw this dance I was like this!
Amazing isnt it? And they make it look so effortless.

"Don't try this at home."
Joanna can do things which nobody else on earth can do, so this could open up a psychological gulf.
Soft-spoken and unassuming off the floor, last May she smiled at me, at which point I felt I had risen in the world.

I did my beginner's ballroom and latin course because I watched a lot of Strictly. Didn't stick to it as I didn't have the same partner from week to week.

I can't do hip hop . There are hip hop bits of many of the commercial routines that we are taught and I always find those bits the most difficult. Am not used to making small intricate movements with my hands or arms.

Edy, my information here about bossa nova might be distinctly dodgy since I only had a few lessons in it. However, my understanding is that the term bossa nova is really used to describe a music style that originates from Brazillian samba, although there are specific dance steps that are commonly taught (and I believe were quite popular in the 50s!), but I don't know whether it is recognised as a real dance. I think there is a soul variation of bossa nova and the music from the clip soulmate provided is probably more soul style. However Joanna and Michael are dancing cha cha steps to it (brilliantly I agree).



This is an example of the simple bossa nova steps I was taught. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmu...steps_creation It is difficult to find anything on youtube since most of the examples are either of line dance variations or sequence dance (which was a revelation to me - I didn't realise it had gained popularity in line dance.
And another here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN1JH_utPK8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4HGtPoNaOs

Maurizio and Andra showdance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E3NftbZXhc

And the reward for staying the course: Bryan and Carmen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHTjfpf8OvY

I really can't find any other examples of the actual dance, other than the line dance version. It appears that it hasn't been danced much over here since the 50s and 60s when it was briefly in fashion I was taught it about 10 years ago, not back in the 50s or 60s and so am slightly puzzled as to how that came to be!

I've tried a whole heap of different dance styles....as a child /teen I did tap, ballet, national, modern and jazz. In my 20's I tried (and disliked) Bollywood style Indian dance, during a small mid life crisis I learnt to pole dance and lap dance and now I'm older and past the crisis I do salsa.
I would LOVE to master ballroom and Latin.
And I answer to the question someone posted about strictly's influence....yes it influenced me, although it would be more accurate to say it reignited the dance passion within me

I've done loads. As a child, I did up to Grade 5 in ballet and tap, and a little bit of jazz and contemporary but I never took exams in them. I tried ballet again as an adult a few years ago and I enjoyed it, but my God it was much harder than I remember, and I was only in a beginner's class!

I've done ballroom and latin dancing on and off for nearly 10 years. I competed in my university's dance team which was great fun and I had a brilliant partner - he was perfect for me in terms of height and personality but he's not British and he lives in Italy now so I don't see him anymore, which is a shame. I just have a private lesson once a week now, without a partner as I don't want to do competitions and I'm working towards my gold medal. I can't remember how long I'd been doing ballroom dancing for when Strictly started, probably about 6 months- 1 year but it definitely inspired me to carry on with it and learn more about it.

I've also done belly dancing for 3 years. It's completely different to other dance forms I've done but I absolutely love it and it's my favourite dance form now.

I've done a few classes in salsa and hip-hop but I haven't got the time or inclination to pursue these any further. I'd love to try flamenco and argentine tango next.

Someone qualified could give fascinating examples of how dances come into fashion then fall out of it. Bossa nova is a less exhuberant variant of samba and as such may be valued, with relief, in Brazil? In England could bossa nova have lost a popularity contest against cha cha because bossa was the quiet subtle little sister?

There is a waltz with 5 steps, most intriguing to watch, but it lost out to the simpler 3-step waltz. As for rumba, straightforward sportsmen who appeared on Strictly were completely baffled by the subtle if not subliminal language of the body. They learnt the footwork but not the latin mood.

I've just enrolled to do Tap classes which start on Monday. Eeek!

Am a bit nervous about it actually as I haven't done any of this type of dancing before, but hopefully it will be fun.