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Partner and Ballroom Dance in NYC
If you are looking to expand your dance skills with your wife, husband, partner, or friend, you will not regret coming to Jacquie for couples dance lessons. Jacquie has an enormous amount of experience teaching social and partner dance, and she will make sure you have a great space to get comfortable with dance and get comfortable dancing with your partner. She will get you up to speed with the style of your choosing or give you an education in common styles of partner dance such as ballroom and latin.
When you come to Jacquie for couples dance training, you can be sure of several things. First, you'll get instruction aimed at whatever event, scenario, or style of dance you might be interested in. If you don't have something particular in mind, she will make sure you are generally prepared for anything and always getting better at partner dance together.
Also, Jacquie will always keep things perfectly adjusted to the ability level of you and your partner. If you are both completely new to dance, that's no problem at all (in fact, it's great). She will work to give you each a foundation in the basics of dance while also teaching you how to dance with each other, using whatever style of dance you might be interested in along with whatever style she feels would be best for you at that moment in your dance education.
If you both have dance training and are ready to crank it up, Jacquie is ready to dial things up as far as you'd like to go and get you both really moving. And if one of you has experience but the other is new to dance, she can help the less experienced person get up to speed, creating routines that keep you both engaged while also teaching you to work seamlessly as dance partners.
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Couples dance training has its own facets and challenges, which is another reason you'll be glad you came to a professional like Jacquie. Each of you will be progressing with your own dance abilities, but you'll also be learning to dance with one another - maybe for the first time - which can be difficult even for experienced dancers.
There are quite a few formal styles you might encounter as you're learning partner dance:
Tango: The tango originated along the border of Uruguay and Argentina in the late 19th century, in neighborhoods of people who were often of African descent. The tango is particularly sensual and can even involve partners dancing chest-to-chest or hip-to-hip in the 'close embrace' versions of the dance.
Waltz: The waltz is perhaps what people think of most when they are thinking about ballroom or formal partner dance, the waltz goes back as far as 16th century Europe, becoming especially popular in Vienna in the late 18th century. The waltz is done in triple time as the two partners face each other and turn along a circular path.
Foxtrot: The foxtrot is danced with long, smooth, continuous movements and is often accompanied by big band jazz music. It has similarities with the waltz but is danced in a different time signature. The foxtrot emerged in the early 20th century and has its origins in African-American clubs of the time.
Quickstep: The quickstep developed out of the foxtrot, the Charleston, and a few other dances in New York City in the 1920's, and was performed early on by Caribbean and African dancers. The quickstep is characterized by the chassé (a step-together-step movement), quarter turn, and lock step. It is commonly done with syncopated steps like the early foxtrot.
Rumba: The rumba is a music genre and dance style that started on the east coast in the 1930’s. Musically, it combines big band jazz with Afro-Cuban rhythms (are you sensing a theme?). It’s one of five competitive Latin dances, along with the samba and cha-cha, and is the slowest among them. It involves very complex footwork and lots of hip movement.
Cha-cha: The cha-cha originates from Cuba, with the name referring to the shuffling of the dancer's feet when doing the two consecutive quick steps that define the dance. The footwork follows the sequence one, two, three, cha-cha-one, two, three…, a pattern which is also present in other Afro-Cuban dances. The cha-cha takes a lot of hip movement.
Samba: The samba originated in Brazil (it's their national dance) and was popularized in the US in the 1940's. It involves repeated backward and forward steps with tilting of the hips. It's danced in 4/4 time with syncopated rhythm.
Swing: Swing dance grew out of (and alongside) the swing style of big band jazz music in the 1920’s-40’s. Well-known styles of swing you may have heard of include the Charleston, Balboa, and Lindy Hop. Most swing dances started as vernacular (“everyday”) African-American dances. The Lindy Hop, for example, has an 8-count “swing out” pattern with other 8-count and 6-count patterns thrown-in or improvised throughout the dance. Swing dances can be very physically demanding.
Jive: The jive is another vernacular African-American dance started around the 1930’s and is actually part of the swing dance tradition, although it is also one of the five international Latin dances.
As you can probably tell by now, there are many styles of partner dance out there, with many variations. And that's not counting all the rest of dance that might not be thought of as "partner dance" but can be done with a partner. You could go out as a couple and break it down together with some jazz funk or hip-hop. This is yet another reason it's great to have a teacher like Jacquie - someone to probe your interests and give you challenges that are just right for your artistic education, based on where you and your partner are at in terms of ability level.
Whether you:
Want to prepare for a specific formal event (or want to be prepared for when one arises)
Want to hit the town and have some moves ready to go
Or just want to have fun as a couple doing a new activity together