To feel like you’re leaving the beginner’s ranks, and moving into becoming an intermediate level dancer, you need to have a general variety of steps that you can lead or follow to music with a variety of partners. You need to be able to intermingle these steps without bumping into others on the floor. You need to have some of the elementary skills of dance in place, such as rhythm, posture, balance and movement.
An intermediate dancer continues to develop these skills, and begins to incorporate the all important styling of each particular dance into their repertoire.
Perhaps the best way is to follow a check list …
Foot Position … Putting your feet on the floor in the correct places.
Footwork … Using heels and toes in the correct places.
Lead/Follow … can you do this with a variety of partners?
Timing … you HAVE to be able to dance to music. Tempo, timing, feel … otherwise what’s the point??
Continuity … A step is no use unless you can mesh it with other steps, and still maintain the integrity of the dance.
Styling … If you’re going to dance Tango, dance Tango. If you’re going to dance Waltz, dance Waltz. Don’t stroll
around the floor like one of farmer Brown’s cows.
Partnership … Can you put it all together in a palatable form for each partner you dance with, or do you tend to inflict your rigid diciplines upon anyone who happens to be in front of you? (Bit harsh, I know … but let’s just hope the shoe doesn’t fit ..)
Michael Madden’s LATIN DANCE STUDIO
8 Milton Circuit, Port Macquarie NSW 2444
6581 1951
mkrm@bigpond.net.au
I teach private lessons between 5:00pm and 7:00pm each evening. (Group classes start at 7:00pm). At the moment a private lesson costs $60 an hour, and $30 a half hour. Up to 4 people can share a private lesson, but after that the group rate of $15 per person applies.
On a private lesson, you can learn anything you want. Actually, better make that anything I teach, but the range is pretty extensive. See here.
I’ve been teaching for 35 years. I’ve taught in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Chicago , and Miami, plus numerous regional areas. I’ve competed, performed, lectured, demonstrated and toured as a professional. I was invited to compete in the World Professional Selection finals, where I promptly got my butt kicked by the then World Ten Dance Professional Champion, and the British Rising Star Champion. I’ve never forgiven either of them, and I consol myself with the knowledge that they suck at golf even worse than I do.
I’ve danced on stage and tv. Choreographed for both. I teach Waltz, Foxtrot, Viennese, Tango (Argentine & Competitive), Quickstep, Rumba, Cha Cha, Samba, Swing, Mambo, Bolero, and a few others.
I’m big on dancing with your heart. I couldn’t give a rat’s backside about your steps. (Although I’ll teach you hundreds of them, I just expect you to use them as vehicles to dance. They’re a means, not an end.)
The best quote I’ve ever heard about dancing would be …”Technique — bodily control — must be mastered only because the body must never be allowed to stand in the way of the soul’s expression.” La Meri
That’ll about do it for now …
Michael.
If you’ve got a dance question/problem, pop it in here, and I’ll see if I can help.
