Beautiful women, lively music and men in formal suits waltzing away may well be the image you have in mind when anyone mentions ballroom dancing. There is a variety of dance steps one can perform such as the slow Waltz right to the fast upbeat nature of the Fox Trot.
This definition by Webster of ballroom dancing – “any of various, usually social dances in which couples perform set moves†reveals that the nature of ballroom dancing encompasses a wide variety of moves. The phrase ballroom dancing has its root from the Latin word “ballare†which literally means to dance. Obviously the word ballet and ballerina has the same origin.
History books tells us that the people from the upper class in England used this fro of dance in social gathering backs in the late 18th and 19th century. The working class really didn’t catch fire with this form of activity until the early 20th century. Later the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing created a Ballroom Dance Branch, whose sole purpose is to create a standard for the modern day version of ballroom dancing.
There are five major moves that make up the modern day ballroom: the Waltz, the Viennese Waltz, the Slow Foxtrot, Tango and the Quickstep. The American Latin ballroom dance can be classified as Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, Cha-Cha and the Jive. The word Latin America actually refers to Latin and America and not in reference to the Latin countries.
The modern day version of ballroom dancing involves couples dancing closely together in specific tempo and rhythms. Basically, there are five main points of contact between the couples. Three of these points involve the hands, his left hand holding her right, her left hand on top of his right upper arm (for the Tango her hand would go behind his arm) and his right hand on her back resting on her left shoulder blade. The other two points of contact are her left elbow resting on his right elbow and the right side of her chest touching the right side of his chest. This posture dates back form the days of the European royal courts when royal couples and aristocrats dance gracefully during social gathering.
many years ago, the men danced while wearing their swords and this helps to explain why the strange right to right chest contact between the man and the women. The sword can accidentally hit any of the dancers to, so they overcome this issue by a counter clockwise motion. In American Latin dancing, posture changes from one dance to another. Today, the American Latin ballroom dance has been standardized for the purposes of teaching.