Social Club Dance Lessons

Salsa Dance Lessons

Salsa has many varieties and crosses many cultures.

It’s considered a ballroom dance by many but is also a street dance.

Ballroom styling is stiffer and somewhat affected looking compared to the more relaxed street styling, but there are also many different official styles today.

When I was first learning Salsa about 20 years ago or so, there was only one style being offered. That is to say, various cultures did dance differently, but it was all just called Salsa.

Now there is Cuban Style, New York Style, LA Style, and more. It’s all the same dance, though, and on a beginning level there is no difference. The rhythm is quick quick slow and never varies, but it’s fast so it can become quite challenging as you get up to speed.

The Cuban hip action which gives Latin dance it’s character, is for many the most difficult part of the dance. Some people can just watch it and then do it, but many have to have it broken down and it then becomes quite a challenge. You can do the dance without the hips, but you’ll look like a Gringo.

For many, the most challenging part of Salsa is the music. If you didn’t grow up with it and don’t listen to it a lot, it can be a confusing rhythm to sort out. It has a syncopated rhythm, going: and one and two and three and four. All Latin music has that same syncopation, but Salsa is fast, so much more difficult than Cha Cha or Rumba or Merengue. I recommend that if you are interested in Salsa, that you begin getting used to the music by listening to it as often a possible.

Night Club Two Step Dance Lessons

A very popular Wedding First Dance, the Nightclub Two-Step is a standard dance for contemporary music. This type of dance is almost always performed to mid-tempo songs(4/4 time) with a quick-quick-slow beat. The Nightclub Two-Step is naturally suited for partner dancing, and it’s performed often in ballrooms, weddings and night clubs. This dance is the perfect accompaniment to the beats of medium-slow popular music, and creates a relaxing atmosphere among dancers and spectators. Most importantly, it is calm and gentle.

The dance is actually easy and playful, and it can be danced to many pop songs. Its patterns resemble those of Salsa, except that its style is much smoother and slower than that of Salsa. Wedding couples make a big portion of our students for the Nightclub Two-Step, partly because of its good tempo for slower romantic ballads.

Freestyle Dance Lessons

Freestyle (just moving to music, not touching your partner), is what most people do at parties and clubs. There are no rules except staying on beat and moving with a lack of awkwardness. Even those are not hard and fast rules if you don’t care what you look like. You’re really just dancing with yourself despite the fact that another person is dancing in front of you. Freestlye lessons are for people who are self conscious about how they look on the dance floor or are bored with what they already know.

Blues Dance Lessons

Blues is a street dance that used to be danced late at night by lindy hoppers when they started to tire and the music slowed down. In the last few years, however, it has taken on a life of its own. There are blues events and blues dances you can go to where everyone dances with the crowd, as opposed to with a date, just like the lindy scene.

Blues is a wonderfully versatile dance that, although typically danced to slow, sultry blues, can in fact be danced to a wide variety of music. It is also so easy to follow that I recommend it to leaders who want to dance outside of the blues scene, with unskilled followers. It is close and intimate, but it can be danced in a way that feels formal, or in a way that feels sensual or sexy.

If you are a leader who wants to dance in variety of situations, like weddings and private parties, where dancers don’t necessarily congregate, and you want one dance that you can use to the widest variety of music, Blues is the dance I recommend.

If you are a follower, you don’t so much need to learn the skill of following. You mostly just need to not be afraid of it. If you relax into it and you have a good lead, you can’t do it wrong if you don’t fight it.

If you don’t feel comfortable dancing in a close embrace with strangers, Blues is not the best choice for you unless you are part of a couple learning together.

Country Western Dance Lessons

Like Ballroom and Cajun, several dances are included in the same event. In fact, Country Western is similar to ballroom. There is a line of direction (Two Step and Waltz travel counterclockwise around the floor) for some dances, while others are danced in one location on the floor.

Two Step, the main dance, is similar to foxtrot, but with the complex arm figures of swing. The waltz resembles a cross of Viennese Waltz and Swing. Over the years, Country Western versions of Cha-Cha, West Coast Swing, Night Club Two Step, and others have been added to the mix.

In addition to these partner dances, line dances (choreographed routines that repeat themselves) and partner line dances (specific routines with a partner) are usually announced by the DJ and added in as well.

Learn to Social Dance in Oakland with LaurieAnn Lepoff.

Salsa Dance Lessons

Night Club Two Step Dance Lessons

Freestyle Dance Lessons

Blues Dance Lessons

Country Western Dance Lessons