How do you transform your dancing to create moments you and your partner will treasure? But given the complexity within Argentine Tango's music, how can you dance musically, without needing to think? By understanding the structure and musical cues of Argentine Tango, you'll be able to dance in the moment. Rather than planning ahead, or trying to do algebra, you can simply listen to the music. In doing so, you'll bring deeper feeling and expression into your dance.

Dance music is music composed, played, or both, specifically to accompany dancing. It can be either the whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. Dance music works usually bear the name of the corresponding dance, e.g. waltzes, the tango, the bolero, the can-can, minuets, salsa, various kinds of jigs and the breakdown. Other dance forms include contradance, the merengue, the cha-cha-cha. Often it is difficult to know whether the name of the music came first or the name of the dance. Although dance is often accompanied by music, it can also be presented alone (Postmodern dance) or provide its own accompaniment (tap dance). Dance presented with music may or may not be performed in time to the music depending on the style of dance. Dance performed without music is said to be danced to its own rhythm. An introduction to classical and modern dance including hip hop dance, what is dance, and the dance music (electronic music, rock and roll, disco, house, techno, trance, etc.)

From the ragtime one-step of the early twentieth century to the contemporary practices of youth club cultures, popular dance and music are inextricably linked. This collection reveals the intimate connections between the corporeal and the sonic in the creation, transmission and reception of popular dance and music, which is imagined here as ’bodies of sound’. The volume provokes a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary conversation that includes scholarship from Asia, Europe and the United States, which explores topics from the nineteenth century through to the present day and engages with practices at local, national and transnational levels. In Part I: Constructing the Popular, the authors explore how categories of popular music and dance are constructed and de-stabilized, and their proclivity to appropriate and re-imagine cultural forms and meanings. In Part II: Authenticity, Revival and Reinvention, the authors examine how popular forms produce and manipulate identities and meanings through their attraction to and departure from cultural traditions. In Part III: (Re)Framing Value, the authors interrogate how values are inscribed, silenced, rearticulated and capitalized through popular music and dance. And in Part IV: Politics of the Popular, the authors read the popular as a site of political negotiation and transformation.

Want to be a better social dancer in less time? Progress faster than your peers and get more out of your practice and dance time? Ever wonder what it's like when potential partners seek you out? Find out what makes you desirable as a partner, and pay attention to the most important dance elements. Adults focus on different elements than children, and you'll get more from your lessons and practice sessions. You can dance better tomorrow, next week and beyond with the information found in this book. This book is full of practical, actionable, inspiring articles originally written for one of the world's most popular social dance blogs (www.UnlikelySalsero.com) Voted #1 dance blog in 2013 by the DanceAdvantage.net readers. The insights come from someone widely known as the "World's Least Likely Dance Instructor." Don Baarns was a professional musician in his 20's, studying and working with some of the most recorded musicians in Los Angeles. Watching tens of thousands of dancers over the years while performing, he always said "Someday I'd like to dance too, that seems like fun." It took him into his mid 40's to start that pursuit, and his light hearted, fun, self-conscious, real world journey into dancing will benefit your quest greatly. Musicians and dancers follow an amazingly parallel improvement path. Don started teaching private drum lessons around 1977 and has decades of teaching and music experience. From his beginning dance lessons, Don knew he would someday teach this art too, as he quickly recognized the similarities among the elite dancers and musicians. Today, he passes that wisdom along to thousands of dancers in group classes, private lessons, his blog and online videos. These time-tested articles have been created, refined, organized and updated to reflect years of accumulated social dance experience, plus feedback from a huge set of dance friends, partners, blog readers, students, club dancers and other instructors from around the world. As a master instructor himself, today he also coaches many other teachers, both in musicality and in teaching techniques. Most chapters are written as standalone articles, and will contribute to your overall dancing success. They are also written from a very personal point of view; outlining successes, short-term failures and solutions YOU can apply directly to your dancing. All to inspire you and help improve your dancing faster than the crowd. It's not brain surgery or beyond your reach; it's the right mindset, the right techniques and some uncommon approaches to excellence learned from years of performing and teaching both music and dance.

The late nineteenth century witnessed the birth and popularization of a number of highly emotional musical styles that played on the eagerness of modern Europeans and Americans to toy with the limits of sanity and to taste the ecstasies of living on the edge. This absorbing book explores these popular, passionate musical styles -- which include flamenco, tango and rebetika -- and points out that they arose as well-intentioned intellectuals co-opted the emotional experiences most closely associated with women. In drawing those experiences out of female practice, they defined, objectified, and turned them into strategies of domination, the deepest impact of which was felt, ironically, by modern women.In bridging anthropology, sociology, cultural, media, body and gender studies, this book broadens the base of theory which has ignored the transnational world of Latin and Mediterranean popular culture and makes a powerful statement about the intersection of nationalism, sexuality, identity and authenticity.

Arguably the world's most popular partnered social dance form, salsa's significance extends well beyond the Latino communities which gave birth to it. The growing international and cross-cultural appeal of this Latin dance form, which celebrates its mixed origins in the Caribbean and in Spanish Harlem, offers a rich site for examining issues of cultural hybridity and commodification in the context of global migration. Salsa consists of countless dance dialects enjoyed by varied communities in different locales. In short, there is not one dance called salsa, but many. Spinning Mambo into Salsa, a history of salsa dance, focuses on its evolution in three major hubs for international commercial export-New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. The book examines how commercialized salsa dance in the 1990s departed from earlier practices of Latin dance, especially 1950s mambo. Topics covered include generational differences between Palladium Era mambo and modern salsa; mid-century antecedents to modern salsa in Cuba and Puerto Rico; tension between salsa as commercial vs. cultural practice; regional differences in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami; the role of the Web in salsa commerce; and adaptations of social Latin dance for stage performance. Throughout the book, salsa dance history is linked to histories of salsa music, exposing how increased separation of the dance from its musical inspiration has precipitated major shifts in Latin dance practice. As a whole, the book dispels the belief that one version is more authentic than another by showing how competing styles came into existence and contention. Based on over 100 oral history interviews, archival research, ethnographic participant observation, and analysis of Web content and commerce, the book is rich with quotes from practitioners and detailed movement description.

Much music was written for the two most important dances of the 18th and 19th centuries, the minuet and the waltz. In Decorum of the Minuet, Delirium of the Waltz, Eric McKee argues that to better understand the musical structures and expressive meanings of this dance music, one must be aware of the social contexts and bodily rhythms of the social dances upon which it is based. McKee approaches dance music as a component of a multimedia art form that involves the interaction of physical motion, music, architecture, and dress. Moreover, the activity of attending a ball involves a dynamic network of modalities—sight, sound, bodily awareness, touch, and smell, which can be experienced from the perspectives of a dancer, a spectator, or a musician. McKee considers dance music within a larger system of signifiers and points-of-view that opens new avenues of interpretation.

With all things vintage enjoying a boom worldwide, swing dancing has well and truly swung back into fashion. From vintage festivals and tea dances to weekend socials and hundreds of weekly classes held around the world, multiple forms of the dance that was created in 1930s Harlem by Frankie Manning are growing ever more popular. Swing Dance explores the vibrant contemporary swing-dancing scene, looking at the different dance styles and the associated culture, community and fashion. Illustrated with vintage and contemporary photography, as well as specially commissioned step-by-step guides, it provides everything you need to know, whether you fancy kicking up your heels in the Charleston or mastering the Lindy Hop ‘swing out’. The four major dance styles are covered – Charleston, Collegiate Shag, Balboa and Lindy Hop, including the Strolls, which are guaranteed to fill the dance floor. Each chapter begins with an overview of the fascinating evolution of the dance style. ‘Get the Look’ examines the fashions for guys and girls, including hair and make-up, and a clothing, shoes and accessories checklist, while ‘The Music’ suggests the top ten tunes to practise to. Then follows a breakdown of the basic step patterns upon which the dance is built, and a guide to some of the key moves. There are also insider tips from old-timers and today’s leading swing dancers as well as fun, easy-to-follow page-embedded video demonstrations produced exclusively for the book and accessible via scannable QR codes.