United Country Western Dance Festival (UCWDC) to be exact….what
FUN! (another F word).
The UCWDC is an international organization which promotes
country western dancing by producing dance festivals and competitions
(including the annual World Championships of Country Dance) in 20
countries. The organization advocates
country dancing as a social activity for people of all ages and abilities.
UCWDC festivals are a blast!
Typically they are 3 days and nights of social dancing, workshops with
the world’s best country dance instructors, and amazing competitions (sanctioned
pro-am, amateur and professional couples, and line dance competitions; social
jack ‘n jill contests and “just dance” contests; and with some festivals even
ballroom and swing contests). Take part
in a UCWDC festival and I guarantee that you will be foot sore and happily
dance exhausted by the end of the weekend…new friends, new dance skills and a
renewed desire to dance and dance some more…as soon as the feet recover, that
is!
Check out ucwdc.org for more information! Hope to see you on the dance Floor at a UCWDC
dance Festival for dance FUN!
A smooth progressive partner dance that is usually danced to
big band music in 4/4 time. It is a
beautiful, elegant, sophisticated dance that was developed in the 1920’s but
became most popular in the 1930’s and remains popular today. It is dance competitively both in American
Smooth and International Standard competitions.
A faster version called Quickstep is danced in International
Standard. A simpler social version often
called rhythm foxtrot is the most popular of the foxtrots in a social ballroom
setting.
Why talk about foxtrot (other then it starts with F) below a
discussion of Country Western dancing whose flagship dance is the country 2-step? Well…it turns out the 2-step and rhythm
foxtrot are kissin’ cousins….it’s just that one is a city girl and the other is
a country boy! The basic timing of Rhythm
foxtrot is slow-slow-quick-quick. The
basic pattern structure of 2-step is quick-quick-slow-slow. Many of their patterns can be interchanged in
the beginning levels of the dances…but 2-step is faster and uses much more open
work and turns along with weaving and slingshot patterns in the more advanced
levels of the dance.
DAncing is like a foreign country with no passport to me. Interesting post though. I'm trying to visit all the A-Z Challenge Blogs this month.
ReplyDelete