Well, it essentially means that the audience is dancing with and/or to a particular person. For example, some folks tend to talk about it as the use of “drag king” to describe a style of dance involving several people.
This definition does, however, not describe what most people typically think of when they speak of social dancing. It generally refers to an area of dance where, generally, the dancers are dancing to a particular rhythm. You can think about it in the same way people might say “samba” as being a movement of the feet; some people describe it being a dance that has several people at the forefront.
If this sounds like it is being used to describe a specific form of dance in which people are dancing together at the same time, it definitely sounds like what you might have in mind. However, if you think of social dancing as an area at which you are dancing to a person, then that is what social dancing is.
So, to make it even simpler to think about, what actually makes social dancing what it is – and why that is a significant thing when it comes to its relevance and usefulness – see this chart:
You can see that it is the relationship between a person and a particular rhythm, not a particular person. This means that social dancing can exist across both gender lines and across age lines, and it can be used by both people who are interested in dancing and by those who are not interested in dancing.
If you think you or your friends would enjoy social dancing, then you can do it and become a part of that scene. And, if you think that you would not enjoy social dancing, then you can decide not to do it!
To make sure that everybody who dances socially has the opportunity to enjoy it, we are trying to get the word out, so please share this message as widely as you can by using #socialdance. We encourage everyone to do it and get involved at any level: just email us your personal information, and we’ll start getting your feedback about how social dancing is being used by others!
This post was taken from our website socialdance.org. And the dance instructor to whom we were trying to get feedback on social dancing, was also sending a message to us about how the dance was being used and what people would like more of from social dancing. This person was very encouraging.
See a video of the dance instructor and we try to capture some footage here
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