Ceroc Enterprises

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Ceroc Enterprises is a Franchised dance company that was started by James Cronin and Sylvia Coleman to promote Ceroc partner dancing.

The creation of Ceroc Enterprises and the subsequent Trademarking of the word "Ceroc" by Ceroc Enterprises, lead to the creation of the phrase "Modern Jive" to describe the same dance without infringing on the copyright owned by Ceroc Enterprises.

Ceroc Enterprises is operated as a franchise business, and Ceroc is now a registered trademark of Ceroc Enterprises Ltd, founded in 1991. Currently (Sep 2004), there are over 30 Franchisees holding around 100 events per week which are attended by over 10,000 people each week.

Note that Ceroc Enterprises is a separate company to Ceroc Australia and Ceroc and Modern Jive Dance Company or CMJ (also based in Australia). These Australian companies are not franchisees of Ceroc Enterprises. Similarly, there is no legal connection between Ceroc Enterprises and Ceroc New Zealand.

[edit] History

In the late 1980s, James Cronin and Sylvia Coleman created Ceroc Enterprises, registered Ceroc as a trademark and started to sell Ceroc franchises around the country. At this point, teachers who taught this form of dancing but were not part of the new company were legally obliged to stop referring to the dance style that they taught as Ceroc. Some clubs (particularly those in the Bristol Area) adopted the name Leroc instead, whilst many others names also appeared. Around this time, Ceroc took steps to avoid the circulation of secondary material (such as dancer produced lists of moves or move sequence).

In 1990, one of the original Ceroc Franchisees, Robert Austin, (who had broken away from Ceroc to form LeJive) coined the phrase "Modern Jive". This description later became a generic term for dance styles like Ceroc. The expression differentiates what is know as "Jive (dance)" (with associated steps, rhythm/timing and footwork) with this 'modern' counterpart, which keeps the same timing minus the footwork structure, and includes an expanded group of 'moves'. Teachers and clubs that are not part of the newly created Ceroc Enterprises use this expression. It is a generic term also commonly used by Ceroc Entrprises. For example, the rules of the Ceroc Championships state that "The dance must be recognisable as a modern jive like Ceroc. (Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, West Coast Swing, East Coast Swing, 50s style Rock 'n' Roll, Ballroom Jive etc are not modern jives and therefore are not permitted.)" ^[1]

[edit] Weekenders

In 2006, Ceroc Enterprises entered into the market for Modern Jive "weekenders", which had formerly only been available from independent Modern Jive organisers. The first such event was Ceroc "Storm" at Camber Sands in March 2006. These events distinguished themselves from existing events via:

Promotion at regular Ceroc venues and emphasis on beginner classes opened access up to less experienced Ceroc dancers who would previously have been unlikely to take part in such events.
Gender-balancing enforced by colour-coded wristbands to ensure that there would not be many more women than men - a perceived weakness in events organised by some competitors
A lower entry price. The cheapest tickets were "early bird" "Single and Sharing" tickets, at £25 each, whereas competitors typically charged between £50 and £100 for similar events.