Country/western dance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Country/western dance, also called Country and Western dance, encompasses many dance forms or styles, which are typically danced to country-western music, and which are stylistically associated with American country and/or western traditions.
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[edit] Dances
Country western dances can be placed into two basic categories:
- Partner dances include those that are mostly lead and follow, and pattern partner dances. Lead and follow dances include: Two Step, Waltz, and Polka. Partner pattern dances include: Horseshoe Shuffle, Traveling Cha Cha, Sweetheart Stroll, Schottische, and Cotton Eyed Joe.
Western couple dancing is a form of social dance. Many different dances are done to country-western music. These dances include: Two Step, Waltz, cha cha, Polka, shuffle, Western promenade dances, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, and Nightclub Two Step. The Two Step and various Western promenade or pattern couples dances are unique to country western dancing.
Western group dances include the following:
[edit] History
From the earliest days, the dances and the music that accompanied them were brought to America by the people of the British Isles, continental Europe, and Africa. The Virginia Reel, based on the "Sir Roger de Coverly" became popular after the French Revolution. Quadrilles, too, including the cotillon, anglicized as cotillion, were brought to America by French dancing masters. Their influence survives in terms used in square dancing.[1]
The term "jig" has been used to describe various forms of solo dance steps, as well as music, and has not been well defined. Jigs, clogs, hornpipes, and other step dances may have come from some forgotten ethnic past, or nothing more than an individual improvisation. Other early terms used to describe either solo dancing or steps done as part of a circle or square dance were buck-and-wing, flat-footing, double shuffle, hoedown, and breakdown.[2]
"Frolics" were community events often associated with events such as corn shucking, house raising, etc, with a feast and dancing at the end of the labors. A fiddler, often a black man, was the main source of music for dance music. The banjo, too, derived from earlier African instruments, was also important. Reels, square dances, waltzes, polkas and other couple dances were performed with a spirit of freedom and improvisation, "all so mingled that it is a dance without name".[3]
"House parties" featuring music and dancing were common in the South through the 1920s, the dawn of commercialized country music. Popular tunes played by fiddlers such as "Sailor's Hornpipe", or "The Virginia Reel" were increasingly divorced from the dances that bore the same names. ref>Don't Get above Your Raisin' by Bill C. Malone. 2001. University of Illinois Press. page 157. ISBN 0-252-02678-0</ref>
In the late 1930s through the 1950s millions of Americans in the Lower Great Plains danced to Western Swing at roadhouses, county fairs and dance halls in small towns. The music was strictly for dancing, and included mostly the simpler one and two step dances with quite a few foxtrots along with both "cowboy" and "Mexican" waltzes. [1]
Cain's Dance Academy opened in 1930 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. People danced to "hot hillbilly music" or "hot string-band music". Bob Wills and Texas Play Boys played Western Swing nightly from 1934 until 1943. Crowds at Cain's Ballroom were as large as 6,000 people. Regular shows continued until 1958 with Johnnie Lee Wills as the bandleader. [2]
During the early days of WWII National Guardsmen patrolled the beaches of Venice, California in search of enemy submarines and ships. During the daytime, Venice became a major draw for sailors and soldiers on weekend leave. Country Western and Swing music echoed from the dance halls and casino lounges.[3]
Bands playing Western Swing attracted "people (who) were top-notch jitterbugging, jumping around, cutting loose and going crazy” during the 1940s and into the 1950s. In the Los Angeles area, the Venice Pier Ballroom, the Riverside Rancho in Los Feliz, and the Santa Monica Ballroom were all homes to popular Western Swing bands. [4]
After WWII the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco hosted a syndicated radio show that featured Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. Wills opened the Wills Point nightclub in Sacramento.
400 South Long Beach Boulevard in the suburb of Compton in Los Angeles, California was the site of California's largest barn dance. The Town Hall Barn Dance ran on Friday and Saturday nights from 1951 through 1961. Over 2,000 people paid to attend, and over 1,000 people danced to live performances of popular entertainers. The shows were broadcast both on radio and television. [5][6]
During the 1970s and 1980s Gilley's Club in Pasadena, Texas, with its Texas-size bar and a Texas-size dance floor could hold 6,000 people in its 48,000 square feet, and was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's largest nightclub. [7]
[edit] Clogging
Clogging is a step dance which is usually danced in groups to bluegrass music. It originates from the Appalachian region and is associated with the predecessor to bluegrass — "old-time" music, which is based on Irish and Scots-Irish fiddle tunes. It could be described as a more animated version of Irish step dance or a country version of tap dancing. There are dance competitions for clogging.
[edit] Organizations
Country western dance is practiced in country western dance bars, social clubs, dance clubs and ballrooms worldwide.
The United Country Western Dance Council establishes standards and sanctions dance competitions for this form of dancing.
Newest Dance Circuit ... American Country Dance Association came about in 2003. This new Country Western dance circuit was formed to reflect the changing needs and requests of the country dance community.
On Long Island, New York The Long Island Country Music Association , (a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of country music)offers information on events and lessons for both the novice and advanced country dancer.
