Latin Dance

[TheFourth]

There's a latin dance group near my house. Thinking of joining it, just for something new really. Any reasons as to why I should or shouldn't?

[Gwenhwyfar]

It really depends on what feeling and style of dance you want to get into.

 

Do you want to feel lively and with a lot of energy when you dance?  Do you want to feel elegant and graceful?  Do you want to put a lot of passion into your dance?  Do you want to tell a story in your dance or just draw people in with emotion?  Do you wanna do dances that entertain and wow people, or is it more for yourself?  Do you want to dance with someone or go solo?

 

There are a lot of factors to deciding what kind of dancing you would enjoy.

 

There a lot of styles of dance in Latin dance; it can't all be clumped together into one.  Do you know what kind of dance they offer?  Watch videos and see if that's something you think you'd be into, or try learning some of those dance moves from videos and see if that's something you'd like.  Sometimes, you can be surprised by what you like!

 

Salsa is more lively, energetic, and sensual; flamenco is more graceful, elegant, passionate, and often has solo dancing or group dancing; mambo is lively, energetic, just like salsa, but more showy to please the audience; zamba is an elegant dancing between two people waving their handkerchiefs around each other; zumba (not to be confused with zamba) is a fitness dance that incorporates a lot of Latin dances together and is very energetic usually.

 

There are many more Latin dances; those are just some examples.

 

Do some research and experiment to find out what you like.  It wouldn't hurt just taking a few days of class to see if you like it.

 

I discovered my love for dance when I took a beginner modern dance class, which was originally not my first choice.  It was a semester class in college and I really wanted to take beginner classes in ballet, but ballet was filled up.  I'm glad I took modern dance now because I realized that I like dance that involves more natural movement, freedom of expression, moving barefoot, going solo, feels lively, and also feels a bit tribal.  I don't know how I'd like ballet now that I see how much fun it is to dance with such free movement.

 

After seeing what I like, I've gotten into the idea of belly dancing and flamenco; more so belly dancing.  Both have that freedom of expression, liveliness, and dancing solo; belly dancing would have more of what I want because you can go barefoot and feel more tribal, but flamenco has some other things belly dancing doesn't that interests me (more passion and elegance).

 

Edit:  Right now, I'm not sure if I still like flamenco as much as I use to, but I know I love belly dancing and would love to finally take some formal classes as soon as I'm done with school.

[ch3]

Join! just the experience worth it. 

 

I joined a dance academy to learn salsa, and I was happy with it, sadly I hat to move to another city but I'll look for another academy soon, I liked the lessons.

[insanity]

There's a latin dance group near my house. Thinking of joining it, just for something new really. Any reasons as to why I should or shouldn't?

Will you like it?

 

 

Only one way to find out....

[Elastigirl]

Join it! I am finding it is a lot more fun to try and just say yes to more things instead of talking myself out of it. Do they have where you can just go and try without joining? You could do that too. But if it sounds fun and interesting, take a chance. If you like it, great! If not, oh well, at least it was a new experience.

[clrknight]

You should absolutely join!

 

I am on a competitive ballroom dance team at my university, and the Latin style dances are by far my favorite! They are so energetic, and you really get a new appreciation for your body and what it can do. Dance in general also gives you an enhanced ability to interact with people, especially of the opposite gender (if you're like me and have a slight problem with that, dancing helps a lot!!)

[TheFourth]

I discovered tonight:
A decade long history in martial arts translates really well to Samba. This is fun, I'm going to keep doing it.