Everyone who joins the Michigan Ballroom Dance Team can learn all the dances displayed on this page, and more! Some of the dances that aren’t included on this page are social dances like salsa/mambo, hustle, merengue, bachata, and west coast swing. Browse through the dances that you’ll be learning!
International Latin
Cha-Cha
The cha-cha is a cheeky and flirty dance. It is an upbeat dance with sharp movements and heaps of attitude. Easy to learn and fun to master.
Rumba
“The rumba is the vertical expression of a horizontal wish.” – Strictly Ballroom
Samba
The samba originated in Brazil as a dance for street festivals and celebrations. It’s full of hip action and it’s a ton of fun.
Paso Doble
The paso doble is a stylization of the movements performed by a toreador in the bull-fighting arena. It is the most powerful and aggressive dance, characterized by distinctive music and frequent posing.
Jive
The jive is the most energetic and physically demanding of the competitive dances. Its style is part east coast swing, part west coast swing, part Latin motion, and part rock and roll.
International Standard
Waltz
The waltz is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, flowing movements, continuous turns, and rise and fall. Graceful and elegant, waltz dancers glide around the floor almost effortlessly. The tempo is slow, but the expressive quality of the music often invites very powerful and dynamic movement from dancers. It’s the dance you should use on your wedding day.
Tango
In the late 19th century, Buenos Aires was filled with immigrants from Europe and Africa. The variety of cultures combined to bring about a new style of music, formed from African beats, Indian rhythms, Latin influences, and the popular music of the pampas in Argentina. This new music was dubbed tango.
As they did with many other dances, Europeans adopted the tango and made it their own. A very powerful dance was the result, with big movements, dramatic gestures, and quick snaps of the head from one position to another.
Foxtrot
The foxtrot is a smooth, progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. Foxtrot is danced to 4/4 big band (usually vocal) music. Popular singers of music suitable for foxtrot are Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, and Dinah Shore.
Quickstep
The quickstep is a fast-paced, lively dance, characterized by hops, skips and runs. It’s the dance that brings out the kid in you. Music for the quickstep is usually up-tempo and jazzy.
Viennese Waltz
The Viennese waltz is characterized by big, grand and constantly whirling movement across the floor. Traditionally, the name Viennese waltz refers to a very specific musical genre: the relatively fast waltzes of the the Romantic era in Vienna.