Descriptions of Intermediate Social Dances
American Tango
As with most American social dances which came from other countries, this dance is inspired by a snapshot of Tango that Americans saw around the time this dance was cannonized in the U.S., around the middle 20th century. Unlike “authentic” modern Argentine Tango, which is a living and evolving dance, American Tango starts every pattern with the leader’s left foot and follower’s right foot, the dance travels around the room, and most basic patterns have an 8-beat rhythm pattern of single-single-double-blank. American Tango patterns, basic and extended, usually end with a 4-beat “Tango close” component that has a step pattern of forward-side-draw-for-2 (i.e. the drawing of the foot in takes 2 beats). After learning the basics of Tango, additional styling is introduced which has an offset body position and slightly different dance hold than other smooth social dances.
Ballroom Foxtrot
Note that the word “ballroom” here is a reference to a crowded dance hall, not a dance style… this version of Foxtrot, invented by Arthur Murray, was made for dancing on a crowded floor. Sometimes this dance is called “Arthur Murray Foxtrot” or “Magic-rhythm Foxtrot” (by those who are legally concerned about using Arthur Murray’s name directly). It has a 6-beat rhythm pattern of single-single-double, and it is most often danced to jazz music. The patterns in this dance can also be combined with patterns within the American Box Foxtrot, which has 8-beat patterns of alternating doubles and singles.
As a side-note, in many rural areas where there is a shortage of good Country 2-Step teachers, including many parts of East Idaho, rural Texas, and many other regions, the dance they call 2-Step is often actually a variation of Ballroom Foxtrot where they replace the side-together on the double-rhythm unit with a progressive step-together, but it definitely has all the same character and technique of Ballroom Foxtrot, and it is NOT 2-Step. Also, the dance I am referring to as “Ballroom Foxtrot” should not be confused with an English invented dance which is commonly called “International Foxtrot” and “American Continuity Foxtrot”. While that dance is the most common “Foxtrot” danced by most ballroom dancers, it is not actually in the same dance family as American Foxtrot, and it is not compatible with classic American social dancing.
Box Waltz
While Waltz is said to have originated in central Europe (in the Austria, Germany, and Poland regions), American Waltz was actually born in Boston, has a totally different character than the original European Waltz, and it is danced to much slower music. American Waltz uses 3-Beat units and 6-Beat basics with a basic rhythm pattern of triple-triple (using Waltz triples). In all American versions of Waltz, including a fast American Waltz which is misleadingly called Viennese Waltz, when the first step of the rhythm has the both partners’ left foot in front, the pattern turns left, and when the first step has both partners’ right foot in front, the pattern turns right. This is opposite of the original Austrian Waltz.
Box Waltz is the most basic version of the American Slow Waltz, and it allows learners to step together at the end of each Waltz triple. It still retains the basic character of Waltz, which is constantly turning and requires basic centering skills, but it does not require as much body control as the next-level American Continuity Waltz, a Level 3 dance, or Viennese Waltz, a Level 4 dance. Some have suggested that there is a totally different version of Waltz for Country, but a top Texas-based Country dance professional I admire said it best — something like: There is no separate dance called Country Waltz; Waltz is Waltz. There is just Waltz danced well and Waltz danced badly.
East Coast Swing
Swing dancing originated in the 1920s and went through various names, such as Breakaway, Lindy Hop, and Jitterbug well before a distinction was made between “Eastern” styling for Swing and “Western” styling for Swing. In the 1950s, the two major Swing dance families began to emerge and were eventually named East Coast Swing and West Coast Swing. Both have the same basic rhythms for 6-beat, and 8-beat patterns, but in East Coast Swing, 8-beat patterns are not usually taught until Level 3. 6-beat Swing basics have the rhythm pattern of double-triple-triple, and East Coast Swing is characterized by a rock-away on the double rhythm unit. East Coast Swing has a more return-to-start feeling at the end of each pattern than West Coast Swing, and it doesn’t take as much expertise to get a good handful of East Coast Swing patterns as it does for its cousin, West Coast Swing.
As a style note, there are actually various regional Swing styles which are East Coast Swing-based, and some of them even use old names such as Lindy Hop and Jitterbug, but they are definitely different dances than the Swing dances of the 1930s and 1940s. Many times, the name Lindy Hop is used to imply a specific group’s style of Swing has a purity or preservation-of-essence that none of them actually has. However, some great stylistic evolutions of East Coast Swing can be seen under the names Carolina Shag, Imperial Swing, Bop, Jitterbug, and Hand Dancing. There is even a European style of East Coast Swing called Boogie Woogie.
West Coast Swing
A close cousin of East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing used to be the same dance as East Coast Swing and started to diverge in the late 1930s or early 1940s in Southern California, during the Jitterbug era. In the 1950s and 1960s, many teachers called the dance Western Swing but subsequently re-titled the dance due to a large number of prospective students thinking it was a Cowboy dance. West Coast Swing has always had a history of dancing to modern music and not sticking to traditional big band music, and it is danced to many styles of music today.
In West Coast Swing, the last rhythm of a pattern, usually a triple, ends with a tangible “away” connection called an “anchor”. The follower is then led forward into the next pattern instead of rocking away, and West Coast Swing patterns often start 1 or 2 beats before East Coast Swing patterns do. This constant sense of movement reduces the occurrence of mirrored patterns, and it limits the number of patterns you can learn without additional techniques and more body control (i.e. there are a few Level 2 patterns, but it becomes a Level 3 dance very quickly). In West Coast Swing there is no single basic pattern, and trained Swing dance teachers mostly agree on 14 basic patterns that are needed to make up the core foundation of the dance. Some teachers combine similar basic patterns together and list as few as 8 or 10 basic patterns, and some teachers feel those 14 aren’t enough, so they list more.
Most of the current regional variations of West Coast Swing involve minor differences such as how the anchor is danced, the preferred distance between partners during a pattern, which syncopations are standard, how music is interpreted, and which patterns are common. The only West Coast Swing dances I’ve seen which were different enough to take on new names so far are the Houston Whip, the Dallas Push, and Hollywood Style Lindy.
West Coast Swing Blackfoot 