OC DANCING BALLROOM DANCE STUDIO FOR CHILDREN AND ADULTS
/ INTERNATIONAL LATIN DANCES /
OC DANCING Ballroom Studio provides professional and fun learning atmosphre; variety of programs for beginners and competitive dancers. Our well trained instructorsn are ready to cater to your level of comfort. Discover the fun world of International Latin Dancing today, learn some Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble and Jive!
The mid-tempo Cha-Cha is a spin-off of the Rumba and the Mambo. With its two slow steps followed by three quick ones (rock step, cha-cha-cha), this sensual, energetic dance is extraordinarily popular with old and young alike. The tempo is slow and staccato, making it easy for dancers to inject their own personality into the patterns. The Cha-Cha-Cha rhythm can still be heard in the music of contemporary performers like Ricky Martin, Enrique Iglesias and Gloria Estefan.
In early days, this dance and its music were both known as "triple mambo" or "mambo with guiro rhythm".
The spirited Samba always gets feet tapping! Originally from Brazil, the festive Samba was popularized in the movies of Carmen Miranda. The Samba is characterized by a steady bounce in 2/4 meter achieved by flexing and straightening the knees while weight is transferred from the ball to the flat of the foot. This happy and bouncy dance is always fun!
Steamy! The most famous Latin American dance to gain popularity in North America and Europe is, without doubt, the rumba. Slow and romantic, the Rumba is the most sensual of the Latin dances. Motion is produced through a transfer of body weight and not from direct movement of the hips. Couples dance very closely together, using their body language to express emotion between them. The Rumba is sometimes referred to as the "Dance Of Love" because couples stare deeply into each other's eyes while they dance.
Paso Doble or pasodoble is a lively style of dance to the duple meter march-like pasodoble music. It actually originated in France [1], but is modeled after the sound, drama, and movement of the Spanish bullfight. Paso doble means "two step" in Spanish.
Because of its inherently choreographed tradition, ballroom Paso Doble for the most part danced only competitively, almost never socially — or at least not without sticking to some sort of previously-learned routine.
Jive is a dance style in 4/4 rhythm that originated among African-Americans in the early 1940s. It is a lively and uninhibited variation of the Jitterbug, i.e., belongs to Swing dances.
In Ballroom dancing, Jive is one of the five International Latin dances.