Dance Styles

OUR MAIN DANCES

Dance 4 Life focuses on 2 main groups of social dances. Our General Social Dancing genre includes Salsa, Bachata, Rumba, Cha Cha, Waltz and Foxtrot. Our Brazilian Social Dancing genre includes Bolero, Forro, Zouk and Samba de Gafieira.

These dances are the main dances covered regularly in our group classes and played at our social dance events. These dances will allow you to move your body in different ways as you groove and dance to a variety of genres and dance music!

GENERAL SOCIAL DANCES

SALSA

Salsa is danced to the sizzling musical style of the same name. With origins in Cuba, Salsa's simplicity in it's beginner stages has made it one of the most popular partner dances around the world. Get your hips moving, while exploring the endless combinations and visually tricky arm variations!

CHA CHA CHA

Cha Cha Cha is a dance and musical style of Cuban origin. The name derives from the sound of the dancer's feet as they shuffle their feet in quick succession. Cha Cha Cha is danced as extension of Salsa or Rumba and features a syncopated playful rhythm.

BACHATA

A musical genre and partner dance from the Dominican Republic, Bachata is danced in close hold and features rhythmical, hip and body movements! Featuring basic step patterns, you can focus more on developing hip action and connecting with your partner.

RUMBA

This dance style is a slow, yet beautiful and romantic partner style with origins in Cuba. Rumba's slow tempo allows students the time to develop and focus on other social dance concepts like footwork, timing, technique and posture.

FOXTROT

Foxtrot is a musical style based on slow tempo'd, big band music. The Social Foxtrot dance is a great social party dance that slowly progresses around the room, forming a good foundation of more complex traditional Ballroom styles.

WALTZ

The Waltz is a graceful and elegant traditional ballroom dance style. It is danced to triple time music. The Social Box Waltz is a party dance style that mixes fun rotational and open patterns. The Modern Waltz is a flowing and travelling partner dance.

BRAZILIAN LATIN

FORRO

Forró is a popular and upbeat Brazilian style of music, characterized by it's main instruments of the accordian, zabumba and triangle. Forró can be danced fast or slow, and thus differs from region to region, but also creates different variety.

BOLERO

Brazilian Bolero is an intimate partnered style that can be danced to slow, melodic and sentimental ballads. Dance 4 Life teaches the Brazilian-style syllabus, which is intimate and heavily influenced by Argentine Tango.

SAMBA DE GAFIEIRA

Samba is a Brazilian musical genre and fun dance style with roots in Africa. In it's many forms can be lively, joyous, funky or laid back. Samba de Gafieira is a laid back partnered Samba, which can be danced to numerous musical styles such as Samba de Gafieira, Bossa Nova, Samba Rock and Jazz.

ZOUK

Zouk is a complex, sensual Brazilian dance style known for it's fluidity and lilting movements. It evolved from Lambada and Zouk music, which is Caribbean in origin. Modern Zouk music today is of Brazilian origin and features a stronger bass, remixed with both Brazilian and English popular music.

OTHER DANCES

We love partner dancing and cover many other partnered dance styles as well! We cover these dances primarily in private lessons, but occasionally cover them in a group class format during "alternate dance weeks" and special workshop events.

BALLROOM STANDARD

The Standard Ballroom style is composed of the 5 traditional dances of Modern Waltz, Slow Foxtrot, Quickstep, English Tango and Viennese Waltz. These styles have evolved heavily from competitive and performance influences, however Dance 4 Life still teaches these dances socially through traditional lead and follow.

BALLROOM LATIN

The Latin Ballroom style is composed of the competitive International dance versions of Samba, Cha Cha, Rumba, Paso Doble & Jive. These styles have been heavily influenced from Dancesport competition, Ballroom, Ballet, Jazz and classical and contemporary technique. Dance 4 Life still teaches these dances socially through traditional lead and follow.

SWING

Swing is an umbrella-term for a number of partnered dance styles that developed from the swing style of Jazz music in the 1920s-1940s. Learn basic Swing dancing, including Charleston, Lindy Hop, 6-Beat, Rock & Roll, West Coast Swing and the Hustle!

MERENGUE

Merengue is a style of Dominican dance and music. The music is upbeat and fun, and the movements simple! Merengue's simplicity allows you to play around with a lot more arm variations and combinations.