DanceUniverse - Ballroom Dance - Dancesport - Dance CD / Shoes / Dancewear

We do most of our teaching in Woking or Farnborough. This map shows where these two locations are in relation to the M25, the Orbital Road round London. As the crow flies, the distance from the centre of London to Woking is 24 miles (and to Farnborough 32 miles). Beware, however, peak-time traffic delays within London and also on the M25 (fondly known by some of its users as 'the biggest car park in Europe').

Many dancers choose to live in the Norbury area of London. We have therefore provided a few suggestions about how to reach the studios from that station, as well as via Central London, by public transport. We believe the information to be correct at the time of writing this, but please make sure that you verify the current situation before setting out!!

Some students have been known to walk from the station to the studio, but it may be easier (certainly on a first visit) to take a taxi. Woking Taxis (01483 740888/773000) operate from Woking Station.

Studio address: The Diamond Dance Centre, 9 Queen's Road, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 5DJ.

Some students have walked from Farnborough Main Station to the studio, but on a first visit you will probably prefer to take a taxi. North Camp Station, however, should be within walking distance of the studio.

FAQ's
1 - How often do you practise?
We train very hard (both in the studio and the gym), and we set aside as much time as we possibly can for our own practice sessions. However, these activities cannot be quantified in quite the regular manner suggested by the question. The lifestyle of a top Professional dancer simply does not permit this - too much travelling, and too many other professional commitments. When we are in UK, we can of course work with our own Coaches, and we are more easily able to schedule practice sessions for ourselves. We do also have a regular trainer who helps us at our gymnasium sessions. Her task is to help us to achieve maximum performance, even at the end of the longest of competitions. We believe that our stamina is one of our greatest assets. Also as part of our own personal development programme, we engage in a number of other activities that are dance-related. For example, we take part in other sorts of dance (ballet, jazz, etc.), and we have been learning languages to help our teaching and lecturing - in particular, Japanese and German.

2 - Which dancers do you particularly admire?
There are a number of "Greats" of the Dance World whom we admire, as well as several from Stage and Screen also. It would be wrong to name one, or only a few, individuals because these "Greats" all influence us in different ways - charisma, drive, personality, technical ability, creativity, etc. Most of all, though, we love to see a truly great performer who can stir the emotions of a real audience.
There are a number of "Greats" of the Dance World whom we admire, as well as several from Stage and Screen also. It would be wrong to name one, or only a few, individuals because these "Greats" all influence us in different ways - charisma, drive, personality, technical ability, creativity, etc. Most of all, though, we love to see a truly great performer who can stir the emotions of a real audience.

3 - Do you have one word of advice for dancers who want to reach the top?
The best advice that we can offer is - Work hard at your dancing, but always try to enjoy, and believe in, what you do. We believe that dancing is one of the most rewarding careers that you can have, but you must put in the hard work if you are to reap those rewards. Actually, although you asked us about couples who want to get to the top, our tip would be just as appropriate for those who do not aspire to that level, who wish rather to improve their competence as recreational or social dancers.

4 - Do the two of you share a relationship besides that of a Professional dancing partnership?
We are indeed a couple away from dancing as well. Dancing together means that we spend nearly every moment together. We are very lucky to have found such a close friendship, because it helps us to tackle all the challenges that we face on and off the competition floor. We became engaged in 1999.

Celebrities!

The second leg of our journey was a visit to Taiwan. This was our first visit to this country and we were very well received. During our week there, we were asked if we would mind giving an interview - of course not - anything to promote DanceSport. We were expecting one journalist and perhaps a photographer, so were astounded to find ourselves the focus of a full-scale press conference, facing a crowd of photographers and reporters from all around Taiwan, plus camera crews from four different TV Studios. After we had given an introductory speech, and answered questions about ourselves and the state of dancing in Taiwan, we were asked to dance - not on a dance floor, but in the hotel lobby. This sparked quite a lot of interest from the staff and other hotel guests, who must have been wondering what all the fuss was about, and who these celebrities were. It was wonderful publicity, not only for us but also for dancing as a whole. Hopefully the interest will continue and grow. We must congratulate our hosts Fred Wong and Alice Yu-Yueh-Hua for arranging this event.

On our first night in Taiwan we were taken to a traditional Tea House. Such places are very popular and can be found everywhere in Taiwan, but this particular one is owned by Fred Wong himself. It was very beautiful, with a small lake in the middle in which there were apparently hundreds of Coy. We were invited to feed these fish, whereupon the calm of the lake was immediately transformed into a flapping frenzy of hungry gaping mouths. Once calm was restored, however, and we were seated drinking tea, the serious business began as we were given an introductory lesson in Taiwanese that proved to be invaluable in the following week of teaching.

A highlight of our time with Fred and Alice was attending the 10 ^th Taoyuan Union Cup Dance Festival’ This event was very well supported, with couples from many different countries - Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, etc. - invited to compete. Fred and Alice tell us that the popularity of this competition has been steadily growing each year, and they are optimistic about its future. The response to our demonstration was excellent - and we thoroughly enjoyed entertaining a most appreciative audience.

We spent the third week of our tour teaching and demonstrating in USA, at the San Francisco Open Championships’ It was our first visit to this city, but once again everyone immediately made us feel at home. One evening we had a lecture scheduled. Chris was talking very seriously, of course, about the position of the lady in relation to the man, and all was going very well that is until he had a slight slip up in speech. Instead of saying that the lady must line up her right side with the line of the man’s buttons, he said you must line your right side up with his bottoms Well -you can imagine the effect that this had on his audience To be fair, at least some of the thirty students did do their best to comply with the master’s instructions! before they all fell about laughing. We will watch out for these dancers in future competitions They should be easy enough to spot.

Chris in Serious Mode

Very Serious!

San Francisco Bay

Ups and Downs in San Francisco

When the Championships were over we had a free day. It was lovely and hot, and everyone was ready to relax, especially our hosts Stefan and Denise Krauel. They took us sight-seeing - first to Sausalito, a pretty little village on the other side of the bay which affords a wonderful view of San Francisco - then on into San Francisco itself, where we took a ride on one of the world-famous trams. Looking down the steep hill from the moving tram was certainly a breathtaking experience. but nowhere near as breathtaking as walking back up that same hill! By now, though, the sun was setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge. This glorious sight made a perfect ending to a fabulous week. We shall certainly look forward to visiting again soon.

The last part of our tour was spent in New Jersey as guests of Alex and Tanya Koulik. We have visited their studios three times now, and we always find it fun teaching there. On this occasion, we were also to demonstrate for them. Our show was very well received and we made yet more friends, some of whom we also had the pleasure of teaching. What a wonderful and rewarding life DanceSport can offer!

We would like to thank everyone for their kindness and hospitality - all our hosts, and their colleagues, of course - but also the many friends and acquaintances who went out of their way to make us feel at home in each of the venues - We look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

Dramatic End to the Tour!

‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ - ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’ - supposedly epitomises the Spirit of the Olympic Games. In fact, it does not encompass every aspect of the Games today, any more than it would have done in the 4th and 5th Centuries BC. While the motto does capture the ancient tradition of competitive endeavour, it fails to identify the extremely broad range of activities that are included in the Games. Interestingly, the Ancient Games did not include high-jump events, although the Greeks did compete in the long jump.

Why not ‘further’ rather than ‘higher’, then? This would certainly also accommodate activities such as javelin and discus throwing. Clearly, competitiveness is a feature of today’s society, whether on the playing field, or at the cutting edge of industry and commerce, or in the promotion procedures of the workplace. The notions of comparative and superlative, better and best, are therefore well understood. How relevant in other respects, though, is the Olympic motto to the Games today?

We see the inclusion of dancesport under the Olympic umbrella, as well as many other events such as rhythmic gymnastics, synchronised swimming, and even clay pigeon shooting, as being entirely appropriate. At their highest levels of performance, all involve the development of comparative, as well as superlative, skills and understanding. Unlike some critics, we can see the hard training and dedication that participants must apply to each of them. All of these events involve competition, and require a level of training that must secure their status as sport events. However, none of these activities really fit ‘faster, higher, stronger’ criteria. Terms such as ‘more accurate’, ‘more precise’ or ‘more artistic’ would seem to be far more relevant to these particular pursuits.

In the last year, having been at the forefront of the amateur ballroom field, winning the World Championships, and Gold Medals at the World Games, we could hardly fail to notice the renewed interest in dancesport and its possible inclusion in the Olympic Games. Confirmation of the recognition of dancesport by the International Olympic Committee occurred in the middle of 1997, as did the association between Mark McCormack’s International Marketing Group (IMG) and the International Dance Sport Federation (IDSF). Both events seemed to point the way forward for dancesport. Undoubtedly, the extra media attention that resulted should bring more international recognition for dancesport and for its bright young stars. We feel that the movement for the inclusion of dancesport in the Games is the best way to return it to the spotlight that it has held in the past.

The Winter Olympics have not been without their share of controversy in recent years, and some of this has been manifest in a context that is particularly relevant to dancesport. In 1994, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean returned to competitive ice-dance. Among other things, history points the finger at the wisdom of their inclusion of a move that was identified as a lift. They were only awarded the Bronze Medal. Much earlier, though, they took Gold in Sarajevo in 1984, being awarded twelve 'perfect six' scores out of a possible maximum of eighteen. They did not drop a single 'six' in the marks given to them for artistic impression (as opposed to those for technical merit).

Their groundbreaking competitive performance to Ravel’s Bolero helped to confirm the place of ice-dance in most people’s minds as a worthy Olympic event. The official International Olympic Committee web-site [www.olympic.org] records that Torvill and Dean's performance was 'the four finest minutes of the 1984 Winter Olympics'. However, at the time, there were those who questioned whether skaters like Torvill and Dean and John Curry were making a sport event too artistic.

The controversy continues. The 1998 Olympic Ice-Dance Championship brought renewed debate to the fore about the nature, and judging, of ice-dance. Since becoming an activity in its own right, separate from its more ‘athletic’ counterpart of pair-skating, with its lifts and throws, ice-dance has indeed developed along more artistic lines. However, its inclusion in the Olympic games since 1976 has put pressure on ice-dancers to introduce ‘more athletic’ content and performances. Indeed, it was apparent that the criticism levelled at Torvill and Dean for ‘lifting’ in 1994 would have been harder to sustain in the context of the generally more gymnastic choreography of the ice-dancers just four years later, in the 1998 Games.

It is this uneasy balance between ‘athletic’ and ‘artistic’ that could be a problem for the future of dancing. The Bolero performance is described in the IOC web-site as 'one of the rare, privileged moments in which sport borders on true art'. Dancesport has the potential for making such moments far less rare. However, in trying to make dancesport acceptable to the Olympic Committee, we should resist pressures to embrace the ‘faster, higher, stronger’ view of Olympic events. The term ‘dancesport’ is clearly intended to highlight the very real competitive, and inherently athletic, qualities of our couples and of their performances. This is absolutely necessary for the purpose of gaining inclusion in the Olympics. However, we are in danger of sending mixed messages to the future participants of Ballroom Dancing. Will the performances of the new dancesport champions be the same as those of the ballroom dancing champions of the past? Clearly not. There have always been, and will continue to be, changes over time as our understanding of the complex techniques for producing dynamic movement increases. The important thing is that these changes are motivated by developments that are integral to dancing itself.

Do we still want to see beautiful, elegant and artistic dancers? Of course we do. Competition has not eradicated these in the past, and nor need it do so in the future. Dancesport’s Olympic aspirations, though, could prove to be a danger if they lead to dancing being judged against the wrong criteria. As we have seen, however, ‘faster, higher, stronger’ is no longer an all-embracing view of Olympic events today. ‘To be the best that I can be - to do the best that I can do’, sentiments captured in the popular music that the Games have inspired, seem to be a far more relevant reflection of the real idealism of the Olympic dream. With this approach, dancesport should never have to suffer the nightmare of an Olympic gold medal being awarded to dancers who in Quickstep can run faster, hop higher, or hold each other together stronger!

[An earlier version of this article by Chris & Hazel was originally published in The Dance Teacher, May 1998, pages 161-3, International Dance Teachers’ Association, International House, 76 Bennett Road, Brighton, East Sussex, BN2 5JL, IK. Tel: +44 (0)1273-685652, Fax: +44 (0)1273-674388]

2) Can you explain what dancing in the United Kingdom is like? In Holland we have hundreds of Dance Schools where students come to learn social dancing. When they are good they can go competing after about three or four years of social dancing courses. Is this the same in England?

3) Can you tell us if there is a difference between Amateur Dancing and Professional Dancing?

10) Do the two of you share a relationship besides that of a professional dancing partnership?