World Cafe - sample playlist

Christmas Music for Dancers

For those who would like to dance to their Christmas carols, here is an updated playlist of danceable Christmas music.  Have a great holidays!

Swing Eclectic Oct. 6 Playlist

Thank you for all who participated in the survey to determine a focus for the October 6 dance. The results are in and it was a tie between Swing Eclectic and World Eclectic with Blues Eclectic a few votes back, then Waltz Eclectic and Tango and Tapas. So in Oct 6 we will be having a swing dance with an eclectic twist. I will working on it over the next couple of weeks and feel the playlist will be one that can be enjoyed by  those who enjoy the Thursday Fulton Park and Sunday Brunch dances. Check out the progress of the playlist here. Please email me comments and suggestions.

(Edit- 9/25/12)  Swing dance music is a huge genre that covers about a 100 years and many different subcultures. So my first thought is take a dancing journey through this diversity. One challenge I will have to keeping the energy sustainable for dancers to have become familiar our playlists. I will attempt to do this by including some waltz, blues and two steps (fox trots and night club) with the swing music. I have updated the playlist to give you an idea of what this playlist might be like. As always your feedback is welcome.

There is a slider on the right to access the full list.

Description of the different Dance Eclectic Playlists

The variety of music and ways of dancing to music are limitless. We all have individual comfort levels within certain styles of music and dance genres. Here are descriptions of different playlists that I hope will provide you with an idea of what to expect when you come to a Dance Eclectic event

The focus of Waltz Eclectic playlists is the waltz - There will be around 50% waltzes sometimes more but seldom less. They will be of varying tempo and dynamics that include slow waltzes, rortary turning waltzes, fast turning waltzes, hesitation and blues waltzes. Also with waltz will be various two steps (night club, rhumbas, mambos, zydeco, foxtrots), one steps and swing. The general tone of an evening of this playlist will be melodically aerobic, more extroverted than introverted  and upbeat.

A typical playlist for Sunday Waltz brunch and other waltz eclectic dances

The focus of the Blues Eclectic playlist is all blues: There will various styles of blues  - classic to contemporary, blues that swing, blues where you feel the rhythm in your body and that gets you to move. The tone of the playlist is sensual, moody, more introverted than extroverted with an intensity that you feel in your body. It is meant to inspire dancing that has a mutually responsive, flowing connection between partners and allows freedom for improvisation.

A Typcial Playlist for a BluesEclectic dance (updated 10/1/12)

The focus of the Swing Eclectic playlist is, no surprise, swing. This playlist will be an eclectic mix of contemporary and vintage swing plus west coast, waltz and cha cha.

Tango Eclectic: From a tango viewpoint all the music will be of an alternative tango variety and from a non tango dancer’s viewpoint the music will have latin, swing, waltz, blues rhythms. For dancers who know both tango and other dances this will be an atmosphere in which you can dance what you feel at the moment.

  World Eclectic: lots of latin, waltz, swing from around the world

A typical playlist for a World eclectic dance. I also play from this playlist during the last of hour of other dances.

Check back. I will complete the post in the next day or two......

Summer Waltz Ball- new music suggestions

Playlists for events like the Summer Waltz Playlist, are composed mostly of familiar music that has been played for dancers many times and has kept them on the floor dancing. But some new music helps to add a freshness to the playlist, especially if the music inspires dancing. Here is a selection of new music that I am considering for the playlist. I would love to hear your thoughts on any of the music below.

To listen to the music you will need to sign up for spotify and download and install the software. I quick (especially if you have a Facebook account), easy and free. The are 14 songs in the list so you will need to scroll down. Scroll is on right.

A number of the songs, if played on Saturday, will be adjusted for length and tempo to play them more danceable.

Ari and Whitney's Blues Connection Workshop

Ari Levitt and Whitney Evans gave a workshop in Portland on June 9 that explored the blues connection. In an afternoon they went through a series of exercises that took the dancers from moving in groups where individuals connected with and allowed other members to affect their movement (a little like contact improvisation) to where at the end of the session partners were moving together, with the energy from the music flowing from one dancer to the other, both sharing the lead and follow. Attached is a video of a demo Ari and Whitney did at the dance Saturday evening. Notice there are no basic blues patterns but the character of the dance is more in the connection between Ari and Whitney then in the particular moves they are doing. The patterns are borrowed from other dances like swing and salsa. Catch Ari and Whitney the next time they are to Portland. They give a great workshop.

Playlist for First Saturday Dance - 4/7/12

The Playlist for the April 7th Saturday Night Dance includes music that will be familiar to those who attend the Thursday evening Fulton Park dances as those who have attended the Tango and Tapas dances. The music will be from around the world, and truly eclectic in mood, style and rhythm. The evening will move from latin two-steps and waltzes to west coast swing and cha chas to tangos and waltzes to blues swing and two steps and waltzes.  The following songs will be played during to evening (not necessarily in this order) along with other music.  

Name	Artist	Genre
Aïcha	Khaled	World twostep
Siempre Me Quadana	Bebe	Night Club Two Step
World Looking In	Morcheeba	World twostep
Ca Chante	Smod	World twostep
J'ai pas le temps	Souad Massi	World twostep
Busco-me	Bebe	World twostep
La Mitad	Natalia Clavier	Night Club Two Step
En el último trago	Concha Buika	Waltz medium
Nothing Else Matters	Apocalyptica	Waltz medium
Il pleut sous la mer	rene aubry	Waltz medium
La Dispute	Yann Tiersen	waltz slow
Midnight Waltz	Adam Hurst	waltz slow
Collarbone	Fujiya & Miyagi	Hustle
Somebody That I Used To Know	Gotye	Cha cha
Set Fire to the Rain	Adele	Swing west coast
I've Got To See You Again	Norah Jones	Cha cha
I Put A Spell On You	Natacha Atlas	World Dance
Ring My Bells	Enrique Iglesias	Swing west coast
Pa' Bailar (Con Ryota Kumatsu)	Bajofondo	Tango Nuevo
Postales	Federico Aubele	Tango Nuevo
La Ultima Curda	Alex Krebs, Nick Danielson	Tango Golden Age
Romance de Barrio	Alex Krebs Tango Sextet	Tango Vals
El Aeroplano	Conjunto Berretín	Tango Vals
St. Gabriel	Janiva Magness	waltz blues
Ain't No Way	Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa	waltz Blues
Leave Me Alone	Eden Brent	waltz blues
Walk Away	Christina Aguilera	waltz blues
You Don't Know Me	Ingrid Lucia & the Flying Neutrinos	Blues sixeight
My Drag	Squirrel Nut Zippers	Tango Non tango
Dry Spell	Hazmat Modine	World Dance
I Heard About You	The Theater Fire	Blues stroll
HEARTATTACK AND VINE	John Hammond	Blues West Coast
Coffee	Papa Mali	Blues West Coast
Red Rooster	Brother Yusef	Blues slowtwostep
Your Heart Is As Black As Night	Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa	Blues slowtwostep
Nobody’s Fault But Mine	Beverly McClellan	Blues slowtwostep

Sevillanas- a social dance from Southern Spain

Ever wonder what to do with your hands when you are dance. Check out this dance from Spain.

Angela Amillaras will be doing Sevillanas lesson as part of Richard Powers and Angela's weekend workshop- "The Allure of the Waltz".

"Sevillana is a popular flamenco-style dance from Seville. Its rhythm is 3/4 or better 6/8.
The Sevillana did not originate in Seville[citation needed]. It is an old folk dance, danced by couples of all ages and sexes during celebrations (fiestas or ferias), often by whole families and pueblos. Sevillanas choreography is very stable, and knowing it is very useful, since it is a fiesta dance. This is why learning flamenco usually starts with this particular dance: it is easier to reach a particular level and there are more occasions for practice and training (even for men).
Each sevillana is composed of 4 (or sometimes 7) parts, with each part divided into 3 coplas, and with each copla made up of 6 movements. It is a very vivid dance, often excluded from flamenco by "purists". "
                                                                                                            from Wikipedia


The video below is from a trip to Sevilla Feira in 2006. It shows the Sevillanas as it is danced socially in a festival atmosphere of the Feira.

Richard Powers - a fresh perspective on social dancing

Richard Powers is a dance historian and professor at Stanford University who has also taught and choreographed vintage and social dance for over 30 years. He is responsible to a large part for the resurgence and redefinition of social dancing and in particular the waltz in a segment of our culture. His many workshops around the country have helped to spawn a network of dance communities that focus on the waltz and other traveling dances of which Waltz Eclectic is one.

I have gone to a number of Richard and Angela's workshops and have been impressed by the fresh prospective they bring to social dancing.

Below are thoughts that I wrote down after a Waltz week at Stanford.

 

1. Richard taught individual moves rather than patterns of moves. Learning a move then practicing it in the your “freestyle” way allowed me to lose the move,  then find it again it while dancing, helping me to integrate the move in my body memory. This coincides better with the kinesthetic way I learn to dance as opposed to the way most teachers have you practice a sequence of moves that you do right or wrong and for me becomes more mind memory than body memory.

2. I learned a system, a way of dancing to music rather than individual dances. Understanding the continuity of waltz from the slow ballroom speeds to the fast turning and faster hesitation and tango waltzes was a breakthrough  for me. I can see the possibility clearer of waltz and dancing in general being more of a conversation with a particular partner about a particular piece of music on a particular dance floor rather than superposing  patterns onto music that they do not quite fit or my partner does not feel comfortable doing. 

3. Learning to transition between Cross step waltz and turning waltz or waltz swing also added to my feeling of breakthrough, as did learning the cross step one-step. These allowed me to forget what I learned (verbally), relaxing the work of my “left hemisphere” and just let my body “right hemisphere”  find the patterns that were appropriate for the situation. I dance for those moments my partners’ and my movements flow without any seeming effort on our parts. 

4. The concept of deep listening and the guided imagery session took dance to a level I have never been exposed to. One thing that impressed me about the week was how Richard balanced verbal “left hemisphere” work with a more body oriented “right hemisphere” integration of the work. I hope he continues with this and more teachers try to teach in this holistic way.

5. The lectures added to the balance to the week.

The way partner dancing was presented during this week made so much common sense. Why isn’t it promoted more by our cultures as the healthy, fun, community oriented, creatively fulfilling activity it is? Going to the dance should be looked upon, and encouraged just as much as gong to the show, going out for dinner or even going to church. I think our mainstream culture uses the idea of dancing as a metaphor to be done in our imaginations, when the real thing is so accessible for us if we make the effort. (Just my personal ravings)

Holiday Ball video plus playlist of Holiday music

The Holiday Waltz Ball last Saturday was a great success with over 150 people attending. Norse Hall never looked so festive and the dancing was so enthusiastic we had to extend the dance by a half hour. Thanks to Nancy and all those who helped with decorations and treats. Also a special thanks to Theresa Koon and Craig Jones for the live music.

Steve Carruthers made the following video that captures much of the spirit of the evening.

Also for those who would like some danceable Holiday music here is a playlist that is also on Spotify (Username:denmyers) We hope everyone has a great holiday and that we will see you dancing.

When Waltzers meet Tango Dancers- Floor craft Suggestions

There are differences between the tango etiquette and other partner dance etiquette.

First and most important is how dancers use the floor. Tango dancers are accustomed to traveling counter clockwise at a slow to moderate pace in the outside lane whereas those doing traveling dances (waltz, fox trot, one step etc) will be also wanting to use the outside lane but at a much faster pace. A suggested resolution to this potential conflict is to have two traveling lanes. Those doing traveling dances should use the far outside lane and limit weaving through the interior of the dance. Those doing a more traditional style of tango should dance in a second lane being aware of faster moving dancers to their outside. As always, those doing dances that occupy a set space should stay to the inside and slot dances like west coast swing should align themselves with the direction of the flooring. The key to sharing a dancing with others is to expand your awareness of your surroundings to include the dancers around you and to have fun and allow others to have fun.

There are also differences in how people ask one another to dance and the number of dances that a couple is expected to do. In tango a common practice is to ask another to dance nonverbally with eye contact and a nod and to accept by meeting the gaze and affirming the nod. Also partners usually dance an entire tanda (a set of 3 to 4 songs ended with a “non danceable” cortina that gets dancers off the floor).

At Dance Eclectic "Tango and Tapas" dances, the music will not be organized in recognizable tandas although “cortinas” are planned to mark a transition between blues, world, non tango and nuevo tango sections.  So dancers should feel free to use their preferred ways of asking partners to dance and not have an expectation of a multiple dance commitment. Again the object is to allow dancing to be a lively conversation with your partner and to have fun.

As always comments on how we can improve this event are appreciated.

The Portland Dance Eclectic YouTube

A great resource for dancers is YouTube. There are excellent videos of just about every different style of dancing. You can be inspired, motivated to learn, instructed, film yourself dancing and then upload the video. You can discover a form of dance you never heard of like Zouk or check out how they are dancing on the East Coast or what you favorite instructor is up to.

You don’t need another reason to spend hours surfing on the Internet when you could be dancing, so here is the Portland Dance Eclectic YouTube channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/DanceEclecticPdx.  When I find something that might me of interest to the group, I will sometimes put it in a blog,  but all the time it will be posted on the channel. Let me know what interests you and feel free to suggest additions.

Check out Fred Astaire dancing the blues to a very nice version for St. James's Infirmary by Jonah Jones. The dancing is in the second half of the video. It is also an example of 50's TV cabaret skits that were common on shows then.

Another Taste of Tango - an example of alternative tango

We are fortunate in Portland to have a great tango community as well as two world class festivals. Going to the festival milongas (dances) can be an intimidating experience with so many experienced and accomplished dancers from around the country and world descending on Portland to dance obsessively at all hours, in many styles and numerous venues around Portland. It is also is inspiring to see how a dance and a community can grow and prosper in the 21^st century as an alternative to passive activities where we sit and are entertained by performers. What is it about tango that makes it so addicting, that it allows us to be entertained just by our participation? What can we take from the tango experience and use in other dancing? 

One characteristic is the way Tango focuses on creating a connection with your partner that is responsive to the particular musical moment.  Other dance genre seem to focus more on patterns and finding a rhythmic groove while tango focuses on developing a vocabulary that can create an expressive response to both the rhythm and melody. 

Here is a video Homer and Christina - dancers and instructors from San Francisco who are very familiar to the Portland tango community and who are excellent examples tango dancers in the alternative style. They are   dancing to a waltz by Ludovic Einaudi “The Days” that is around 130 bpm (the rhythm seems to fade away at times). This is a moderate tempo for waltz eclectic dancers and a very slow tempo for tango dancers. It is a performance dance by highly experienced dancers doing moves that took years to perfect, but the phasing that they are using as they dance primarily with the melody is an example being focus in the moment and on your partner. 

The first weekend in November we will be having a workshops and a dance that will provide a “Taste of Tango”  as well as dancing to some beautiful music from around the world. Details of the weekend are on the website. Hope to see you there.

Playlist Styles - Blues Eclectic

 Music affects dancers in  different ways. Some music is uplifting and inspires celebration and joyful expression. Some music is sensuous and inspires us to feel the music in the movement of our bodies. Some music is contemplative and brings us into the present moment with a zen-like focus. And some music is soulful, and pulls us down into our own sense of being human, of being an individual.

Over the years I have tried to put together playlists that focus each of these different musical styles. The waltz eclectic playlist which I play at brunches, balls and most Thursday nights tend to be uplifting. The latin eclectic (sensual) and tango eclectic (contemplative) playlists are still in their formative stages. I am beginning to slip a fe songs in on Thursday night and at Tango and Tapas dances. The playlist that I feel is the most developed and focused right now is for blues eclectic. It is soulful, it inspires movement that is innovated and individual. After an evening of being pulled down into dancing the varied moods of blues artists, I feel cleansed and, paradoxically, uplifted.

Below is the beginning of the playlist for Saturday night's Blues Eclectic dance. If the mood of the music interests you, come join us. If you have not blues danced before, Marjorie's beginners lesson will show you how to adapt the dancing you know to blues styling. I will also post has much of the playlist as I can on Spotify over the the next day or so.

Name	Artist	Genre
Death Came a Knockin' (Travelin' Shoes)	Ruthie Foster	Blues West Coast
Walk Away	Christina Aguilera	waltz blues
Temptation	Diana Krall	Blues stroll
Blue Prelude	Asylum Street Spankers	Blues slowtwostep
That's How Strong My Love Is	Taj Mahal	waltz blues
I Got the Blues	Brother Yusef	Blues West Coast
Algiers Hoodoo Woman	Dr. Michael White	Blues swing
Addicted	Gina Sicilia	Blues West Coast
Knockin' (edit)	Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestrii	Blues fasttwostep
Fireman's Lament	Firehouse Five Plus Two	Blues slowtwostep
Please, Mr. Jailer	Rachel Sweet	Blues West Coast
Still	The Jive Aces	Blues stroll
Fallin'	Alicia Keys	Blues sixeight
Wade In the Water	Logan Wells	Blues West Coast
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl	Nina Simone	Blues slowtwostep
Too Little, Too Late	Karen Lovely	Waltz medium
I'd Rather be a Blind Girl (edit)	Etta James	waltz blues
Nobody's Fault	Rising Appalachia	Blues stroll
Fumblin' With the Blues	Tom Waits	Blues West Coast
Blues 2.0	Fruteland Jackson	Blues stroll
Coffee	Papa Mali	Blues West Coast
St. Gabriel	Janiva Magness	waltz blues

 I will have more to say about this and other playlist styles in future blogs. And as always your feedback is much appreciated.

Nightclub Two Step with a taste of tango

Tango is a great dance and a great way to approach dancing. It allows you to dance expressively to the melody of a song; to sink deeply into the music and the connection with your partner. In my opinion it does not have to be done exclusively to tango music and only at tango milongas. Here is a video from a dance instructor pair from San Diego, who are primarily west coast swing, ballroom dancers, using tango with nightclub twostep to dance to a piece of new age music by Secret Garden. Ordinarily you would feel the music did not have a strong enough rhythm to be danceable. Tools learned from tango allow you to feel the structure of the dance in the melody of the piece.

We will have another “Taste of Tango and Tapas” in November. These dances are focused on music and dancing where tango can be combined with other forms of dancing in ways that are both expressive and playful.

Thanks to Don Harvey for finding the video.

Hugh Laurie, " Let Them Talk": Blues for dancing

A blues record by an English comedic actor?  In his own words “ Let this record show that I am a white, middle-class Englishman, openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American south.” 

After passing over it a couple times in iTunes, I spent some time listening to it and was pleasantly surprised. It is a great tribute to the New Orleans tradition of blues and includes covers of 15 standards. A large part of the success of the album can be attributed to producer, Joe Henry and an excellent band that includes such legendary artists such as Dr John, Irma Thomas and Tom Jones with horn arrangements by Allen Toussaint. Hugh Laurie does vocals and plays piano and guitar. His voice is a little thin on the vocals, yet he has a kind of an English actor's phrasing that gives the songs an “eclectic” flavor and makes you listen to the lyrics from a different perspective. I like that.

And it has some great songs for dancing.

 “Let Them Walk” is a blues waltz that has crossover possibilities. Its one of those waltzes where the tempo (150 bpm) does not match the energy of the song. (In a traditional rotary or Viennese style waltz, the tempo and energy mesh and invite a smooth, flowing style of dancing.) Because of this tension it offers other possibilities of using a variety of rhythms to dance to the emotion in the music. 

Other songs that invite dancing include:

“Battle of Jericho” -  A spiritual that is rousing two step. I love the arrangement on this one.

“St. James Infirmary”  -  The second half is a great blues/ west coast.

“Buddy Bolden’s Blues” and “Six Cold Feet” works nicely as slow blues.

Dancers will be hearing these songs at our dances. Let me know which ones you like. 

Check out the rest of the songs on Amazon:

 Let Them Talk

Dance Eclectic DJ Blog - A new start

The purpose of this blog is to open a dialogue between me as DJ and you the dancers of our community, and in so doing improve the quality of the music, the dancing and the overall experience of our events. In this blog, playlists of dances will be published, music of interest to dancers will be discussed, videos of dancing from places such as YouTube will be shared, and testimonial memoirs of our events will be presented. There will also be occasional musings about dancing, dance etiquette, and the dance culture in general as well as discussions generated from your feedback.

The transition to our new newsletter format is a good opportunity to begin a venture like this. I will attempt to update the blog with new content weekly and introduce the content in the weekly newsletter. Your feedback will be especially helpful in this endeavor.

FM to Spotify- the search for dance music

This has got be the golden age of the musical search. There are so many ways to find new music from small groups or distant cultures.

Over the last 15+ years of DJing for first zydeco/swing dances and then for waltz eclectic, the search for music has been one of my most enjoyable past times. Its something like the stamp collecting I did as a kid, finding the rare piece of music from some exotic culture to which you can actually dance. But when going back and pondering the changes that have occurred in my way of searching for music I am just amazed. No longer does one have to buy numerous CD’s or stick to the tried and true repertoire.

Here’s a timeline of how finding music and DJing as changed over the period.

1996 to 2000:  I would hear a song at dance and find the name of the song and “try” to remember it. Record stores like “Hear music” had booths where you could listen to music with headphones which make even mediocre music dance in your head.  So many CDs were bought this way and then rarely listened to again. Then there were FM radio stations, Rolling Stone’s and other magazines’ music reviews. However, while there were more sources for finding music , it was hit and miss with the music coming through cultural and commercial filters.

2000 to 2004: Then there was Google. The Internet opened up the world of music. Typing a few words in a box allowed one to find music from little known artists, to see what DJs from the East coast or Europe where playing and maybe even hear a 20 second snippet of a song. This explosion of accessibility to different music is what allows me to really be “eclectic” in my playlists.

2005 to 2010: Along came iTunes and YouTube.  Typing words in a box was easy but one still needed to find the words. With iTunes finding music became a purely surfing activity allowing me to ride a rhythm of clicks from one artist to the next, listening to samples of music and discovering artists I had never heard of. With YouTube, one could search for dancers and actually hear what they were dancing to. The music discovered through these venues was available to buy with additional advantage of being able to buy just the songs off a CD that were of interest.

The present:  Music from all around the world is now available to everyone and the unique character of that music has not yet fused into a world blend like a MacDonald’s restaurant but still represents the indigenous values and visions of local cultures.  In addition, Itunes and YouTube have been improved and they have a lot of competition. You can now listen to a whole or at least most of a song before you buy it instead of just a sample.

At present my preferred sources for music are:
1. First and foremost, suggestions from dancers in our community. Keep them coming.
2. I still use Google to search forums, artists and other DJ playlists.
3. Online music distributors. I use iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Calabash (for world music) and Spotify.

My current favorite is Spotify. It’s a music streaming service that was developed in Europe and therefore has a strong representation of European and world music. It allows for the creation of playlists that can be streamed through your computer consisting of any music that is on their service. This means I can listen to whole songs numerous times before I decide to buy that song (elsewhere) and play it at a dance. Playlists can also be published that other subscribers can listen to. If anyone would like to subscribe to my playlists and hear music I am evaluating for possible play at a coming dance. I would like to get your feedback. Subscriptions range from free (you need to be invited) to $5 or $10/mo for paid subscriptions. If you would like an invitation, email me.  I only have a few left, so first emails get them.

Lastly I would like to thank the community of dancers who come to our events for allowing me to turn an activity that could easily be seen as a collector’s addiction, into a craft where the end product is the vision of dancers participating in the joy of music.

Playlist for 2011 Black and White Ball

Title	Artist	Genre
As Much As You Lead	Lex Land	waltz slow
Welcome to Mystery	Plain White T's	Waltz medium
Clear Blue Eyes (Feat. Lucinda Williams)	Amos Lee	Waltz medium
Diddy Wah Diddy	Taj Mahal	Blues West Coast
Call It A Night	KGB	waltz slow
Le festin	Camille	Waltz medium
Hesitation Blues	Asylum Street Spankers	Swing EC slow
Dreaming My Dreams	The Cranberries	waltz slow
Good Man	Raphael Saadiq	Night Club Two Step
Les 'Tites Yeaux Noirs	Jambalaya Cajun Band	waltz cajun
Ring My Bells	Enrique Iglesias	Swing west coast
In Gods Hands	Nelly Furtado	waltz fast
sweet_pea	Amos Lee	Swing EC slow
Moon Waltz	Yesh Gvul	Waltz medium
Siempre Me Quadana	Bebe	Night Club Two Step
One More Ride on the Merry Go Round	Jane Olivor	waltz fast
Summertime Ft. Chick Corea	The Jive Aces	Swing EC slow
Wishful Thinking	Rupa & the April Fishes	waltz slow
Cheek to Cheek	Max Raabe & Palast Orchester	Fox trot
Flightless Bird, American Mouth	Iron & Wine	Waltz medium
Crabbuckit [Canada]	k-os	Swing EC fast
Das schlechte gewissen	Annett Louisan	Waltz medium
Fever	Elvis Presley	Swing EC slow
Yumeji's Theme	Shigeru Umebayashi	waltz slow
In These Shoes?	Bette Midler	Cha cha
Nara	E.S. Posthumus	waltz fast
Fenkoro	Smod	World twostep
Beauty in Walking Away	Marie Digby	Waltz medium
Rolling in the Deep	Adele	Blues West Coast
When You Taught Me How To Dance	Katie Melua	Waltz medium
Up A Lazy River	The Jive Aces	Swing Lindy
La Dispute	Yann Tiersen	waltz slow
When You're Smiling (Bonus Track)	Leftover Cuties	Swing EC fast
Erin Shore	The Corrs	waltz fast
What A Wonderful World (3m 58s)	Jive Aces	Night Club Two Step
Il pleut sous la mer	rene aubry	Waltz medium
Original Charleston	Max Raabe & Palast Orchester	Swing EC fast
Il vecchio e il bambino	Carla Bruni	waltz fast
Moonshine	Fran Healy	Blues West Coast
Angel	Sarah McLachlan	waltz slow
Marvin & Miles	Gare Du Nord	Blues West Coast
I'd Rather be a Blind Girl (edit)	Etta James	waltz blues
Dark Sunshine	Dr. Michael White	Blues swing
Stop (edit)	Sheryl Crow	waltz slow
Sunny Side Of The Street	Rod Stewart	Fox trot
we are all in the dance	Feist	waltz slow
Let's never stop falling in love	Pink Martini	Cha cha
Turning (Instrumental)	Suzanne Ciani	waltz slow
Esperanza	Enrique Iglesias	Night Club Two Step
Nothing Else Matters	Apocalyptica	Waltz medium
La Camisa Negra	Juanes	mambo
Joyeuse espièglerie	Marimuz	waltz slow

Dancing as a Language

Music is a language. To those who are not fluet in this music, the conversations are of the musician are magical expressions of feeling and dream like images that amaze us. Like a spoken language, music as a lnaguage consists of a vocabulary and grammar that is internalized to an extent that it becomes a second nature. The language becomes like an ocean that musicians are fully immersed in and give no thought to as they move through their currents of musical expression.

Dancing is in many respects a dialect of this musical language that speaks to and converses with the bodies of those who understand its form. There is a vocabulary of steps that relate to there musical counterparts. In its simplest level it consists of:

1. a one step that steps on each beat.

2. a two step that changes weight twice on each beat

3. triplets that have three steps per every two beats i.e. one and two

4. hestitions movements that rests with the music.

The grammar of a dancing language in its simplest form is how these steps are related to the phasing in the musics. Which parts of the steps are accented. How the steps are combined into rhtyhms that move and stop with the phasing in the music.

The dialect of the language relates to where in the body the movement starts from, how the music moves the body, what part of body does the music move. The dialect is the style of the dance, the look it outw