What could kill MJ?

[David Bailey]

From the "teaching / real dancing experience" thread:

The Ceroc organisation may suffer in a depression, but all we need to MJ is a reasonably flat surface and some music.
This got me wondering - what could change (socially, environmentally, technologically or otherwise) to kill of the MJ scene?

I couldn't think of anything, but it sounded very much like an OCP (Outside Context Problem). I knew excessive reading of Excession would pay off someday

Where:
-----------------
"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."
-----------------

(And, yes, it's a proper term - it must be, it has a Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_Context_Problem) :innocent: )

So, any thoughts on what could kill the MJ dance scene off?

[MartinHarper]

From the same place:


people who are still dancing afterwards will look back and say ... "Isn't it a shame all those lovely ballroom dances died out? They were so pretty, but just too inflexible to survive."

All well and good, but MJ dates from the 1980s, while Waltz dates from the 1780s. We're a couple of centuries early to brag about how much more survivable MJ is than ballroom.

[David Franklin]

From the "teaching / real dancing experience" thread:

This got me wondering - what could change (socially, environmentally, technologically or otherwise) to kill of the MJ scene?A nearby gamma ray burster? Bird flu epidemic? Megatsunami? Of course, as you wander the urban wasteland, fighting off cannibal hordes while clutching a tin of spaghetti hoops and searching for a can-opener, the lack of MJ venues might not be top on your list of worries...

[Lynn]

Where:
-----------------
"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."
-----------------
Sounds like the perfect setting for the development of a New Religious Movement - for example the Cargo Cults (thought things weren't that peaceful between neighbouring groups where the people thought that all the 'goods' ie cargo, had really been sent from the gods for them and had been intecepted by these strangers. They built runways for the planes and drilled with wooden guns...)

See, this isn't me being on the forum wasting time, this is academic work. :whistle:

And I think Bruce's programme on Sunday showed that really dancing goes in cycles - 'new' dances are really variations on old ones, changed somehow to be relevant.

(Hmm back to NRMs - 'revitalisation' movements to help restore the belief systems that existed prior to the dramatic cultural change.)

[David Bailey]

All well and good, but MJ dates from the 1980s, while Waltz dates from the 1780s. We're a couple of centuries early to brag about how much more survivable MJ is than ballroom.
Absolutely (it's like the Mao quote about the effects of the French Revolution - it's too soon to tell.)

But I just wondered whether one could theorise that the MJ phenomen- fern- craze, is a short-term thing (for sufficient values of "short") and will soon die out, possibly to be replaced by the traditional ballroom favourites.

For example, taking what Lynn's saying, one could plausibly argue that the 1960s - 1980s disco / solo dancing era pretty much killed off most partner dancing, and that partner dancing had to re-start from scratch, without many people having a culture, background and training in that area - hence the only partner dances that would have a chance would be the easy-to-learn ones like MJ (and to an extent, salsa).

You could then also say that, once enough people in general had been "re-trained" to "proper dance" ( :devil: ), the appeal of MJ would fade and people would look for other dance styles, like, oh, I dunno, ballroom, tango, WCS, etc., just to pick some examples out of the hat :whistle:

In that case, would MJ survive?

[doc martin]

From the same place:

All well and good, but MJ dates from the 1980s, while Waltz dates from the 1780s. We're a couple of centuries early to brag about how much more survivable MJ is than ballroom.
And in a faster changing world the more recent a cultural phenomenon, the shorter it's life is likely to be.


For example, taking what Lynn's saying, one could plausibly argue that the 1960s - 1980s disco / solo dancing era pretty much killed off most partner dancing, and that partner dancing had to re-start from scratch, without many people having a culture, background and training in that area - hence the only partner dances that would have a chance would be the easy-to-learn ones like MJ (and to an extent, salsa).
That makes me think of the development of creole languages from pidgin in cultures where people from many cultural backgrounds with no common language have been thrown together, such as slave islands in the Carribean. It is amazing how a fully blown language can be developed in one generation. The pidgin would be the equivalent of Ceroc in it's first few years and what is now happening is the construction of the whole grammar of the dance language of Ceroc to create a dance creole.
These creoles then develop their own richness and diversity, influencing the thinking of their culture and I would expect the same thing to happen to Ceroc. Creoles in their final form are no simpler than older, better established languages and capable of expressing as much subtlety. I think that many on this forum aspire to this.
However, some languages die out. Often when brought into contact with another language used by a larger more prosperous group. Translated into the terms of DJs question, I can see a couple of scenarios arising from this. Ceroc could be bought by a bigger company, with different methods which would alienate the cerocers, leading to disenchantment, shrinkage and finally incorporation into some other dance. That doesn't mean MJ would disappear, just the ceroc version of it.
The other possibility that occurs to me is fashion. As DJ said partner dancing pretty much disappeared from the 60s to 80s and, if it again gets perceived as an old peoples pastime the same could happen again. That might be the end of ceroc as a company. But trends seem to come around faster all the time, so I am sure that partner dancing would, at some point, make a comeback. Whether we would be here to see it I have no idea.
Also, if we do manage to leave this planet and head off to the stars, as I would like to do, things could change a bit. What would be the consequences of attempting a catapult in zero g?:D

[Lynn]

You could then also say that, once enough people in general had been "re-trained" to "proper dance" ( :devil: ), the appeal of MJ would fade and people would look for other dance styles, like, oh, I dunno, ballroom, tango, WCS, etc., just to pick some examples out of the hat :whistle:

In that case, would MJ survive? I don't think you would ever reach that level of so many people dancing (in a Western culture) - therefore an 'entry level' dance would still be needed - whether that would be MJ is the question I think. MJ currently is great in that role. And not just in the 'no footwork so easier to learn' way. I had been wanting to learn to dance for years before I came across MJ. I thought I needed to find a dance partner first and sign up for a regular course - and I would need to for ballroom (locally anyway). So in many ways its a very accessible dance.

[Gadget]

So, any thoughts on what could kill the MJ dance scene off?a catastrophic event: How about mass TV coverage?
Everyone sees it as the next "big thing": ballroom teachers and traditional dance teachers decide to diversify and show how they think it should be done: Rules and competitions swamp the 'social' dancers and it becomes "too technical": attendance drops and a 'new' dance evolves from the ashes that goes back to the loose and free style of dancing.


Of course, as you wander the urban wasteland, fighting off cannibal hordes while clutching a tin of spaghetti hoops and searching for a can-opener, the lack of MJ venues might not be top on your list of worries...I can handle the urban wasteland. I could defend myself against the cannibals. I could even work out a way to get into a tin of spagetti hoops and use the empty tin to form a primitive spear-head. But no dancing?!? :what: :tears: That just sends shivers down my spine. :what:

[David Bailey]

I don't think you would ever reach that level of so many people dancing (in a Western culture)
I'm not so sure. We had such a culture up until the 1950's - we've anecdotal evidence from people on this forum about what it was like. Many schools did (and do) teach partner dancing - I only wish mine had, instead of some silly folk dancing nonsense.

In the long run, it may turn out that "dancing solo" was the aberration, and that partner dancing is much more permanent as a cultural phenomenon (whew, managed to spell it this time).


- therefore an 'entry level' dance would still be needed
As an entry-level dance, I agree - but on the other hand, if everyone learnt partner dancing at school (which is under no obligation to make it easy or fun for you to learn), then there's less need for people to become re-acquainted with partner dancing at an entry level.


I had been wanting to learn to dance for years before I came across MJ. I thought I needed to find a dance partner first and sign up for a regular course - and I would need to for ballroom (locally anyway). So in many ways its a very accessible dance.
I totally agree, and I'm the same. I had been (in a desultory fashion) doing some partner dancing (ballroom) before I found Ceroc. I knew I wanted to dance, but I also knew ballroom wasn't quite right for me. MJ was, and still is.

The key and revolutionary concepts in MJ, to me, aren't the dance, it's the scene - the concepts such as "you can and should ask anyone to dance", "swap partners rapidly whilst learning" and "women ask men to dance" are almost unique to MJ. I think these will survive.


I can handle the urban wasteland. I could defend myself against the cannibals. I could even work out a way to get into a tin of spagetti hoops and use the empty tin to form a primitive spear-head. But no dancing?!? :what: :tears: That just sends shivers down my spine. :what:
God yes. Nightmare...

[Robin]

I couldn't think of anything, but it sounded very much like an OCP (Outside Context Problem). I knew excessive reading of Excession would pay off someday


Is that related to SEP ?

[David Bailey]

Is that related to SEP ?
No. :na:

[bigdjiver]

If MJ really does look like it is attracting the disco crowd the disco managers may well promote blues as a more space efficient partner dance. I do not see it happening. It is difficult to see MJ being dumbed down, or a more complex dance superceding it. What could happen is that it splits into sub-species - Latin Jive, Rockabilly Jive, Tango Jive, blues Jive etc. Since any of these variants is capable of evolving back to the current form MJ could be around for a long time.

[Lynn]

I'm not so sure. We had such a culture up until the 1950's - we've anecdotal evidence from people on this forum about what it was like. Many schools did (and do) teach partner dancing - I only wish mine had, instead of some silly folk dancing nonsense.

In the long run, it may turn out that "dancing solo" was the aberration, and that partner dancing is much more permanent as a cultural phenomenon (whew, managed to spell it this time). Now I think about it I remember great aunts talking about going out dancing, (one met her husband at a dance). I suppose because I was brought up in the 70s and 80s its harder to imagine partner dancing as being a thing right across society.

The key and revolutionary concepts in MJ, to me, aren't the dance, it's the scene - the concepts such as "you can and should ask anyone to dance", "swap partners rapidly whilst learning" and "women ask men to dance" are almost unique to MJ. I think these will survive. And the fact that dancers are friendly folk - MJ especially so. The 'scene' of mixing and not just going along with 'your' dance partner has probably helped to contribute to this. I would quite happily go along to an MJ evening where I knew no-one - and know that I would find people to dance with. Wheras I went to a ballroom social night once with friends - and only got to dance with them, and find much the same at the few salsa social nights I have been to.

Long may the friendly environment of MJ continue!

[bigdjiver]

If MJ really does look like it is attracting the disco crowd the disco managers may well promote blues as a more space efficient partner dance. I do not see it happening. It is difficult to see MJ being dumbed down, or a more complex dance superceding it. What could happen is that it splits into sub-species - Latin Jive, Rockabilly Jive, Tango Jive, blues Jive etc. Since any of these variants is capable of evolving back to the current form MJ could be around for a long time.

[Evgeni]

So, any thoughts on what could kill the MJ dance scene off?
DJ's playing lots of Michael Bolton, Billy Ray Cyrus and Neil Sedaka would do it!

[bigdjiver]

DJ's playing lots of Michael Bolton, Billy Ray Cyrus and Neil Sedaka would do it!No, that's what would kill of the DJ's.

[David Bailey]

And the fact that dancers are friendly folk - MJ especially so. The 'scene' of mixing and not just going along with 'your' dance partner has probably helped to contribute to this. I would quite happily go along to an MJ evening where I knew no-one - and know that I would find people to dance with.
I agree, but I think it's not "different people" - people are mostly friendly anywhere (even in London, apparently), But the "friendliness" needs an outlet - people need to know that it's OK to go up to strangers and dance with them.

And that takes time and effort to organise and cultivate that atmosphere; it doesn't just happen because friendly people turn up in a group.

If the ballroom dance scene ever wised up to this and started to promote serious social events like this, with the same "dance with anyone" mentality, I think that would be a definite threat to MJ.

Of course, that's not too likely at the moment, as ballroom is still mainly structured towards fixed-partner work, examinations and competitions - actual fun doesn't seem to get much of a look-in in comparison. But you never know...

[Lynn]

I agree, but I think it's not "different people" - people are mostly friendly anywhere (even in London, apparently), But the "friendliness" needs an outlet - people need to know that it's OK to go up to strangers and dance with them. I do think that dancing attracts friendly sort of people, but that's what I was saying - its the MJ attitude that allows that to be expressed - right from the start in the rotated classes, people are mixing. And I think that is part of what is distinctive about MJ. Eg salsa teaches classes rotated, has a thriving social side, but I have heard time and again from many different people that its not as friendly as MJ (in general, I know some lovely friendly salsa dancers!).

(I've also only ever got one 'grumpy' person in MJ classes who wanted me to do the move perfectly first time, I and others used to find several folk like that each week in salsa.)

[El Salsero Gringo]

There's another difference between the way MJ is at the moment and the way say ballroom was thirty years ago. MJ to some extent is controlled by a single organisation (Ceroc Enterprises Ltd.) That means that rather than letting the style of the dance - or its marketing - drift along on the tide of fashion, there is someone steering the boat, so to speak. And since the commercial fortunes of that company are directly tied to the number of MJ dancers who pass through its doors, the ultimate commercial pressure is to adapt the dance to maximise the number of dancers. I'd suggest that rather than becoming hidebound and having its nose stuck in a fixed rule-book as is the impression one gets of ballroom, Ceroc is freer to change in an directed way.

I suppose that means that things like Salsa and WCS evolve, while Ceroc changes through some kind of Intelligent Design.

Perhaps ballroom has already been consigned to the clutches of the FSM.

[jivecat]

With reference to the high amount people spend on petrol to attend MJ events (on the Fair Price for a Freestyle thread) a good old-fashioned oil crisis or petrol shortage would easily halve overnight the number of people attending most venues. I wouldn't even know how to get the local Leicester venue by public transport.

If the crisis continued for any length of time I could foresee most venues closing down, at least temporarily, as it would cease to be economic or practicable to run them.

For example, Nottingham last night. People converged from Leicester, Chesterfield, Derby, Milton Keynes, and probably many other distant places.

The prospect of a petrol crisis scares the hell out of me - not just because I wouldn't be able to use my car freely for trivial, leisure purposes, but because of the extent to which we depend on easy road transport for so many things in our society, and the chaos which would ensue from it suddenly being taken away from us. I just hope somebody up there has got a plan, and not just Phil Roberts, either.

[Lynn]

With reference to the high amount people spend on petrol to attend MJ events (on the Fair Price for a Freestyle thread) a good old-fashioned oil crisis or petrol shortage would easily halve overnight the number of people attending most venues. I wouldn't even know how to get the local Leicester venue by public transport.

If the crisis continued for any length of time I could foresee most venues closing down, at least temporarily, as it would cease to be economic or practicable to run them. We would all have to teach our neighbours to dance then. There have been times here when we can't go out by car* (most recently in Sep) and therefore most events of any sort are cancelled and you only go out to things or friends houses you can walk to. Usually only lasts a few days or at most a week fortunately.

*in case someone decides that your car would be much more useful if it were parked across a road. On fire. :tears:

[latinlover]

.

In the long run, it may turn out that "dancing solo" was the aberration, and that partner dancing is much more permanent as a cultural phenomenon (whew, managed to spell it this time).
...


:yeah:
David I do believe you are right
In the larger context of the history of dancing,in western society, solo dancing only evolved in the late fifties(?), and fifty-sixty years is not much really

..........waits for some dance history anorak to wikipaedia him down in flames............

Partner dancing MUST be on the increase - I mean, apart from the evidence of our own experience in the MJ & salsa scene,who would have thought we'd see a THIRD series of SCD in a primetime saturday evening slot?

[Will]

So, any thoughts on what could kill the MJ dance scene off?
Funny you should ask that.

If you'd been at Jango last night and heard DJ Kenobe plug in his Mic and sing over the last song of the evening you wouldn't need to ask this question any more.

[David Bailey]

David I do believe you are right
It's not easy being so clever you know.


In the larger context of the history of dancing,in western society, solo dancing only evolved in the late fifties(?), and fifty-sixty years is not much really
On the other hand, to put it in context, partner dancing in the form we know it has only been around for, what, a few centuries? Arguably, there's more history of "group" dancing over the past couple of thousand years.

Who knows what will be popular in the long run? To quote John Maynard Keynes, "In the long run, we're all dead.". Miserable git that he was.


Partner dancing MUST be on the increase - I mean, apart from the evidence of our own experience in the MJ & salsa scene,who would have thought we'd see a THIRD series of SCD in a primetime saturday evening slot?
Anecdotally, yes, I think partner dancing is increaing - but there are no numbers I could find to back this up.

That's why I asked the question "How many dancers are in the UK?" (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6625) (and found the answer is "No-one knows" :( )


If you'd been at Jango last night and heard DJ Kenobe plug in his Mic and sing over the last song of the evening you wouldn't need to ask this question any more.
:rofl: - but, surely you're not saying Jango is mere common-or-garden MJ? I thought it was a spiritual experience for higher beings? :confused:

[David Franklin]

:rofl: - but, surely you're not saying Jango is mere common-or-garden MJ? I thought it was a spiritual experience for higher beings? :confused:Tell you, the guy on the mike last night was pretty high... Not so sure about spiritual though... :wink:

[DianaS]

turf war
aggressive marketing/promotional techniques
Making your crowd feel they were a market rather than part of the entertainment
Killing off the diversity of teaching styles
venue owners or franchise holders acting more like gangsters than dancers
Next?:angry:

[Anna]

Awwwww but being a gangster looks like so much fun :sad: ....


"You.. yes you.. you move during a break ONE more time and you'll be sleeping with the fishes... " :cool:

[Andy McGregor]

All well and good, but MJ dates from the 1980s, while Waltz dates from the 1780s. We're a couple of centuries early to brag about how much more survivable MJ is than ballroom.This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual :innocent: MJ does not simply date from the 1980s. It wasn't born whole on a particular day. It evolved from a previous dance due to a change in the environment and that dance evolved from another, right back to the original dance that was an African tribal dance - and before that, who knows? The environment was the music. And it will probably be the music that kills MJ - but it will take a long time.

Consider the example of Rock & Roll. In the 1950s music and the dance fitted together nicely. People loved the Rock & Roll scene, they loved the music, they did the dance, met their husbands and wives, etc. During the '60s music changed and by the '70s you couldn't do Rock & Roll to any of the music being released. The result of this was that young people did not learn the Rock & Roll dance.

But, there a still people out there going to Rock & Roll dances and enjoying the same music. Rock & Roll as a dance has not died - yet! It is a bit of a fossil though. It lives on with an ageing population who will eventually be too old and infirm to dance :tears:

Let's consider Modern Jive in this context. We get young people coming along. But would they come if all the music was 70s disco and there was no modern chart music? I don't think so - although this is an assumption.

What could happen if the music that was being released changed so much that you couldn't do MJ to it - let's say it all became a Rock and Roll beat. My guess is that we'd all still go dancing MJ to the same old music but we'd get far less young people coming along. MJ would be the dance of our generation and it would die with us - to be reborn in a different guise when the musical environment changed again.

[Gus]

turf war
aggressive marketing/promotional techniques
Making your crowd feel they were a market rather than part of the entertainment
Killing off the diversity of teaching styles
venue owners or franchise holders acting more like gangsters than dancers
Next?:angry:Ahhhhhhhh .... BRIGHTON:tears::( :tears:

[Andy McGregor]

Ahhhhhhhh .... BRIGHTON:tears::( :tears:Ditto! The same thought as me.

Although the Brighton scene has changed of late. The two main MJ nights are now Phil Ducketts Fridays in Hove with Viktor teaching and our Thursdays in Shoreham with Lisa Saw (current UK Leroc Open Champion) and me teaching. Phil and I get on just fine, we've been friends for years and co-operate fully. I even announce his dances and classes from the stage (when I remember :blush: ) The other, older, classes have either declined so much that you hear very little about them (and when you do it's along the lines of "went to X the other night, hardly anyone there, floor was empty by 10pm, won't go back" :tears: ) or they've started to major on ballroom/latin dancing and swing to the detriment of their MJ customers - which is a valuable lesson to us all*.

* and cheaply learnt, as it was someone else paying the price :whistle:

[Will]

Ahhhhhhhh .... BRIGHTON:tears::( :tears:
BrightNAM!

[David Bailey]

This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual :innocent: MJ does not simply date from the 1980s. It wasn't born whole on a particular day. It evolved from a previous dance due to a change in the environment and that dance evolved from another, right back to the original dance that was an African tribal dance - and before that, who knows?
With the possible exception of Argentinian Tango, no modern dance I can think of has clearcut origins - you should see the discussion about salsa :rolleyes:

MJ, as MJ, at least can be pinned down to Leroc / Ceroc in the early 80's, which is more precise than most.


The environment was the music. And it will probably be the music that kills MJ - but it will take a long time.
Interesting point, and certainly sounds plausible.

To me, it was the music, combined with the Ceroc business model, combined with a large group of young-ish urban people who wanted to dance but had zero training.

Hmmm, it definitely makes sense to first ask "What made MJ successful", wish I'd thought of that...


What could happen if the music that was being released changed so much that you couldn't do MJ to it - let's say it all became a Rock and Roll beat.
Or conversely, if it got slower - we'd all have to do West Coast Swing :eek:

(Of course, if it got really slow, we could rumba to it :drool: )

[stewart38]

This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual :innocent: MJ does not simply date from the 1980s. It wasn't born whole on a particular day. It evolved from a previous dance due to a change in the environment and that dance evolved from another, right back to the original dance that was an African tribal dance - and before that, who knows? The environment was the music. And it will probably be the music that kills MJ - but it will take a long time.

Consider the example of Rock & Roll. In the 1950s music and the dance fitted together nicely. People loved the Rock & Roll scene, they loved the music, they did the dance, met their husbands and wives, etc. During the '60s music changed and by the '70s you couldn't do Rock & Roll to any of the music being released. The result of this was that young people did not learn the Rock & Roll dance.

But, there a still people out there going to Rock & Roll dances and enjoying the same music. Rock & Roll as a dance has not died - yet! It is a bit of a fossil though. It lives on with an ageing population who will eventually be too old and infirm to dance :tears:

Let's consider Modern Jive in this context. We get young people coming along. But would they come if all the music was 70s disco and there was no modern chart music? I don't think so - although this is an assumption.

What could happen if the music that was being released changed so much that you couldn't do MJ to it - let's say it all became a Rock and Roll beat. My guess is that we'd all still go dancing MJ to the same old music but we'd get far less young people coming along. MJ would be the dance of our generation and it would die with us - to be reborn in a different guise when the musical environment changed again.

Couldnt put it better myself :yeah:

Its the only way I now know whats in the top 40 by going to ceroc and hear what the 'youngsters' here on the old 'wireless'

[Paul F]

Or conversely, if it got slower - we'd all have to do West Coast Swing :eek:



<<*shudder*>>

[jiveknight]

Interesting...
Seems mj is getting bigger and bigger just as partner dancing is in general.
It is similar to when I was in the US a few years ago and modern "swing" was big. This was basically old swing but slower and taught at an easier gradient much like mj.
It suddenly became huge and was all over TV and everywhere, then the "media" seemed to decide it was out of fashion and this killed off many (but not all) of the dance classes and freestyle events etc.

It was not because it became so big or trendy or the hype that killed it but the fact that there was little organisation and the sudden dip made a lot of people/clubs give up or start fighting with each other to keep going.
The ones who were better organised and controlled their own promotion are still going great (such as Washington DC - bigger every year) and in fact even took advantage of the hype.

With mj the great thing is it is well organised, Ceroc has done something that the US dancers wanted to do.The fact that it is well orgainised and the communication between dancers all over the country will keep it going directed and under the control of the modern jiver. :grin: :waycool:

Who knows, it might become the national dance...

[David Bailey]

OK, I read an article in the Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1901517,00.html) today, regarding the resurgence of Ballroom Dancing as a popular pastime - and the current shortage of ballroom dancing teachers because fewer people wanted to learn to teach ballroom in the UK 10-20 years ago.

It occurs to me (not for the first time) that most of a success of any new business venture is in the timing:
- If Ceroc had started up in the 60s, everyone would have laughed at it - at most, it'd be a dance craze like the Mashed Potato. And there were still commonly lots of ballroom dances to go to at that point if people were interested.
- In the 70's, it'd have been seen as terminally uncool (man), and would never have got off the ground.
- In the 90's, it might have been ignored as a pale imitation of salsa.

Only in the 1980's was there such a favourable set of conditions, with almost no competition from other partner dances, and with popular music of a speed and type which allowed simplistic partner dancing.

But now, 20+ years later, we're seeing different partner dances gaining in popularity, and providing competition, and we're seeing a (possibly brief) rise in popularity of ballroom dancing as well.

I think one of the things that could kill Ceroc is a dumb-ass short-term attitude by Ceroc franchisees, that "We're only here to get money off beginners - once they get beyond that level, they'll go on to salsa or whatever anyway" - as reportedly expressed occasionally.

If other partner dances (salsa, AT, ballroom) reach a "critical mass" in terms of popular appeal, especially to the young, then it won't be such a selling point to tell people "yes, even you can partner dance", because the potential customers will know this already. And the inherent flaws of teaching the quick-and-dirty way will be more immediately obvious to more people at an earlier stage...

[Andy McGregor]

I think one of the things that could kill Ceroc is a dumb-ass short-term attitude by Ceroc franchisees, that "We're only here to get money off beginners - once they get beyond that level, they'll go on to salsa or whatever anyway" - as reportedly expressed occasionally.A part of me says this is a good reason for us to stop supporting Ceroc and start going to independents (like me :wink: ), another part of me say we should continue to support Ceroc to keep our dance going and prove DJ wrong.

I really do think Ceroc is all about beginners and cash and short-term gain - at least in the London area. From my own point of view I started classes to give me somewhere good to go that was nearer than Ealing. I'm taking a long-term view and recruiting people and retaining them - but it's taken a lot of money out of my pocket to do so. It would be so much more profitable to advertise like mad, get 20 people to come and try it for a few weeks - week after week after week after week ....

.. although I'm not sure my soulder could take all the tugging a jerking:what:

[dancefiend]

If other partner dances (salsa, AT, ballroom) reach a "critical mass" in terms of popular appeal, especially to the young, then it won't be such a selling point to tell people "yes, even you can partner dance", because the potential customers will know this already. And the inherent flaws of teaching the quick-and-dirty way will be more immediately obvious to more people at an earlier stage...

Not to worry, the Sydney experience is such that Salsa is probably quite a bit bigger than Ceroc and has a broader base - many different operators insted of 2 main companies. This has not killed cerco, In fact it gives the opportunity for students to cross pollinate their styles. After all ppl who like dancing probably don't just stick to want style - they want to dance to what every muic they are listening to!

AT is a lot smaller - but gaining popularity. the up and coming style appears to be Bachatta - which is played during salsa socials as well.

There shouldn't be a problem for ceroc to co-exist or even improve with these other styles around. I think they would influence the evolution of ceroc -which i see is a good thing.

To answer the question - what would kill MJ - Bird Flu if it becomes like the 1908 strain which can be transmitted easily from humnan to human - that'll be pretty much the end of any dance scene.

[Anna]

I don't think it's a matter of WHAT could kill MJ.. but HOW...




Who shall I assassinate..... :devil: :whistle: ;)

[David Bailey]

I really do think Ceroc is all about beginners and cash and short-term gain - at least in the London area.
You could be right - it may be impossible to turn the "beginner-oriented" model into a "cater for all stages" model. But if they don't, I think they'll have problems, simply because partner dancing in general is now more popular, more accessible, and less novel.

In other words, competition forces you to raise your game, and unless MJ wants to be known as "the beginner's dance", Ceroc may need to improve accordingly. FWIW, I think Mike mostly realises this, but it's far from easy to get franchisees to think long-term.

[bigdjiver]

You could be right - it may be impossible to turn the "beginner-oriented" model into a "cater for all stages" model. But if they don't, I think they'll have problems, simply because partner dancing in general is now more popular, more accessible, and less novel.

In other words, competition forces you to raise your game, and unless MJ wants to be known as "the beginner's dance", Ceroc may need to improve accordingly. FWIW, I think Mike mostly realises this, but it's far from easy to get franchisees to think long-term.The biggest potential market still consists of non-dancers who want to learn to dance, and I believe Ceroc should continue to serve that market with the setup as it is now.

The MJ organisations have created a new market for people who want to dance different and/or better. The range of workshops available, at least in the Ceroc Central region, shows that Ceroc is capable of serving this market too. I believe other regions are responding too. "Storm" shows that Ceroc is rising to the challenge nationally as well.

[ChrisA]

then it won't be such a selling point to tell people "yes, even you can partner dance", because the potential customers will know this already.
I wonder, though. Maybe the "Strictly Come Dancing Effect" on the ballroom/latin schools as described by the article is closer to this aspect of the Ceroc selling point than you might think...

They both start with a bunch of beginners and turn them into dancers.

Ok, so SCD has some obvious advantages in terms of very advanced experts and intensive coaching, but what the television viewer sees is similar in some ways to what goes on in Ceroc... people with no dance experience turning gradually into people that actually don't look too bad on the dance floor, and who obviously are having a great time despite having to work at it.

And at risk of stretching the analogy a little, there's an entertainment factor in both as well.

The net result is that people that otherwise wouldn't have previously thought they'd ever be able to do it, somehow find the motivation to have a go and in some cases, keep at it. In SCD, it's by no means the worst dancers that are voted off early - sometimes the viewers seem to be sympathising with those that aren't necessarily all that good, but are still working really hard and want to improve.

I don't think SCD would have had the same effect on all the people that, according to that article, are swamping the ballroom dance schools, if there wasn't the clear evidence that non-dancers could learn.



I think one of the things that could kill Ceroc is a dumb-ass short-term attitude by Ceroc franchisees, that "We're only here to get money off beginners..... And the inherent flaws of teaching the quick-and-dirty way will be more immediately obvious to more people at an earlier stage...
I agree, and the provision of a clear "career path", with genuine choices, for people that take up partner dancing of any kind will become increasingly important.

There needs to be accessibility in the early stages (which Ceroc does very well), and the availability of plenty of good quality teaching that allows people to develop - to either social or competitive dancing or both. So that with effort, you can become a good social dancer in less of a hit and miss way than it tends to be at the moment, and if you want to, also develop the more glitzy competitive side if that attracts.

With SCD, it's now cool again (well, compared with the way it was some years ago) to consider ballroom and latin.

And I can't get away from the feeling that in SCD's case it's a combination of the "beginners learning to dance thing" and the "glitz and glamour of the competition" thing that somehow attracts people on both levels. If either was absent, I don't think SCD would have been the hit that it's been, and I think there are lessons there for the MJ world too.

[bigdjiver]

Ceroc manages to show people that they can enjoy dancing, and enjoy learning to dance. SCD, with its mix of injuries and stressed out sobbing sessions gives a mixed message on the joys of learning. I have seen a great number of times where someone has been dragged along by a friend "to watch", then to try it, and then become hooked, never believing that they could enjoy dancing.

[ChrisA]

SCD, with its mix of injuries and stressed out sobbing sessions gives a mixed message on the joys of learning.
The joys of learning are mixed.

That's the whole point.

Clearly, if hordes are indeed flocking to ballroom dance schools as a result of SCD as implied by DJ's news article, those that are going are capable of noticing that the dancers are finding the process worthwhile despite the fact that it isn't an easy ride.

It actually gives me a certain sense of optimism - if it is really true that in these days of instant gratification, people in quite large numbers are taking up dancing, without being fed a saccharin-coated lie that says it's easy to learn to dance.

[Lynn]

Clearly, if hordes are indeed flocking to ballroom dance schools as a result of SCD as implied by DJ's news article, those that are going are capable of noticing that the dancers are finding the process worthwhile despite the fact that it isn't an easy ride.

It actually gives me a certain sense of optimism - if it is really true that in these days of instant gratification, people in quite large numbers are taking up dancing, without being fed a saccharin-coated lie that says it's easy to learn to dance.I think its because SCD doesn't show that its easy to learn to dance - it shows that its possible - if you work at it. So it means that people won't try it, find it difficult and just give up straightaway, they will expect it to be a bit difficult at first, but will perservere.

[David Bailey]

I think its because SCD doesn't show that its easy to learn to dance - it shows that its possible - if you work at it. So it means that people won't try it, find it difficult and just give up straightaway, they will expect it to be a bit difficult at first, but will perservere.
Exactly - the whole "it's hard work, but it's possible for anyone" message.

Look at Darren Gough - who'd have ever imagined a butch Northern cricketer could turn into a great and enthusiastic dancer? He really epitomises the "dancing is cool" message.

OT, but one of the reasons I love SCD and, err, don't love SDF, is the whole "seeing non-dancers learn to love dancing" thing, and occasionally even seeing them become both great dancers, and evangelists of dancing. In SDF, they're pretty good dancers to start with, they already know and love dancing - so that factor is absent.

[ChrisA]

Exactly - the whole "it's hard work, but it's possible for anyone" message.

..... :yeah: It makes me wonder, if one of the reasons retention of beginners is so bad, is related to this.

You get a beginner guy, who goes to the first few beginners classes, and can get through the lessons. Then he realises, as he starts to try and lead in freestyle, that it's hard. He doesn't really know what to do yet, either when they aren't anticipating, or when they are.

He finds it difficult, but there are the posters saying that anyone can learn to dance in one night. So it must just be that he's no good...

So he loses heart, and doesn't go back the following week. He's not intending to actually give up, but once you stop going, it's harder to find the determination to start again.

Where's the teaching that will enable him to bridge the gap? Some venues provide something along those lines, but it's not common enough yet that it's focused enough.

[Gadget]

Where's the teaching that will enable him to bridge the gap? Some venues provide something along those lines, but it's not common enough yet that it's focused enough.Isn't that part of the Taxi's remit?

[dancefiend]

Isn't that part of the Taxi's remit?

Taxi dancers is a new thing in Australia. When I learned yeas ago -there were no taxi dancers. We had the beginners revision class.

How we learned is just trying to apply what we learned in class. It's also the initative of the beginner guys to ask the girls. Sure sometimes you get knocked back but that's something we all accept - no matter the level we'd progress.

The best way to cross the gap from lessons to free style is by attempting to cross it. No short cuts.

[ChrisA]

Isn't that part of the Taxi's remit?
It is in some places - it depends very much on the experience and ability level of the taxi dancers at a given venue.

[ChrisA]

The best way to cross the gap from lessons to free style is by attempting to cross it. No short cuts.
Agreed. But I'm imagining a rather unlikely world where all those people that crossed it on their own initiative, but ended up the other side with a bunch of bad habits, are instead helped out of those habits on the way, by teachers who know what they're doing.

[bigdjiver]

From the "teaching / real dancing experience" thread:

This got me wondering - what could change (socially, environmentally, technologically or otherwise) to kill of the MJ scene?

I couldn't think of anything, but it sounded very much like an OCP (Outside Context Problem). I knew excessive reading of Excession would pay off someday

Where:
-----------------
"An Outside Context Problem was the sort of thing most civilisations encountered just once, and which they tended to encounter rather in the same way a sentence encountered a full stop. The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests."
-----------------

(And, yes, it's a proper term - it must be, it has a Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_Context_Problem) :innocent: )

So, any thoughts on what could kill the MJ dance scene off?A pandemic would frighten people away from communal activities. Any organisations contractually bound to hiring venues or paying out regular salaries would be threatened with going out of business. Others might make a come-back at a severely depressed level of activity.

e.g.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bird-flu

All together: "Always look on the bright side of life ...."

[Andybroom]

If other partner dances (salsa, AT, ballroom) reach a "critical mass" in terms of popular appeal, especially to the young, then it won't be such a selling point to tell people "yes, even you can partner dance", because the potential customers will know this already. And the inherent flaws of teaching the quick-and-dirty way will be more immediately obvious to more people at an earlier stage...


David I've picked your post to quote, but only as it's representative of several which all seem to share a bit of a misconception.

Firstly ballroom is still very popular in this country. Probably outnumbers mj at least 10 (if not more) to 1 in terms of the numbers participating. At many university's the ballroom dance society is the largest student society by far - Bristol University gets as many as 500 new beginners to their ballroom dance society every year.

Running a beginners class for 500 is something of an interesting proposition for the teachers I'm told.

On top of that there's plenty of non student adults who ballroom of all ages and a youth ballroom scene as well (the latter being pretty much competitive rather than social, but it's there).

Salsa has more than reached a "critical mass". Actually I think it's gone past it's height of popularity but it the numbers dancing it will still outnumber modern jivers by a significant percentage - several salseros to evey mj'er. At it's height the biggest salsa night in Bristol was getting around 300 every Thursday night for classes followed by dancing (till 1am) in a biggish nightclub and that was only one of 5 or 6 classes spread over all the weekday evenings. There was even another (reasonably successful) class on the same night as the biggest one!

MJ only get's away with it's quick and dirty approach to beginners because there are still very large numbers of people in this country who have never partner danced. Assuming the resurgence of interest in partner dancing doesn't fall away as a whole, there may well reach a point at which a "quick and dirty" approach stops being viable.

At the present time those who come to MJ with experience elsewhere (as I did about 5 years ago now) simply leap pretty much straight in to intermediates - as I recall I only did two beginners lessons although I subsequently did a few more alongside intermediates simply to pick up the standard beginners moves.

I think what will happen (and to some extent already is) is that we will see MJ moving away from standard named moves into a more improvisational approach and that we will see an improved level of technique and styling being applied to the dance.

How the Ceroc organisation will cope with that I know not and I'm not particularly sure I care. I'm sure there will be plenty of people to teach MJ and run MJ clubs whether or not as part of a franchise organsiation.

Either way (and whatever publicity Ceroc or any other MJ teaching organisation may use) it's a big mistake to think it's the majority partner dancing form in the UK, it's simply not true.

Andy

PS - not complaining about the publicity though - there's still a lot of people in the UK to get dancing!!!

[TheTramp]

David I've picked your post to quote, but only as it's representative of several which all seem to share a bit of a misconception.

Either way (and whatever publicity Ceroc or any other MJ teaching organisation may use) it's a big mistake to think it's the majority partner dancing form in the UK, it's simply not true.

Andy

Just out of interest, where are you getting your figures from?

I'm not questioning them, you understand, so no need to defend them. But I'm interested if you have actual figures, or whether this is just your impression.

[Andybroom]

I don't think SCD would have had the same effect on all the people that, according to that article, are swamping the ballroom dance schools, if there wasn't the clear evidence that non-dancers could learn.



The problem with SCD (I think, anyway) is that it gives the impression that you can learn to ballroom to the apprent standard seen on TV in a week.

Actually the programme demonstrates that if you take either an actor/actress (who will have done dance training at drama school - even if they haven't done much since) or a fit and active sportsman/woman and put them together with one of the best dancers in the world as their personal tutor and dance partner they can learn a few showy competition moves and pull them off (kind of) in a week. The odd celeb they've had on who doesn't fit those catagories becomes a lame duck dancer and may or may not stay on the programme for more than a week depending on (a) how popular thet really are as a celeb and (b) how far they can milk the public sympathy vote.

Then people go to a ballroom class and realise that doing even a few simple steps is actually quite difficult.



I agree, and the provision of a clear "career path", with genuine choices, for people that take up partner dancing of any kind will become increasingly important.


We've had a couple of threads going recently on advanced dancing/dancers.



There needs to be accessibility in the early stages (which Ceroc does very well),


Make that MJ rather than just the Ceroc franchises and I'd agree essentially.



With SCD, it's now cool again (well, compared with the way it was some years ago) to consider ballroom and latin.


SCD is a response to the upsurge in interest in partner dancing and ballroom dancing generally that had already taken place. Obviously it is itself feeding that upsurge, but it didn't start it.



And I can't get away from the feeling that in SCD's case it's a combination of the "beginners learning to dance thing" and the "glitz and glamour of the competition" thing that somehow attracts people on both levels. If either was absent, I don't think SCD would have been the hit that it's been, and I think there are lessons there for the MJ world too.

I dunno about that. At least, it's the glitz and glamour of the outfits that attract a lot of women into dancing - the question I'm most asked by female non dancers I meet who find out I've done ballroom is "where do they get the outfits from" ! - Sorry if that sounds sexist, but it is the case.

I think the world is slowly re-discovering the pleasure of partner dance after a very short period of maybe 20 or 30 years when it fell out of fashion and SCD is a response to that rather than something that's leading it. It's also going to be partly because the resurgence of interest in Ballroom in Universities dates back to around 15 or 16 years ago or so and the people who were student dancers in those days will now be amongst the decision makers at the good ole BBC!!

Andy

[Andybroom]

Just out of interest, where are you getting your figures from?

I'm not questioning them, you understand, so no need to defend them. But I'm interested if you have actual figures, or whether this is just your impression.

Local experience in the Bristol area. To some extent an impression, but based on having been to most of the classes at one time or another and/or knowing the teachers concerned.

Ignoring the influx after freshers fairs (and subsequent drop out) Bristol and Bath Uni dance socs typically have somewhere in the 800/900 dancers between them. The biggest (adult) Ballroom school has probably around 300 (more after the advertising he does at the begining of each term, but 300 is a reasonable average), the various others have smaller numbers but they support full-time ballroom dancing teachers and several of them own halls they use as their studios. Conservatively I'd estimate another 1,200 between them (won't bore you with a list!) and that takes us to around 2,500 ballroomers in the area. Again from experience of going to most of them at one time or another I'd say there were around 250 MJ'ers in the area (lot less than the total class attendances as large numbers go to several classes). Hence my ten to one.

Salsa is a bit more difficult to say at the moment. It's somewhat on the decline in the area at present resulting in a number of classes closing (some closing and re-opening). A couple of years ago or so when it was at it's height I would have similarly estimated around 8 or 900 Salsa dancers - again by knowledge of the sorts of numbers going to the classes and reducing it a bit to allow for people attending more than one class.

Whilst local conditions may mean that this is not identically repeated across the country (and actual numbers will vary depending on where you are and the number of people living in the area) I'm lead to believe by a combination of national level teachers I know, personal observation at events I've attended and discussions I've had with dancers from other areas over the years that the Bristol area is reasonably typical. That is, admittedly, more of an impression.

Andy

[David Bailey]

Firstly ballroom is still very popular in this country. Probably outnumbers mj at least 10 (if not more) to 1 in terms of the numbers participating.
Do you have any figures or sources?
I tried to find out in the "How many dancers are in the UK? (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6625)" thread, but no-one seemed to know, despite my increasingly-plaintive requests for information. I'd be very interested if someone could come up with some concrete figures.

I think it's reasonable to say that there are on the order of 100K regular MJ dancers (i.e. dancuing once a week), based on the figures Ceroc give out and our own back-of-a-fag-packet calculations. I'd be quite surprised if there are 1 million regular ballroom dancers; it's not impossible, but I'd need to see some sources.


At many university's the ballroom dance society is the largest student society by far - Bristol University gets as many as 500 new beginners to their ballroom dance society every year.
Yep, but let's face it, many (most?) of them have dropped out after the first few weeks, once they realise how hard it is. At the end of the year, there's probably only 50-100 left; at least, that was my experience when I did ballroom at Uni. Of course, that was back in the Stone Ages.


On top of that there's plenty of non student adults who ballroom of all ages and a youth ballroom scene as well (the latter being pretty much competitive rather than social, but it's there).
Absolutely - but do you have any figures?


Salsa has more than reached a "critical mass". Actually I think it's gone past it's height of popularity but it the numbers dancing it will still outnumber modern jivers by a significant percentage - several salseros to evey mj'er.
I agree it reached a zenith a while back, but again I dunno about numbers. We discussed this a bit in that other thread, before I flounced off to find out - well, nothing really.

It's so difficult to tell, any fool can call themself a salsa teacher (I know...), and there are no national statistics for the scene.

But my gut feeling, based on doing quite a bit of salsa, and using the London scene because that's the only one I know, is that the Salsa scene was probably bigger than MJ a few years ago, but that they're probably roughly the same size now. Note the huge amount of caveats - and again, I'd love to have some hard data.


MJ only get's away with it's quick and dirty approach to beginners because there are still very large numbers of people in this country who have never partner danced. Assuming the resurgence of interest in partner dancing doesn't fall away as a whole, there may well reach a point at which a "quick and dirty" approach stops being viable.
I agree - which is why I think MJ needs to sharpen up it's act. The very fact that Ceroc has been training hundreds of thousands of people to "partner dance" who otherwise wouldn't have, combined with the resurgent popularity of partner dancing in the media, to me implies that the teaching of MJ needs to rise to the challenge, or they'll lose out to other dance forms. (Like AT :drool: )


Either way (and whatever publicity Ceroc or any other MJ teaching organisation may use) it's a big mistake to think it's the majority partner dancing form in the UK, it's simply not true.
I'd have no problem with this, but I'm picky; I need data before I believe stuff. I looked at various ballroom dancing organisation websites - apparently in England alone there are over 100 registered dance teacher organisations - but I briefly went through the sites of the International Dance Teachers Association (http://www.idta.co.uk/), the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (http://www.istd.org/main.html), the British Dance Counci (http://www.british-dance-council.org/), the English Amateur Dancers Association (http://eada.org/home.html) ... then I gave up.

But I'd still really love to know the answer.

[David Bailey]

Just an addendum - I'm very happy to accept that more people are learning ballroom than MJ - in schools, colleges, etc. Ballroom's been around for long enough, and has thousands of teachers compared to MJ - so the 10 to 1 figure may make sense for classes.

But I don't believe the social scene in ballroom is that large - there are no major ballroom venues around my manor of North London I believe, but there are 4-5 MJ venues within a 10-minute drive.

And I don't think there are many ballroom weekenders - whereas the number of MJ weekenders seems to have exploded over the past couple of years.

Again, we're hampered by no data :tears:

[TheTramp]

Interesting, your figures for Bristol/Bath area.

From my experience of living in several other areas, I'd say that if your figures are correct, they are totally area-specific, and bear no correlation to the country as a whole. Which is why I asked where you got your figures from, suspecting I was going to get the answer that you gave, hoping that you'd have actual figures.

As David James says, I doubt very, very much that there are a million ballroom dancers in the UK.

Speaking for Dundee (from my experience, and I'm willing for someone who knows the area better than me to correct me). I wanted to do Ballroom dancing. Neither of the universitys in Dundee, or the college have a Ballroom dancing society. There is one couple advertised as teaching ballroom in Dundee. Apparently (so I've heard - I can't go as I work for Ceroc on the night they teach) they are both about 80, and don't really have that many students. I also wanted to do salsa. There was a night class advertised at the local college. But it didn't run because they didn't have enough people signed up to it.

Tonight, at the Ceroc night in Dundee, we had over 100 people. From this (and using your own countrywide assessment based on one area scheme), I'm forced to conclude that, countrywide, Modern Jive dancers outweigh Ballroom Dancers by somewhere between 5 and 10 to 1, and Modern Jive dancers outweigh Salsa dancers by at least 10 to 1.

Course, I don't actually know the countrywide figures. Unfortunately, I'm forced to conclude that neither do you. Sorry. (I don't mean for this to sound rude though, but it probably does. Sorry again).

And just a thought. Maybe a lot of Ballroom Dancers go to Bristol and Bath Uni's specifically because of the Ballroom Dancing scene there. Which might help to account for the numbers. Where are you Sparkles (I know that she was heavily involved in the Bath Uni Ballroom Dancing team just a few years ago)?

[ducasi]

Speaking for Dundee (from my experience, and I'm willing for someone who knows the area better than me to correct me). Don't have any better knowledge than you, not of Dundee anyway, but I think that where you might have found a ballroom society at an English university, you'll find one or more ceilidh-dancing societies in most Scottish universities. (At Glasgow Uni, IIRC, as well as there being a dedicated ceilidh dance society, many of the other societies ran their own monthly ceilidhs. There was always one or two ceilidhs on each week during term.)

Pretty much every school kid in Scotland gets taught some amount of ceilidh dancing at school.

Feel free to make up your own random statistics based on this...

[frodo]

...Running a beginners class for 500 is something of an interesting proposition for the teachers I'm told.
All in one class ? - that sounds really interesting.

I've come across that sort of total yearly numbers elsewhere but they were spread across a multiple weekly classes

Similarly these numbers were spread over 3 terms, so to get 500 that could mean 250,200,100 starting at the beginning of the different terms.

[frodo]

But I don't believe the social scene in ballroom is that large - there are no major ballroom venues around my manor of North London I believe, but there are 4-5 MJ venues within a 10-minute drive.

I guess it depends on what you mean by major, and how big the area you're talking about - how far you can get in a 10 minute drive ?

[David Bailey]

I guess it depends on what you mean by major, and how big the area you're talking about - how far you can get in a 10 minute drive ?
Major = more than a dozen people in a little room somewhere.
How far can I get? Say 5-7 miles? That gives me Finchley (2 nights / week, say 300 people in total), Ashtons (200 people?), and from next week Muswell Hill (XXX, but hopefully lots). OK, that's 4 venues then.

Now, there may well be lots of ballroom dancing going on in the local area - I know for a fact that there's a lot of teaching going on. But I don't know of any large ballroom dancing social events. Again, this could be mainly due to my ignorance of the scene. But I know there are line dancing, salsa dancing, AT dancing and other social scenes in some of the venues I've been to, and I can't recall seeing any ballroom dancing socials there.

Don't get me wrong; I think this is a real shame, and I would love it if ballroom dancing had a vibrant local social scene, that's one of the things that might persuade me to take it up. But AFAIK it doesn't. Loads of classes, but not much fun, is my biased impression.

And I still don't know how many dancers there are in the UK. :tears:

[Andybroom]

All in one class ? - that sounds really interesting.

I've come across that sort of total yearly numbers elsewhere but they were spread across a multiple weekly classes

Similarly these numbers were spread over 3 terms, so to get 500 that could mean 250,200,100 starting at the beginning of the different terms.

Yeah they have one giant class in a room which normally serves as a concert hall (capacity around 1000, I beleive). It happens because of the way University SU clubs recruit freshers - they have a practical need to hold their first session as soon as possible after freshers week is over and everyone that has signed up as interested at their freshers fair will go to it.

Obviously the numbers drop off from that fairly rapidly! On an ongoing basis the club is split up more or less on conventional lines with a series of classes for different abilities/aspirations (ranging from the competition team to the ordinary beginner social dancer). Numbers still tend to be large but rather more manageable.

Andy

[Andybroom]

Do you have any figures or sources?




But I'd still really love to know the answer.

I don't actually think that there's any practical way that any form of census statistics could be compiled.

Even with ballroom where the majority of teachers will be -qualified- members of one or more of the teaching organisations you mention there are bound to be some teachers operating outside them. Then there will still be a lot of ballroom dancers (mainly older) who don't actually attend any lessons as such but just go dancing.

Although it might be possible for the Ceroc organisation to conduct some kind of formal survey of it's franchisees that will still be wildely inaccurate as a count of MJ'ers since there's plenty (shock, horror ;) ) of people teaching and learning/dancing MJ outside of the Ceroc organisation.

Ignoring the UKA (as Salsa teachers widely do!) there's no organisation at all for Salsa teachers.

So I think you've probably got to accept that estimates from someone like myself who's done all three and has no particular axe to grind in promoting one or the other are as good as you are going to get.

Andy

[David Bailey]

So I think you've probably got to accept that estimates from someone like myself who's done all three and has no particular axe to grind in promoting one or the other are as good as you are going to get.
:tears:

You're probably right, there aren't any data, so it's all just guesswork really...

So, going back to the point of the thread, is it your contention that a resurgence in ballroom dancing would siphon off enough MJ-ers to effectively kill it?

[Tessalicious]

So I think you've probably got to accept that estimates from someone like myself who's done all three and has no particular axe to grind in promoting one or the other are as good as you are going to get.I've also done all three, in London and in Surrey, and the differences between those two adjacent places are striking enough that it demonstrates the impossibility of a person in a single city making an assertion like yours.

In my experience in London, the number of Cerocers is huge and varied but can all be seen at similar types of evening, while the number of salsa dancers ranges from the really good ones that go to classes (either as teacher or as good-but-still-learning) and show off in salsa bars, and the people who go to said salsa bars not having a clue what is going on but then feel they can say they've done a little salsa. Therefore if you took 1000 Londoners in their 20's/30's/40's at random more will probably say that they have danced salsa than MJ, but the few regular dancers will probably be mostly MJers.

Ballroom in London, as DJ said, is hard to find a well-attended large class, who knows why. At the ballroom classes I have attended in London, many of the regulars have danced before - ie Ceroc - and many of the first-timers (who often don't come back) haven't. I don't know of many dedicated ballroom/latin freestyle events in the style of Hammersmith or Hipsters for MJ, except for Sunday afternoon at Sound, which is, I've heard, interesting.

On t'other hand, in Surrey, there are: some very well attended MJ classes such as Woking and Surbiton, and some other more provincial classes with maybe 10 couples if you're lucky; several ballroom venues with between 40 and 100 regulars, including Saturday night social freestyles, where the slightly older and more couply demographic maintains much higher retention; and the odd poorly-attended salsa class above a pub.

[Andybroom]

Interesting, your figures for Bristol/Bath area.

From my experience of living in several other areas, I'd say that if your figures are correct, they are totally area-specific, and bear no correlation to the country as a whole. Which is why I asked where you got your figures from, suspecting I was going to get the answer that you gave, hoping that you'd have actual figures.

As David James says, I doubt very, very much that there are a million ballroom dancers in the UK.


Actually I would say that was not far out. Clearly there are no specific statistics to support or deny this but there are an awful lot of ballroom dancers out there. As I said before I'm led to believe that there is nothing unusual particularly about the Bristol area in this respect.



Speaking for Dundee (from my experience, and I'm willing for someone who knows the area better than me to correct me). I wanted to do Ballroom dancing. Neither of the universitys in Dundee, or the college have a Ballroom dancing society. There is one couple advertised as teaching ballroom in Dundee. Apparently (so I've heard - I can't go as I work for Ceroc on the night they teach) they are both about 80, and don't really have that many students. I also wanted to do salsa. There was a night class advertised at the local college. But it didn't run because they didn't have enough people signed up to it.


I think I did say (or meant to) that the Bristol area profile is probably not accurately repeated over every area in the country. I do have to say that Ballroom dance teachers/studios don't tend to advertise (no idea why - presumably most of them have the numbers they want without doing so) and it can be quite hard to get in to the ballroom "scene" in the first instance. That doesn't mean it's not there!

I don't honestly know whether Salsa wasn't/isn't as sucessful in Scotland as it has been elsewhere in the UK. Although popularity has waned a little there's still a lot of it about "down South".



Tonight, at the Ceroc night in Dundee, we had over 100 people. From this (and using your own countrywide assessment based on one area scheme), I'm forced to conclude that, countrywide, Modern Jive dancers outweigh Ballroom Dancers by somewhere between 5 and 10 to 1, and Modern Jive dancers outweigh Salsa dancers by at least 10 to 1.


With respect, but Dundee isn't going to be representative of the UK as a whole nor is it even a major population centre in national terms. The greater Bristol area is home for about 1.5million and I know (from personal experience as I go further afield dancing myself sometimes) that the profiles in Birmigham and London are not that dissimilar to here.



Course, I don't actually know the countrywide figures. Unfortunately, I'm forced to conclude that neither do you. Sorry. (I don't mean for this to sound rude though, but it probably does. Sorry again).


I'm happy to take your comments in the spirit of debate rather than as a flame if you are happy to do that with mine. I'm not particularly intending to start some sort of flame war with anyone, just trying to correct what appears to be a false impression that some seem to have of the numbers involved in MJ compared with other partner dance forms. I'm not even trying to do MJ down - at present I'm spending more time dancing it that anything else.

No one knows exact figures. But I would contend that my assessment based on actual knowledge of the Bristol scene and having danced all three forms of dance presently being discussed is probably closer to the true overall picture than yours, based on a relatively sparsely populated area and from someone who (I assume, from what you say) has never had any involvement with Salsa or Ballroom.




And just a thought. Maybe a lot of Ballroom Dancers go to Bristol and Bath Uni's specifically because of the Ballroom Dancing scene there. Which might help to account for the numbers. Where are you Sparkles (I know that she was heavily involved in the Bath Uni Ballroom Dancing team just a few years ago)?

I don't think that's particularly the case, no. There are plenty of others universities which are just as good (and, for all I know, better) for ballroom dancing. It just happens that one of my ballroom teachers (from when I was doing ballroom) also teaches the Bristol University dancers so I have a little "inside" info.

Andy

[Andybroom]

Now, there may well be lots of ballroom dancing going on in the local area - I know for a fact that there's a lot of teaching going on. But I don't know of any large ballroom dancing social events. Again, this could be mainly due to my ignorance of the scene.


Indeed it will be simply due to your not being involved in the scene. I've just said elsewhere that Ballroom (for reasons I've never quite understood) does not widely publicise it's presence.

Also you need to take into account that (because of the nature of the dances) you can pack a lot more people doing MJ into a space than you can ballroomers doing ballroom.

Further a big tranche of ballroom activity is centred on competitions, which tend to need very big spaces (often Sports Halls and the like) which aren't the sort of places that normally host MJ.

Andy

[David Bailey]

No one knows exact figures. But I would contend that my assessment based on actual knowledge of the Bristol scene and having danced all three forms of dance presently being discussed is probably closer to the true overall picture than yours, based on a relatively sparsely populated area and from someone who (I assume, from what you say) has never had any involvement with Salsa or Ballroom.
I know the London MJ / salsa scene quite well, but I know nothing about other areas or the ballroom dancing scene - apart from the fact that AFAIK there isn't much of one in London.

But, OK, let's put some figures up for discussion:
- 500K people who've learnt MJ, and 100K regular MJ dancers
- 1M people who've learnt salsa, and 100K regular salsa dancers
- 1M people who've learnt ballroom, and 50K regular ballroom dancers.
- 25K people who've learnt AT, and 5K regular AT dancers

(where "regular" means going to a social dance event once per week)

How does that sound?


Ballroom in London, as DJ said, is hard to find a well-attended large class, who knows why.
Maybe because of the demographic? i.e. mainly transient and younger people than out in the sticks? (Obviously, the same applies to any large city).

I'd really love to see Ceroc do another night like nosequins - I think that had vast potential, and it's a shame that didn't keep going. Ideally, that would then provide the best of both worlds - combining ballroom dancing with Ceroc sociability.

Which would be nice :)

[Andybroom]

In my experience in London, the number of Cerocers is huge and varied but can all be seen at similar types of evening,


Yes, but please note my comments related to total numbers rather than type of evening.




while the number of salsa dancers ranges from the really good ones that go to classes (either as teacher or as good-but-still-learning) and show off in salsa bars, and the people who go to said salsa bars not having a clue what is going on but then feel they can say they've done a little salsa. Therefore if you took 1000 Londoners in their 20's/30's/40's at random more will probably say that they have danced salsa than MJ, but the few regular dancers will probably be mostly MJers.


Again my comments were in relation to the total numbers not how many were "regular dancers" (which would introduce an argument as to how you define "regular" in any case). I'm not quite sure (with respect, this isn't meant to be a flame) that I understand your comments about the Salsa scene in this context either, is there not a similar range of people in MJ? Standards at all the MJ events I've been to vary between very good and absolute beginner, atttendees at classes vary between "come every week" (and probably go to several classes a week) and "you only see them now and again". Just as with Salsa and even ballroom.



Ballroom in London, as DJ said, is hard to find a well-attended large class, who knows why.


Ballroom does tend to operate with smaller groups and does not publicise itself.

I can answer why the groups are smaller (I can't answer for the lack of publicity on the part of the teachers - never understood that).

Outside of the University scene (and a few other odd exceptions) ballroom classes tend to teach technique in great detail from the start. Couple this with the fact that the progressive "modern ballroom" dances (ie Slow Waltz. Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep and Tango) demand a great deal more floor space per couple than MJ does by their nature. Add these two together and that means that large group classes don't work well and the numbers at any individual ballroom event will, of necessity, be lower than those at any individual MJ event.

At social dances a hall that would comfortably hold 150 MJ'ers would probably only hold 40 or 50 at a ballroom social dance.

In your assessment of numbers you've not considered the Ballroom competition types (and their practice sessions) who will be dancing several times a week but only rarely attending a purely social dance event of the MJ sort. There's a fair few of them - but you might not have even been aware of their existance.

Andy

[Lounge Lizard]

This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual :innocent: MJ does not simply date from the 1980s. It wasn't born whole on a particular day. It evolved from a previous dance due to a change in the environment and that dance evolved from another, right back to the original dance that was an African tribal dance - and before that, who knows? The environment was the music. And it will probably be the music that kills MJ - but it will take a long time.

Consider the example of Rock & Roll. In the 1950s music and the dance fitted together nicely. People loved the Rock & Roll scene, they loved the music, they did the dance, met their husbands and wives, etc. During the '60s music changed and by the '70s you couldn't do Rock & Roll to any of the music being released. The result of this was that young people did not learn the Rock & Roll dance.

But, there a still people out there going to Rock & Roll dances and enjoying the same music. Rock & Roll as a dance has not died - yet! It is a bit of a fossil though. It lives on with an ageing population who will eventually be too old and infirm to dance :tears:
Good post Andy but over the past year I have been mor & more involved in the R&R dance scene.
It is still very busy in many areas, there are more R&R weekenders than MJ weekenders around at the moment and loads of live bands playing regular R&R gigs
The age is on average 40+, but certain Rockabilly clubs do have a large following of younger dancers
Will it die out as the dancers get older?
well using that example Lindy dancers should be 80+ in age as this stemmed from the 30's!!

All these dance forms will continue to be discovered by new generations


Let's consider Modern Jive in this context. We get young people coming along. But would they come if all the music was 70s disco and there was no modern chart music? I don't think so - although this is an assumption. Yes they would (well if they were German Swiss or Russian!!
There is a big following of Disco Fox in Germany, Switzerland & Russia + few other european countries, it is simmilar move pattern to MJ but with footwork, they do play many of our 'swing' favs providing the BPM is slow enough, but in the main it is all 70's disco
We were at a club in Switzerland, it was really busy, but bizare as the 70's disco classics filled the dance floor all night


What could happen if the music that was being released changed so much that you couldn't do MJ to it - let's say it all became a Rock and Roll beat. My guess is that we'd all still go dancing MJ to the same old music but we'd get far less young people coming along. MJ would be the dance of our generation and it would die with us - to be reborn in a different guise when the musical environment changed again.No there will always be bands, muscians etc. providing music for us dancers, Colin James, Domino, Dr. Robert, Royal Crown Revue, James Hunter, Indigo Swing etc. are really popular in swing rooms & main dance halls but they do not play mainstream pop
p

[Andybroom]

But, OK, let's put some figures up for discussion:
- 500K people who've learnt MJ, and 100K regular MJ dancers
- 1M people who've learnt salsa, and 100K regular salsa dancers
- 1M people who've learnt ballroom, and 50K regular ballroom dancers.
- 25K people who've learnt AT, and 5K regular AT dancers

(where "regular" means going to a social dance event once per week)

How does that sound?



I'd accept your total numbers as being in the right sort of ballpark, yes, certanly as comparitive proportions.

I think your very on the low side with the number of regular ballroom dancers though - see some of the other points I've made this morning. Your figure for regular Salsa dancers would have been low some years ago but it is certainly falling and may well be down to the same level as MJ now. Certainly I think Salsa and MJ will have similar numbers when the "Salsa craze" is really over.

Andy

[David Bailey]

I'm not quite sure (with respect, this isn't meant to be a flame) that I understand your comments about the Salsa scene in this context either, is there not a similar range of people in MJ?
Yeah, I'm not sure I'd agree with Tessalicious on that one either. However, there is a more clear "central London vs. outer London" split, which may explain it.

To put it in a stereotypical manner, Central London salsa venues (e.g. Salsa!, Bar Madrid, etc.) have either very good Latin dancers, or lots of giggly first-time young women on a works do. A match made in heaven, possibly, but not so much for the dancing... :whistle:
Whereas outer London salsa venues are more similar to the Ceroc demographic IMO - range of abilities, generally slightly older, generally more sociable.


At social dances a hall that would comfortably hold 150 MJ'ers would probably only hold 40 or 50 at a ballroom social dance.
That makes sense - and would imply that, in somewhere like London, where hiring a hall is expensive, you'd probably find that large-scale ballroom-dancing events are not economical, as most people wouldn't want to pay £20-£30 for a night's dancing...


In your assessment of numbers you've not considered the Ballroom competition types (and their practice sessions)
That's because they're Evil. :innocent:

[Tessalicious]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd agree with Tessalicious on that one either. However, there is a more clear "central London vs. outer London" split, which may explain it.

To put it in a stereotypical manner, Central London salsa venues (e.g. Salsa!, Bar Madrid, etc.) have either very good Latin dancers, or lots of giggly first-time young women on a works do. A match made in heaven, possibly, but not so much for the dancing... :whistle:
Whereas outer London salsa venues are more similar to the Ceroc demographic IMO - range of abilities, generally slightly older, generally more sociable.Your Central London venue example is what I meant - supporting my point that any individual knowing one particular area is still not necessarily going to be able to make an accurate assessment of total numbers dancing in that area, let alone outside it, from their experience alone.

[David Bailey]

Your Central London venue example is what I meant - supporting my point that any individual knowing one particular area is still not necessarily going to be able to make an accurate assessment of total numbers dancing in that area, let alone outside it, from their experience alone.
Ooh, I love it when you talk clever. :drool:

[clevedonboy]

But, OK, let's put some figures up for discussion:
- 500K people who've learnt MJ, and 100K regular MJ dancers
- 1M people who've learnt salsa, and 100K regular salsa dancers
- 1M people who've learnt ballroom, and 50K regular ballroom dancers.


(where "regular" means going to a social dance event once per week)

How does that sound?



way over inflated
250000 people socially dancing each week? 1 in 16 of the adult population?
over 1000 events per week? (to put that in context, Jon White's Uk-Jive web site lists about 30 MJ dances per weekend so even if he's only got half of them listed we're well short of 1000)

I think the estimates for active participants of all dance forms is exagerated - after all you want to reassure people that they're not some sort of wierdo.

All of these 3 dances are going to have a rock solid hardcore measuring in the thousands with butterlies measuring tens of thousands.

I don't think Ceroc / MJ will be killed off - it's popularity will wane and part of that will be due to Ballroom's newly polished profile.

Of course Lindy Hop will soon resume it's place as the dominant dance form and all other dancers will then realise the errors of their ways :wink:

[Saxylady]

butterlies

As in utterlie butterlie? Guess they slip away cos they're too greasy to get a proper hold?

[TheTramp]

way over inflated
250000 people socially dancing each week? 1 in 16 of the adult population?

250,000 isn't 1 in 16 of the adult population. I believe that the population of the UK is now quoted as just over 60million. Leaving off those under 18, I'd guess that means that the adult population is (say) 45-50 million. So, that's somewhere between 1 in 180 and 1 in 200.

[clevedonboy]

250,000 isn't 1 in 16 of the adult population. I believe that the population of the UK is now quoted as just over 60million. Leaving off those under 18, I'd guess that means that the adult population is (say) 45-50 million. So, that's somewhere between 1 in 180 and 1 in 200.

sorry for the typos missed the 0 (and the f as in effing buterflies Mrs W) should have been 1 in 160 (about 40 million I was reckoning) which is still unlikely

[TheTramp]

sorry for the typos missed the 0 (and the f as in effing buterflies Mrs W) should have been 1 in 160 (about 40 million I was reckoning) which is still unlikely

Ah. Fair enough. I was wondering if you really thought that the adult population of the UK was 4million, or whether you'd just gotten the sums wrong. A typo would explain it too.

(PS. Sorry to have not said hello last Friday. Was just so busy dancing, and then had to run off at 11pm to catch the last bus home. Shame the cabaret took up so much dancing time really :rolleyes: Did either of them dance with anyone else after I'd left?)

[David Bailey]

way over inflated
250000 people socially dancing each week? 1 in 16 of the adult population?
over 1000 events per week? (to put that in context, Jon White's Uk-Jive web site lists about 30 MJ dances per weekend so even if he's only got half of them listed we're well short of 1000)
1 in 160, and yes - that doesn't sound completely unreasonable to me.
Ceroc states there are 55K regular ceroc dancers on their website. Given that there are more MJ-ers who don't do Ceroc, I assumed 100K regular MJ-ers throughout the country, and the other numbers kind of flowed from that.

It's possible that these numbers are too high, certainly. But I based them on estimates from the numbers thread (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6625), so they're not completely made up, there is a little bit of data behind them. But I'm not married to them or anything, I'm happy to revise estimates based on any real information somewhere... :plaintive icon:

[clevedonboy]

(PS. Sorry to have not said hello last Friday. Was just so busy dancing, and then had to run off at 11pm to catch the last bus home. Shame the cabaret took up so much dancing time really :rolleyes: Did either of them dance with anyone else after I'd left?)

Unfortunately we didn't make it - still got the tickets here - Julia (Saxylady) was proper poorly :tears:

[bigdjiver]

Every year thousands of new students arrive at Universities in places like Bristol and Cambridge knowing very few people there. Pretty high on their agenda is getting to know members of the opposite sex. The dance class is one instant solution. These classes have built their position over many decades. The attendance at these dance classes is unrepresentative of the normal situation throughout the country.

[frodo]

Major = more than a dozen people in a little room somewhere.
How far can I get? Say 5-7 miles? That gives me Finchley (2 nights / week, say 300 people in total), Ashtons (200 people?), and from next week Muswell Hill (XXX, but hopefully lots). OK, that's 4 venues then.

Now, there may well be lots of ballroom dancing going on in the local area - I know for a fact that there's a lot of teaching going on. But I don't know of any large ballroom dancing social events. Again, this could be mainly due to my ignorance of the scene. But I know there are line dancing, salsa dancing, AT dancing and other social scenes in some of the venues I've been to, and I can't recall seeing any ballroom dancing socials there.

Don't get me wrong; I think this is a real shame, and I would love it if ballroom dancing had a vibrant local social scene, that's one of the things that might persuade me to take it up. But AFAIK it doesn't. Loads of classes, but not much fun, is my biased impression.

And I still don't know how many dancers there are in the UK. :tears:

I do generally agree you that the problem is the social scene, (though I didn't recall your area being a desert exactly)

A quick check, (just pre Strictly Come Dancing) comes up with these during the week. I'm sure some have opened and closed in the mean time, but given the boost from SCD I'd be surprised if there was less around.

5-7 miles got you on Mondays-Fridays during the evening only (taking West Finchley tube as a base).

Monday - Brent Town Hall (big venue)
Tuesday - Borehamwood - Allum Hall (also a big venue)
Wednesday - Dancing Club LA - Finchley
Kentish Town - Daphne Harris - Luther Tyndale Church Hall
Thursday - Enfield - St Stevens Church Hall
Friday - Enfield - St Stevens
Friday - East Finchley - Dancing Club LA - Bishop Douglas High School
Friday - Finchley - North London Dance - Christ Church Hall

[TheTramp]

Unfortunately we didn't make it - still got the tickets here - Julia (Saxylady) was proper poorly :tears:

I'm sorry to hear that. Hope she's feeling better (soon if not already) :flower:

[AndrewMc]

Bullying

[David Bailey]

Hi Andrew, and welcome!

Bullying
:confused: Can you explain?


I do generally agree you that the problem is the social scene, (though I didn't recall your area being a desert exactly

{ snip list }


Excellent - thanks for that, where'd you get the list from?


Every year thousands of new students arrive at Universities in places like Bristol and Cambridge knowing very few people there. Pretty high on their agenda is getting to know members of the opposite sex. The dance class is one instant solution.
I'm shocked, shocked I say, to hear you imply that male students would have an ulterior motive for learning to partner dance. I certainly never did. :innocent:

[Andybroom]

Your Central London venue example is what I meant - supporting my point that any individual knowing one particular area is still not necessarily going to be able to make an accurate assessment of total numbers dancing in that area, let alone outside it, from their experience alone.


Umm, well ... I have danced Salsa in London on numerous occasions in the past (Bristol isn't that far away and many of the best teachers are based in the London area). I've also danced Salsa a bit in the Midlands (also not far away for me).

I accept entirely David's comments about the attendees at the Central London Salsa clubs.

But my knowledge of the London (and national) salsa scene is a lot wider than just those!

And my comments were related to the overall scene - if you want to start analysing individual clubs then you will, of course, find a lot of individual variations. I think all this prooves is that only London is big enough to make clubs like those financially viable.

And it's well known in the Salsa scene that you either go to them (if you are a guy) to pick up those giggly girls or you go to them with your own partner or with a (mixed) group of friends.

You don't go to them to spend the evening dancing with whoever happens to be there in the manner that you do at a MJ event (or most other Salsa events). They are really ordinary nightclubs with a Salsa theme.

Andy

[Andybroom]

That makes sense - and would imply that, in somewhere like London, where hiring a hall is expensive, you'd probably find that large-scale ballroom-dancing events are not economical, as most people wouldn't want to pay £20-£30 for a night's dancing...


Yep, I agree. Ballroom is already a lot more expensive than MJ to do.




That's because they're Evil. :innocent:

Hmmmm......... :rolleyes:

Andy

[Andybroom]

way over inflated
[quote]

Actually I think not, Andrew. There really are that kind of numbers of dancers about - You haven't yet scratched the surface of the dancing community as a whole (and Lindy Hop is a fairly minority dance interest anyway).


[quote]

I don't think Ceroc / MJ will be killed off - it's popularity will wane and part of that will be due to Ballroom's newly polished profile.


To a long time dancer like me MJ actually still has a lot of attractions. However what will happen (and already is) is that we will introduce moves and footwork into MJ from other dances. We will/are also make the dance more improvisational rather than just dancing the named move combinations that most MJ teachers trot out.

This might be a problem for existing teachers (especially within the Ceroc franchise) as they may well not have the skills to teach the kinds of thing the more advanced dancers are actually doing on the floor. I say especially within the Ceroc franchise since (I understand) Ceroc teachers are trained by the franchisor to teach specific move groups rather than to teach dance on a more general sense (there's another recent thread about advanced dancing which airs some of this subject area) and they might well have difficulty breaking away from that when the time comes. And it's probably not that far away.







Of course Lindy Hop will soon resume it's place as the dominant dance form and all other dancers will then realise the errors of their ways :wink:

Another matter entirely,dear boy .... :whistle:

Andy

[clevedonboy]

Yep, I agree. Ballroom is already a lot more expensive than MJ to do.


Andy

Not necessarily - Eric's classes in Bristol are £5 per person so compares with average MJ. He charges £5 admission to his Ballroom dances again compares well.

In fact I'd go further and say it's better value in some ways - Avon Amateurs charge £5 per couple for their practice nights at the Somerset Hall in Portishead (costs £30 per hour to hire) & their Xmas bash cost £12 a head including dancing, a lovely buffet (with pudding!) and a 30 minute cabaret from Darren & Lilia.

[David Bailey]

In fact I'd go further and say it's better value in some ways - Avon Amateurs charge £5 per couple for their practice nights at the Somerset Hall in Portishead (costs £30 per hour to hire) & their Xmas bash cost £12 a head including dancing, a lovely buffet (with pudding!) and a 30 minute cabaret from Darren & Lilia.
:confused:
So how does that work then?

In other words, how does that square with the "ballroom dancers need more space" thing (which seems to be fairly well-accepted)?

If you can get say 50 ballroom dancers in a room that'd hold 150 MJ-ers, how can ballroom dancing generally be competitive value from a dancer's point of view? Are the profit margins for organisers so much less? Or are the venues / nights generally cheaper? Do ballroom dancers drink more expensive drinks? :devil:

I'm not disputing the figures (and that Xmas bash sounds great!), I'm just curious as to how it can compete on purely financial terms, given the 3:1 ratio quoted. Even a 2:1 ratio would be quite a disadvantage I'd imagine.

[clevedonboy]

I don't think anyone makes any money from the AA practice nights 3 hours dancing = £90. You don't need a DJ & there's no teacher so to cover costs you need an average of 20 couples

Andy - I might not have scratched the surface bu the maths doesn't add up On daves figures 100K MJ dancers need say 500 social events per week, where are they?

[David Bailey]

Andy - I might not have scratched the surface bu the maths doesn't add up On daves figures 100K MJ dancers need say 500 social events per week, where are they?
I dunno, no-one tells me anything. :sad:

The figures may well be suspect.

According to ceroc.com, there are 84 Ceroc venues in the UK - 13 in Scotland, 3 Northwest, 2 Northeast, 26 in London, 35 in the Southeast and 7 in the Southwest - but I know for a fact that this is an underestimate, I'm sure there are more around, and some venues run on more than 1 night. So call it 125 nights a week of Ceroc, and (say) 100 nights a week of non-Ceroc MJ (?), and say 25 freestyle nights, for around 250 nights of MJ per week in the UK.

Even assuming a high attendance (200 per session), that only gives 50K Mj-ers per week...

Ah-ha! Looking around ceroc.com, the "55,000" is Ceroc dancers per month, not per week. Which seems a bit more reasonable given the above back-of-an-envelope calculations. So, we should adjust figures accordingly (or move goalposts to define "regular" as meaning "once per month" :whistle: )

[clevedonboy]

Ah-ha! Looking around ceroc.com, the "55,000" is Ceroc dancers per month, not per week. Which seems a bit more reasonable given the above back-of-an-envelope calculations. So, we should adjust figures accordingly (or move goalposts to define "regular" as meaning "once per month" :whistle: )

but are they unique punters or the same ones going to different events?

It's reasonable to say there may be 100000 paying MJ customers per month but of course it's the same people going to many events.

One reassuring thing though is that if we're more widely spread we'll be harder to find if someone wants to kill us off

[Keith J]

well here's a little theory.... as venues rise and fall here's some of the traps that kill MJ

1) Bad music, to fast to slow, gendre, DJs who believes in their own myth.
2) Bad sound systems, to distorted, under rated, overpowerd (upsets the locals).
3) Floor, to slippery (Torvil & Dean syndroome), unclean and sticky (fly paper syndrome.
4) Not a good gender balance male to female ratio.
5) Uncaring management team of the venue, who remain aloof and elusive notseeing the wood for the trees and addressing the issues.
6) Seniors needed to put something back in to inspire, motivate, befriend the newbies when all those ''can't do' thoughts are running through their minds.

if your not part of the solution your part of the problem, so lets not allow it to happen to this wonderful sport.

[David Bailey]

but are they unique punters or the same ones going to different events?
The exact quote from ceroc is "55,000 people learning every month". OK, that's ambiguous, but I take it to mean 55,000 "unique visitors" rather than 55,000 "hits" (can you tell I've been looking at weblogs today?)


One reassuring thing though is that if we're more widely spread we'll be harder to find if someone wants to kill us off
Yep, good safety precaution that. Exactly what I was thinking...

[AndrewMc]

:confused: Can you explain?



It's an Australian thing.

[frodo]

...
Excellent - thanks for that, where'd you get the list from?...
A quarterly publication called Dance Diary. I subscribed to it for a year, and made quite a bit of use of it at the time.

http://www.dancesport.uk.com/dancediary/

[David Bailey]

A quarterly publication called Dance Diary. I subscribed to it for a year, and made quite a bit of use of it at the time.

http://www.dancesport.uk.com/dancediary/
Interesting - thanks.


well here's a little theory.... as venues rise and fall here's some of the traps that kill MJ

{ snip list }
I agree with your list, but that's more venue-specific factors, I was thinking more about national trends?

[Lynn]

Hmm, sounds a bit like the list of reasons why I don't dance salsa - I would probably put
1) Smoky venues

2)...sound systems... Too loud (can't have conversations, risk of hearing damage)

3) Floor...unclean and sticky Mostly too dirty to ever dream of wearing proper dance shoes. Wearing normal shoes and spinning gives me sore knees. Broken glass and spilt beer in worst cases.

4) Not a good gender balance male to female ratio. So its hard to actually get any dances.

To that I would add excessive overcrowding of venues - 'pack as many in as possible' attitude.

So I could see these factors putting some people off dancing MJ - they have certainly put me off dancing salsa.

[Andybroom]

Not necessarily - Eric's classes in Bristol are £5 per person so compares with average MJ. He charges £5 admission to his Ballroom dances again compares well.

In fact I'd go further and say it's better value in some ways - Avon Amateurs charge £5 per couple for their practice nights at the Somerset Hall in Portishead (costs £30 per hour to hire) & their Xmas bash cost £12 a head including dancing, a lovely buffet (with pudding!) and a 30 minute cabaret from Darren & Lilia.

Yes, but (if you start getting into ballroom to any extent) you'll find you want private lessons as well, then if you start competing there's the travel and entry fees, hotels as well if you are any good and want to go further afield. Get above beginners levels and there's the competition outfits ......

Been there, done some of that, spent the money .....

Enjoyed it tho ....

Andy

[Andybroom]

I don't think anyone makes any money from the AA practice nights 3 hours dancing = £90. You don't need a DJ & there's no teacher so to cover costs you need an average of 20 couples


Yep. Avon Amateurs is (or certainly was) a non profit making club which provides a dance practice night per week (aimed mainly at competitors) two are three rather more formal social dances a year and organises a couple of dance competitions (which will be self financing). It provides no teaching.



Andy - I might not have scratched the surface bu the maths doesn't add up On daves figures 100K MJ dancers need say 500 social events per week, where are they?
[/quote]

Well, we are including all MJ events. In the Bristol/Bath area there are (to my knowledge):

Regular weekly nights:
Le Roc 2000 (2 events)
Clifton Le Roc
Elmgrove Le Roc
Kinsgwood Le Roc
Ginger Jive (Bath)
Nailsea
Ceroc Thornbury
Trinity
Portishead Le Roc

Plus weekend dances (which probably average out at one per week - ie odd weeks with none, odd weeks with dances on Fri and Sat)

So that's 12 just in this area.

And I have vague recollections of seeing another night advertised in Bath - although I don't know whether it still happens.

I would actually guess there were more MJ events with slightly lower attendences than your arithmatic would suggest, but I wouldn't argue with his ballpark figure for the total.

Andy

[clevedonboy]

Yep. Avon Amateurs is (or certainly was) a non profit making club which provides a dance practice night per week (aimed mainly at competitors) two are three rather more formal social dances a year and organises a couple of dance competitions (which will be self financing). It provides no teaching.




Well, we are including all MJ events. In the Bristol/Bath area there are (to my knowledge):

Regular weekly nights:
Le Roc 2000 (2 events)
Clifton Le Roc
Elmgrove Le Roc
Kinsgwood Le Roc
Ginger Jive (Bath)
Nailsea
Ceroc Thornbury
Trinity
Portishead Le Roc

Plus weekend dances (which probably average out at one per week - ie odd weeks with none, odd weeks with dances on Fri and Sat)

So that's 12 just in this area.

And I have vague recollections of seeing another night advertised in Bath - although I don't know whether it still happens.

I would actually guess there were more MJ events with slightly lower attendences than your arithmatic would suggest, but I wouldn't argue with his ballpark figure for the total.

Andy

now you're talking teaching rather than social dancing, which was my beef (and in many ways backing up your assertion that there are more ballroom dancers than MJers) , I'll agree that there are many people learning to dance but most don't actually do any dancing outside of lessons or odd socials at their own class

[Will]

What could kill MJ?
Bird Flu

[under par]

Bird Flu


Yeah without the birds there would be no one to dance with .....except Andy Mcgregor:innocent:

[ChrisU]

Having read through the thread a couple of personal comments.

MJ like all other forms of dance will find its level. That of course will depend on some outside factors the most pressing of which will be venue's. Particularly for Freestyle events.

I have been looking for a suitable venue, that is affordable, to organise some freestyles for some diary gaps in my area. I have to be realistic and try to get some sort of return on my effort. Those of you out there that do organise know the effort and potential hassle factor involved.

Currently going to an MJ teaching or freestyle is a very good value night out and it is important that it stays that way. But the best venue's are not cheap. And we are fussy people. Good dance floors with the right facilities are very hard to find. We all go by car so secure parking (a major problem in a big city like Leeds). Somebody said I should employ some form of seurity for the car park. Not cheap!!

The other way to look at it is to see the experience of other dance forms and learn. Ballroom never went away. It just lived in the back room for a while. Lots of very good dancers are back out of the wilderness and are now also going to learn MJ.

The future is in all dance styles helping each other. So more mixed freestyles perhaps where dancers can "Do there own thing". But that means that pure MJers will have to put up with some ballroom or Rock and Roll at there events.

(I might get burnt at the stake for saying THAT)

I seem to recall working as a DJ at events like that for the Top Rank clubs back in the 70's.

Regards and greetings from a very, very, very wet Leeds.

DJ Chris Uren

[Andy McGregor]

I have been looking for a suitable venue, that is affordable, to organise some freestyles for some diary gaps in my area. I have to be realistic and try to get some sort of return on my effort. Those of you out there that do organise know the effort and potential hassle factor involved. If my experience of this is anything to go by ChrisU is on a slippery slope. Sue and I organised monthly parties in our village hall which has a fabulous floor and can take 60 - 80 dancers for a freestyle. These parties were free to our guests and by invitation only. By the time we'd run the second one, which was a party for Sue's birthday, we'd been banned by our biggest local organiser because we were, in his words, "operators". This was in spite of the fact that our nights were free and on a night he hadn't got anything going on.

So, there we were having to travel miles to get a dance as we had nowhere to go locally. Of course we needed somewhere good locally - so we started our own nights. We now teach 2 nights a week and run dances at weekends and workshops. We've got loads of crew, PA gear, CDs, banners, posters, flyers, advertising and general worries about complying with the complex PRS/PPL/MCPA regulations.

And, once we'd started, our local organiser started to really get the knives out. To such and extent that he sent out a general email to his email list accusing my wife, Sue, of stalking him by walking up and down outside his flat spying on him.

So, ChrisU, my advice is go the whole way and become an organiser, or stay as a punter.

Oh, and what could kill MJ. Organisers sending out defamatory emails :mad:

[ChrisU]

Thanks for your reply. I certainly know that what I want to do is a business venture. And the hassles involved will be great. But I do have the age and experience to do it. Oh yes and that great asset....... Lots of determination.

You have my greatest sympathy. All business have bad eggs and clearly in your area you have one. I think of people like that as sad really. They clearly need our help to show them the way.

I may find the same thing. However the good guys like you and me will always win if we provide what people want.

Regards and the best of luck.

DJ ChrisU

[DavidY]

Bird FluI was reminded of this thread by the Southport weekend that's just gone...

It seems absolutely loads of people were struck down by "the lurgy" either during or after Southport.

If there was ever a human-transmissible variant of Bird Flu, if the last Southport is anything to go by, it seems to me that it would spread through the MJ community like wildfire. :(

[straycat]

If there was ever a human-transmissible variant of Bird Flu, if the last Southport is anything to go by, it seems to me that it would spread through the MJ community like wildfire. :(

Well - luckily, a good proportion of sensible forumites would survive, as Mac users don't get viruses :innocent:

[MartinHarper]

I've been thinking that Vitamin C supplements before, during, and after weekenders, might be a good idea.

[David Bailey]

I've been thinking that Vitamin C supplements before, during, and after weekenders, might be a good idea.
It's hardly a surprise that people got ill - it's in the middle of winter, in an environment with rapid temperature changes, lots of intimate contact (I'm talking about dancing!), lots of people already having illnesses, combined with poor eating and sleeping habits.

[DavidY]

Bird FluSwine Flu? :what: