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Thread: What could kill MJ?

  1. #61
    Registered User frodo's Avatar
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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    ...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.

  2. #62
    Registered User frodo's Avatar
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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames
    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 ?
    Last edited by frodo; 7th-February-2006 at 01:47 AM.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by frodo
    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.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by frodo
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames
    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

  6. #66
    Formerly known as DavidJames David Bailey's Avatar
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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    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.


    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?

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    Registered User Tessalicious's Avatar
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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    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.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by 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.
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    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?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tessalicious
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tessalicious

    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

  12. #72

    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor
    This is a fabulous thread. I agree with everone except MH - as usual 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
    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

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor
    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

    Quote Originally Posted by Andy McGregor
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames
    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    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...
    Whereas outer London salsa venues are more similar to the Ceroc demographic IMO - range of abilities, generally slightly older, generally more sociable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    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...

    Quote Originally Posted by Andybroom
    In your assessment of numbers you've not considered the Ballroom competition types (and their practice sessions)
    That's because they're Evil.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames
    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...
    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.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tessalicious
    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.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by DavidJames

    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

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by clevedonboy
    butterlies
    As in utterlie butterlie? Guess they slip away cos they're too greasy to get a proper hold?

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by clevedonboy
    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.

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    Re: What could kill MJ?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheTramp
    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

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