Change Over

Dancing in the Dark" has been a classic American song, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz, that was first introduced by John Barker in the 1931 revue The Band Wagon. The song was first recorded by Bing Crosby on August 19, 1931. It was a classic all through WWII and remains so to this very day. The second one written by Bruce Springsteen was very popular in his album, "Born in the U.S.A." June 4, 1984. Makes for a lot of entries in all the search engines on the Internet and hard to find a blog with the same name.

"Social dancing may lead to the pleasure we can get from seeing someone

execute a movement with expert skill and grace."

Social dancing is based on the American Style of dance and that may be a little hazy. In the early 1900s, America was taken over by a dance craze and everybody was doing fox-trot, waltzes and tango in their living rooms and open outdoors alike to the "victrolas." It was very loose and very local and it acquired the terminology of "street dancing." You were very likely to learn it anywhere. Then came Arthur Murray, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and presented the artistic side with beauty and grace that very few can match.

'Dancing in the Dark" by Artie Shaw1944

Murray and Astaire became successful in franchising Dance studios all over America and standardized a Syllabus, which became the American Style. This established the "Disciplines" in Ballroom Dancing. Unfortunately, the Arthur Murray and the Fred Astaire schools of dancing established a disagreement early on in many aspects. That fragmentation was the big drawback for the American style. Each developed their own "discipline." Then along came the English with their "true" style of "Ballroom" dancing.

I hope you can find some sense in all of this. Let us know what your experiences

are with the topic of social dancing. Please feel free to send us an email

that we can share with our fellow dancers.