They Dance in the Philippines? ReRun#8

In the Philippine Ballroom Dance Boom, Women Lead
By Seth Mydans, from an old Internet article.

What was former Senator Rene Saguisag doing on the dance floor at the Inter-Continental Hotel, twirling a woman who is not his wife through the rapid paces of a tango?

"Every beginning is a consequence - 

every beginning ends some thing."

''It's exquisite!'' exclaimed the former Senator, once the chief spokesman for Corazon C. Aquino in her improbable rise to the presidency. ''It's good, clean fun and we have lost a lot of weight.''

His wife, Dulce, like him in her 50's, was not far away, gliding across the floor with a man half her age -- another addict of a craze for ballroom dancing that is sweeping through Asia. ''My wife loves me a million more times when I take her out dancing,'' Mr. Saguisag said. ''But we rarely dance with each other; we both have excellent dance instructors. My wife was born to dance. Wow!''

"Young At Heart" by Frank Sinatra

No one seems sure just how the current ballroom dancing fad got started, but in this century it has adapted itself around the region, taking on the colorations of different national cultures and including everything from the tango to the swing, though they seem to go more for the Latin dances.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,

the courage to change the ones that I can,

and the wisdom to know it's me."

With the interchange of dancers in the years to come there will be of a mixing in the types of dances preferred for Social Dances in the Pacific. And everyone seems to be going toward the Latin Dances. Paso Doble? fougetaboudit! That's strictly showbiz.