Is there much of a difference in round dancing and ballroom dancing? I do Round Dancing and am looking to get into Ballroom dancing, and i was wondering if there were any places in Washington that had a good ballroom instructor.

I've known several people who crossed over from round dancing to ballroom and did very well. Ballroom isn't called, so there's a lot more reliance on leading and following. Apparently there are a lot of common patterns, but ballroom tends to put more emphasis on technique (depending on your focus and where you take lessons). Have fun!

do you know of anybody i could talk with that could get me involved with this website...i mean i'm only 18 but i want to learn how to ballroom dance professionally...i don't have a partner yet but still would like to learn all of this...so if you know of anybody that i could get in touch with that teaches up in washington then i would greatly appreciate it

Sorry, I'm in California. I think there's a directory on this site, and on ndca.org. You can also try your yellow pages. Good luck!

We did round dancing years ago and have recently started ballroom. Learning to lead and follow is the biggest change but it makes the dancing so much more of a conversation between the partners. I think our old round dance teachers would be thrilled to see how we dance now. Good luck on the teaching!

Evergreen, in Longview Washington, is a good place to start in Ballroom lessons... Wednesday;Thursday;and or Friday.

I am a Round Dancer and have talked with a number of Ballroom Dancers. One primary difference is that there is no competition in Round Dancing, even at the highest levels. People Round Dance for their own enjoyment. The steps in both are similar and many are identical. Watching ballroom dancers has convinced me that, while the steps and figures are identical, the styling is occassionally slightly different. Round Dancing is usually described as "Choreographed Ballroom Dancing". That is, someone writes Ballroom steps to a piece of music and distributes a "Cue Sheet" to Round Dance Cuers. Cuers all over the world then "cue" the dance and the dancers do the steps and figures. There is no memorizing of each dance and many songs have multiple dances choreographed for them. There are over 25 different rhythms taught in Round Dancing. Each rhythm is separated into "Phases" with the easiest steps being Phase 1 and the most difficult being Phase 6. Round Dancing has been under the auspices of Square Dancing for decades. Chances are, if you go to a square dance, the caller will call 2 squares, then a cuer will cue 2 Round Dances. Most Square Dance Clubs have Round Dancing and there are a number of clubs that are Round Dance only. The clubs that have Round Dancing usually have club sponsored classes. Many Round Dancers dance at the lower levels only and are not interested in spending the time necessary to become as good as most serious Ballroom dancers. They do it for fun only.
For more info see http://www.roundalab.org/

Hope this helps.

I think you will find a huge difference between round dance and ballroom. On the surface they may seem very similar because round dance uses a lot of ballroom terms, but when you start looking at details, you will discover there are more things that are different, than there are things that are the same. Round dance is advertised as cued ballroom dancing, but that is not the case.

I'm not sure that knowing round dance will help you much with ballroom. It will be more like unlearning what you thought you knew and relearning it. Here is a list of only the major differences.

Round dance stresses learning the foot pattern for many patterns. Dance technique is usually not taught. The characteristics of what makes one dance different from another is not taught. Lead and follow is not taught. Essentially what you get are step patterns for many steps.

Ballroom stresses learning the techniques required to execute just a few patterns. Quantity of patterns is not important but how you do those patterns is. Once you learn the basic techniques, adding patterns is easy.

For round dance, patterns are usually cued in three step increments, but individual steps may be cued. Alignments and ending positions are cued, amount of rotation is cued, syncopations are cued. None of this happens in ballroom and much of the stuff that is cued in round dance would be considered incorrect in ballroom.

You get to enjoy the music much more in ballroom because you can actually hear it.

Change of footwork (syncopations) in round dance is done by the lady. In ballroom it is always done by the man.

Round dance execution of many of the standard dance patterns has been modified for round dance purposes, and some are actually completely different but have the same name.

In round dance, not everyone can dance all the time because everyone is supposed to be doing the same thing, and if you don't know the particular dance/song being cued you get to sit out. Or if it is a phase 2 dance and you are bored with that stuff you can sit out also. Most of the choreography requires that you have a training session on that particular song because most do not use only the standard steps, but they always seem to "invent" something for that particular song, None of this happens in ballroom. You can do every dance if you want, just do whatever steps you know.

You also don't need a cuer, cue sheet, and particular song to go with that cue sheet. For ballroom all you need is a danceable song.

Round dance two step exists only in round dance. It is not a ballroom dance, nor is it the same as country western two step. Slow two step also does not exist in ballroom, but it is somewhat similar to country western night club two step, except done at half speed. Most of the steps you learn in waltz phase 2 do not exist in ballroom, and nothing starts facing the wall.

Timing for several of the round dances are different in ballroom. Round dance cha cha 123&4, ballroom cha cha 234&1. Round dance rumba breaks on 1. There are three different rumba timings used in ballroom, one for International, and two for American, and they are all different from round dance. Round dance jive 12 3&4 5&6. International jive or American swing 1a2 3a4 5 6. Round dance mambo breaks on 1. American and International break on 2.

I can list lots of other differences, but I think maybe you should be getting the message by now. If you get started with ballroom, you will discover that it is a lot more fun than round dancing.

from your reply you seem to know a lot about round dancing. The more unbelievable is your statement that "ballroom is more fun than round dancing".

You made a lot of statements that are perfectly true but I don´t see any disadvantages, round dancing is just different. And the main difference is the lack of competition, it is just fun.

Being a dancer in gerneral I´m interested in all kinds of dance forms, round dancing, ballroom, swing, salsa, hustle and recently we even took flamenco.

Being on a web page promoting ballroom one must certainly face preferences. But I personally would prefer not to see any judgements about other dance forms here.

Ballroom is more fun than round dancing.

That is not a condemnation of round dancing. It is a simple comparison. Yes, I do know a lot about round dancing as well as other forms of dance. I happen to like dancing, and I have tried many different kinds, just for the fun of it. Because of that I am able to make comparisons. I didn't say round dancing was no fun. If it was no fun, I wouldn't have stayed long enough to learn anything.

Actually the less experience you have, the more fun round dancing will likely be. If you are an experienced ballroom dancer, advanced steps in round dance choreography calling for things that in ballroom would be incorrect is very frustrating. I was able to modify some of this but there is no way out of some of it. On the other hand, phase 2 round dance is so much different from ballroom, that you can do phase 2 and just consider it another dance form, and not worry about things being correct or not (a lot like square dancing or contra dancing). At the higher levels of round dance the advanced patterns, which are obviously intended to be advanced ballroom patterns, need to be done correctly to be successful. That is where the experienced ballroom dancer will have a problem. However, if you are not an experienced ballroom dancer, then you won't know the difference. (So you see, prior experience effects the amount of fun you have.)

There seems to be a common belief among round dancers that ballroom is all about competition. Competition in ballroom is totally optional. It is just another aspect of ballroom that can be explored or ignored. There are many on this group who do participate in that, however if you did a survey of all ballroom dancers, you would find that they are in a very small minority. Most people who do ballroom, do it solely for the enjoyment. So you are incorrect to say, the main difference between the two is competition. Since most do not compete, that is a major similarity.