For anyone who is interested, the ISTD has published its Syllabus on its website. If you want one from IDTA, you have to buy it!

http://www.istd.org/ballroom/syllabus/syllabus.html

CliveHarrison. Do you have anything to do with English Sequence Dancing. I am very impressed by one that is called Feta Foxtrot. Whoever composed it knew what they were about. It starts and finishes in rhythm, which doesn't always happen with Sequence Dancing. I was just wondering how popular Sequence is in the UK. When I lived there it just didn't exist. Another question is . Do they have their own Society or are they part of the Imperial Society.

Sequence has been around for over 70 yrs !-- mainly in the form of what is termed " Old time ".

There are even dances that go back to the 1800s.

Modern Seq. dates to the 50s ( 1954 ). but has been implemented considerably since then .The Soc. took it on board in the 70s

1st dance was Mayfair Quickstep

And yes, it is very popular .

All the major Soc. have a branch -- as they do with R and R and now salsa

Sequence Dancing has a very strong hold on the UK social dancing scene.

Each year, several national competitions result in a group of (I think) 44 NEW sequence dances, in a mixture of modern ballroom, latin american and old-time (or "classical") styles, which are taken up by local clubs dedicated to sequence dancing, whose membership is largely made up from those in late middle age, and MUCH older.

Social partner dancing has been in decline here for so long, that it would probably have died out altogether, had it not been for the resurgence of interest generated by such programmes as the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, and its spinoff, Dancing with the Stars.

Partner dancing is once again popular, but there are very few good dancers around (I mean in the purely social scene), and nearly every dance is at least 50% sequence, and often more. It is not uncommon to attend a social dance with a live band, and not have a single Tango or Samba played all night. Very disheartening.

Some sequence dancers are technically competent, but the average standard of dance execution is just awful: it can be quite funny to sit out and watch, but only up to a point. There are SOME lovely sequences, but far too many that are just dire. One of the worst features of the repertoire is that the average sequence dancer does not appreciate that there are fundamental style and technique differences between, say, an old-time tango and a modern tango: they make them all look the same. It's so sad.

I don't know where social dancing is going here: nowhere much, I suspect. I would have said that the average age of sequence dancers goes up 10 years every 10 years - and I can see where that will inevitably end.

The only areas of real growth (and again, I am talking purely of the social scene), is in modern jive: ceroc and its derivatives. Ceroc nights at the larger venues count their attendees in the hundreds, and with an average age perhaps 40 years younger than ballroom/latin/sequence.

What happened? Partner dancing used to be where you went to meet more than a dance partner - increasingly it is where very old people go while they wait to die.

Terrence mentions the "Mayfair Quickstep", but it is more in the character of an old-time swing dance than a modern quickstep. It was arranged in 1956 by Frank Short of Birmingham.

It is one of the dances about which the keen sequence dancers are very dismissive, because it is universally popular and danced by the social ballroom dancers too. It is one of a small group of about ten that are regularly danced by almost every social dancer here (for a bit of light relief, and variety), but danced, on the whole, rather better than the much wider repertoire is danced by the "serious" sequence dancers.

It's a funny world.

Yes the Mayfair would not be categorised as a modern QS because much of the sequence is danced out of standard closed hold.

Curiously it is also part of the reason that most ballroom schools are dismissive about sequence dances. They think all sequence dances are similar 'party' dances, whereas in fact there are very many dances that teachers would be proud to teach their pupils as their latest routine from congress.

I was once berated at a local studio social dance night for not joining in the Mayfair QS. "Come on", they said, "You dance sequence".

"Yes" I said, "I danced two sequence QSs during your last ballroom QS but you could not tell the difference!"

I'm wondering. In the US at a Social Dance as well as Waltz, Rumba and so on do they also have an American Smooth session. At a Social Dance here you would need to know all of the Standard Dances as well as the Latin plus unless you wanted to sit down and be out of it you would need to know Thirteen New Vogue Competition Dances plus an enormouse amount of English Sequence. I for instance would not know more than about a dozen English Sequence. If anybody is interested they can find their way to sequence Dancing Queensland and just take a look at the list that is being taught.

The socials in all schools, unless otherwise designated ( very unusual )are American style.

You need to know , that the F/trots are at a much faster tempi than the Intern style, but they do play slower ones also, as the Silver standard is the same speed as the Intern.

The music for socials is far more varied, than you would get at a strictly Intern. social in both latin and standard.

Also, the dance variety is far more extensive ( 3 styles of swing for e.g. ) .