social dance

Social dance is nearly always accompanied by music, which not only helps to keep the dancers in time with each other but also increases the power and excitement of the dance, encouraging the dancers to abandon themselves to their movements. Sometimes individual dances have developed…

When the early European folk dances—particularly the courtship forms—were incorporated into court dances, they lost many of their boisterous and pantomimic elements. The man no longer thrust forward to embrace the woman or lifted her vigorously into the air, but simply knelt and…

Except for display, social dances are rarely performed in any strict formation, although dancers may sometimes form themselves spontaneously into lines or circles. Ballroom dances are categorized instead by their step patterns, rhythms, and tempos. Some of the best-known social dances are the…

Upper-class immigrants from Europe brought with them their fashionable social dances (los bailes de salón). The aristocracy of the viceroyalties kept up with a succession of popular European dances. These included open-couple dances, in which couples generally did not touch—such as minuet, allemande,…

…communal or ritual dances, of social dances enjoyed by many different levels of society, and of skilled theatrical dances that followed distinct but often overlapping lines of development.

Postwar social dancing was marked by continuing exuberance and enthusiasm. Dances such as the jitterbug, popular throughout the 1930s and ’40s, included lively turns and lifts with rapid footwork. Motion pictures and television helped to spread such rock and roll dances as the…