What schools/places in Manhattan currently offer an evening of non-competitive international latin dancing?

January 1, 2008 7:35 PM

More for Ballroom Dancing Mefites: What dance schools/place(s), if any, have a regularly scheduled evening of non-competitive international latin dancing in Manhattan, that is fun/cool?

I already know there's this nifty site - http://dancenyc.info/ that lists all kinds of partner dancing events in the area.. but since I don't currently live in NYC, I can't really gauge which things are worth a shot and which are not.

Thank you!

posted by bitterkitten to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (1 answer total)

Not specifics, as I'm not in the area, but perhaps might help you narrow down the dancenyc options:

First, almost all studios have 1) A non-competitive/social dance evening (usually weekly), and 2) a website.

The problem is that in the USA, it seems that the only people who do international style are competitive dancers, while "social dancing" usually means American style.

So what you do is look at the class schedule on the studio website, and look for a balance between international style classes, and social and beginners classes. If the balance is right, there will probably be international dancing (and dancers) at the social nights (as well as American-style - you probably won't find a social evening entirely lacking in American-style, swing, etc, but as long as there are plenty of international-style dancers there, it doesn't matter.)

If a studio has gold-level international classes (not private instruction), that suggests to me that they have a decent base of international-style dancers. This is promising. If on the other hand, the international classes are a couple of hours a week and all handled by the same part-time/guest instructor, then that's probably not your place.
Another clue can be which style the studio owners do. (They'll teach all styles, of course, but which is their native one or preference?) OTOH, studio owners rarely have anything to do with the social nights.

So, nothing of direct help, just that I've found I can usually get a pretty good feel for a studio from their website, which in turn, can help when evaluating whether their social nights might be worthwhile.
posted by -harlequin- at 11:29 PM on January 1, 2008