Waltz Week In Vienna

Videos

As you know, Waltz Week represents a truly wonderful partnership in couple dancing, combining the best of traditional Viennese ball forms with the latest American social dance styles that will leave you well-prepared for any ballroom dance to come. The dance styles taught over the course of the week will cover those that are typically played at the Balls.  These may include, but are not limited to:

  • Viennese Waltz
  • Rotary Waltz
  • Cross-Step Waltz
  • Fusion Waltz
  • Polka
  • Quadrille
  • Swing (East Coast Swing, WCS, Charleston, Shag, etc)
  • Foxtrot
  • Lindy Hop
  • Latin (salsa, cha cha, rumba, tango)
  • Ballroom 
  • Blues
  • Connection technique and styling

Since posting this list, several people have asked about "fusion" waltz.  A few were also curious about some of the other "fusion" dance concepts created by Ari that are being taught in the USA and abroad, such as "fusion swing", and "fusion night-club two-step".  

The fusion waltz style simply borrows moves from tango, latin, swing, balboa, and other dance forms, and blends them into the beautiful, flowing, elegant waltz style that we know and love today.  To get a better idea of what fusion looks like, I've included some video's below of step reviews from some recent fusion workshops as well as night-club two-step.  Enjoy!


Attending a Ball at the Hofburg Palace:

Here is one person's experience attending a ball at the Hofburg Palace in 2018 with her husband.  While this person was not part of the "Waltz Week in Vienna program", I think the video presents a nice visual introduction as to what you might expect from the Ball nonetheless.  Enjoy!


How to dance Quadrille Francais


The Viennese Quadrille (aka Quadrille Francais) is a French contradance of the 19th century that today is traditionally danced at Viennese Balls at or after midnight to the sounds of the bat quadrille (op 363) by Johann Strauss. We will be learning this dance during several of our Waltz Week classes so that we can all participate in the midnight group dance during the Homburg Ball.  As it says (in german) on the Youtube page in the description of the video below, “perfection is not so important - it’s the being there that counts!”



Examples of Various Dance Styles & Workshop Recaps by Ari & company




An example of "Free-styling Night-Club Two-Step", blending latin & blues into the night-club two-step form, danced here with Jodi Fleischman in Seattle, WA.




An example of beautiful "fusion waltz" dancing, improvised here with Ari Levitt & Alyssa Manning in Seattle, WA








A lovely example of "cross-step waltz", danced here with Whitney Evans in Hood River, OR






An example of a beautiful "cross-step waltz" combination created by Ari, and taught at a workshop in Nanaimo, BC



An example of several more beautiful "fusion" waltz moves.  This is the step review for a workshop taught by Ari & Julie at Stanford, CA, 2009.  The second move is borrowed from a Lindy Hop "swing-out"!



This is the leads "check and neck" combo, another beautiful fusion waltz combination taught by Ari & Julie at Stanford in 2010, adding latin movement to a cross-step waltz pattern

 





An example of "bal-swing fusion" (a mix of balboa and swing dance)







An example of "Night Club 2-Step Fusion", improvised here by Ari Levitt & Alyssa Manning in Seattle, WA