How do QuickSteps Dance Parties work?
Once a month the QuickSteps Dance Studio becomes a bustling hive of activity for 3 hours. The QS Bar is completely full of people mingling, drinking and swapping dance parties stories. Members dance shoulder to shoulder on the ballroom floor to a range of ballroom, Latin and swing styles.
Music
Each month a new playlist of music is carefully curated to cover all 14 styles we teach here at QuickSteps. We ensure that the playlist is a mix of old and new, party tunes and relaxed rhythms.
One of the comments we often hear from new members when they hear our playlist is:
“I can’t believe you can ballroom dance to this!”
The truth of the matter is, the only thing that doesn’t really fit into a ballroom, Latin or swing style of dance is ballet or Opera music due to it’s lack of consistent/obvious beat. Anything else goes!
Have a look at Michelle and Kevin’s personal playlists to get a feel of the kind of music we love to dance to.
Once the playlist is put together it is printed out and left in the QS Bar for members to collect about 3 weeks prior. This gives members time to look it over and add each others names in the far right hand column, thus it becomes a ‘dance card’ of sorts. (how very ‘Pride and Prejudice’ of us!)
We also use this ‘dance card’ system to ensure that each teacher gets to dance with their own members at least once. You can imagine that with every teacher having so many members it can be difficult getting to everyone and they don’t want anyone to miss out! 🙂
Now, with the Dance Party running for 3 hours you would think it’s easy to have a good spread of all of the styles. Not at all! 3 hours of music is only between 47 and 53 songs. To ensure we get a nice even spread we tally the styles as we put the list together aiming for 3-5 songs for each style, fewer for the ‘advanced only’ styles such as Viennese Waltz, QuickSteps and samba.
Do you have music in mind you would love to dance to? Let us know! We are always on the look out for more music to add to our playlists! Send your ideas to: [email protected]
Time Of Day
QuickSteps holds the Dance Party on Saturdays between 5:30pm and 8:30pm for a vibrant and energetic atmosphere. Well, this has taken many years of testing to find the best time and day.
Saturday is best as people are always looking to dance on the weekend when they are free. 5:30pm is after lunch dates and daily errands are finished. And 8:30pm is still early enough so that if you have another engagement you can make both!
Also, being that our dance studio is on Gouger St in the centre of Adelaide, we find many of our members like to head out for dinner afterwards and this still gives them enough time to do so. Perfect!
Who?
Who attends the monthly Dance Party?
All of the teaching team plus our two Front of House team Members Kris and Nick. Michelle, the community advisor and Ben, studio Manager are also there.
Members from beginners to advanced come along and get a chance to dance together.
We also get member’s friends and family coming along as invited guests.
If you would like to come along and check out the next party but are not a QS member then get in touch with Ben. He can pop your name on the VIP list (as long as there’s room!) 🙂
