Courses

Dance the Night Away offer a wide range of courses, with regular start dates, at Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced levels in a wide range of different styles of social dance - so you can go as far as you want to go with your dancing

All our classes are currently held in Bromley, at the United Reform Church on High Street / Widmore Road.

There is plenty of parking, and we are easily reachable by public transport - with buses and Bromley North and Bromley South Train stations nearby. To see where we are look at this Map. We are in the church next to the narrow end of The Glades (in blue in the centre of the map).

All our courses have limited numbers - to ensure you get the attention you deserve. Priority will be given to those students who PRE-BOOK! However, if you have left it late, or only just found out about us and want to join a course starting soon, then please Contact us as soon as possible!

We also offer a limited number of private lessons

You'll find lots of detail on the courses here - but if you can't find what you want then please Contact Me.

Single Dance Courses give you the chance to focus on the one dance in style and technique to get you to a high level very quickly.

• Argentine Tango

• UK Swing Jive

• East Coast Swing

We also offer courses where you will learn a group of dances, taking you to intermediate level in the Ballroom and Latin American courses and giving you a flavour of what's out there with Taster course:

• Social Dance Taster Course
  - a 10 week course covering the beginners sessions in Rumba, Social Foxtrot, Salsa, Merengue, Swing Jive, Modern Jive and Argentine Tango

• Ballroom
  - Brand New for 2008 a 10 week course covering the basics in Modern Waltz, Quickstep, Foxtrot and Modern Tango

• Latin American
  - Brand New for 2008 a 10 week course covering the basics in Rumba, Cha Cha Cha, Jive and Samba

We also have two courses where you learn dances in just 5 weeks! Our intensive courses are very popular:

• The Summer Sizzler
  - a FIVE week intensive course covering the Latino summer dances - Merengue and Salsa

• The Christmas Crash (note: this is the Social Dance Taster Course done in 5 weeks)
  - a FIVE week intensive course covering the most popular dances for parties, the dances are Merengue, Social Foxtrot and Swing Jive

We also do Saturday Intensives with Bromley Adult Education College thoughout the year for those of you who want a taster or have very little time!

Lesson Information

All our 10 week courses are 1 hour per evening. Our Intensive courses are only 5 weeks long - and 2 hours per evening. The Saturday intensive courses tend to be about 4 hours.

We start the lesson with a short warm up, and a review of the course todate. We will then concentrate on the steps and the figures for that lesson, with lots of practise time and individual help

You can get more practise time and refine your moves by attending the social evenings and you can bring your friends.

Course Format and Lesson Style

My course format and content developed in response to the many times my friends and strangers stopped me coming off of the dance floor and said ‘I wish I could do that’. Giving 5 minute lessons at the side of the bar on basic steps and simple English and watching someone dance after that encouraged me to develop this 'service' further. My aim is to teach a friendly and useful course which doesn’t hold the same structure (and fear) of going to a ‘proper’ dance school.

I don't believe in giving students lots of routines and steps in the traditional dance school manner, rather my teaching style is to give students the tools for building their own dances and structures. In this way I can give a good grounding in dances which will be usable in the ‘real’ world and means that students will not be dancing the same routine, record after record, party after party.

Each lesson is structured to help the student get the most out of each class. I make sure that there is time for individual problems and questions and actively encourage feedback from all students. I also tend to teach something easy and something hard on the same class so that students gain a sense of instant achievement and of continual learning over the course.

I also try and teach in a friendly, approachable manner, with lots of fun and humour on my courses. After all, if you enjoy dancing, you are much more likely to do it!

Lesson Structure:

• Each lesson commences with a warm up comprising of reviewing the dance/s learnt to date – usually by dancing them.
• At the start of each new dance I will give a brief history of the dance and the music and explain popular variations and reasons for learning a particular style or form.
• Each individual dance section will start with a review of all figures taught to date and end with a short practice session where each member will have the chance to ask questions and I will check form.
• I like to encourage students to swap partners as this develops good habits, corrects minor errors and takes some of the fear out of dancing with strangers. After all - the point of dancing is socialising!
• The end of the lesson will review each of the dances done to date by dancing them.
• Throughout the lessons I will also cover other information such as:
  • Health & Safety,
  • Various holds and styles,
  • Lead/Follow and responsibilities,
  • Personal dance space and couple dance space,
  • Etiquette – talking, correcting, thanking etc.. (more details on this site)
  • Meanings of common technical dance terms e.g. mirror image, natural opposite and line of dance

This integrated with the social evenings – providing a safe environment in which to practise and develop with known dances, with known people. I find that students love the opportunity to attend their very own evenings of dance.

I also encourage students to fill out feedback questionnaires at the end of my courses, which I use to modify the course to reflect student’s needs and thoughts.

Progression

How do I progress and develop as a dancer?

Well, you can start with our Social Dance course of 10 weeks, and then pick the dances you like and study those - or you can pick any of the beginner classes. It's entirely up to you.

We also offer private lessons for those students who have done as much as they can on the courses, to allow them to continue learning and developing new figures and dances - as well as the classes at the social evenings