Ballroom, eh?

Most of the people don't even realize what ballroom is. Almost every time I teach a beginners class, I ask this question, "so what are the ballroom dances?" and invariably I get answers like rumba, cha-cha, salsa, bachata, merengue, and so on. I smile in my smirky way and as if I'm revealing a big secret, I would tell, "well, here's a news for you - rumba is not ballroom; cha-cha is not ballroom; salsa is not ballroom...". And then I tell them the only ballroom dances are waltz, tango, foxtrot, quickstep, and viennese waltz. Most of the other names that they said were actually latin dances. Being beginners, they are surely forgiven for this "misunderstanding", however, more than half of the non-beginners also make the same mistake. Many of them don't even do any ballroom dance and they call themselves ballroom dancers. I can't go around telling them that just because they are dancing those dances inside a ballroom doesn't make them ballroom dances. Many good studios explicitly state that they do ballroom and latin dances, whereas many others would just call themselves ballroom dancing venues while teaching and doing cha-cha and salsa (and even lindy hop and west coast swing and what not).

So what's a big deal about it? Is it just the name? I don't think so. People should realize that ballroom dancing is a whole different deal than latin and other forms of dancing. If you are doing only latin dances, then you may not even encounter the issues of actual ballroom dancing. The lessons and values learned from ballroom and latin dances differ at many points and one needs to recognize this.