As the continued success of Dancing with the Stars and Strictly Come Dancing reveals, the appetite for ballroom remains insatiable around the world. Ballroom Dance and Glamour offers a fascinating window into the global phenomenon of competitive dance. Including vibrant photographs and commentary, this book showcases the extraordinary costumes, glamorous dancers and elegance of the sport. Based on years of research at international competitions, esteemed anthropologist, photographer and ballroom dancer Jonathan S. Marion provides a unique insight into this performance art, outlining the history and basics of ballroom and explaining its huge appeal today. Offering a visual journey into the world of dance, Ballroom Dance and Glamour illuminates the beauty, skill, intensity and passion of this sport. Written in a lively and accessible manner, Ballroom Dance and Glamour will delight all dancers, dance and fashion enthusiasts and anyone captivated by the skill and glamour of ballroom dance.

Behind the scenes of DanceSport.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book presents an engaging sociological investigation into how gender is negotiated and performed in ballroom and Latin dancing that draws on extensive ethnographic research, as well as the author’s own experience as a dancer. It explores the key factors underpinning the popularity of this leisure activity and highlights what this reveals more broadly about the nature of gender roles at the current time. The author begins with an overview of its rich social history and shifting class status, establishing the context within which contemporary masculinities and femininities in this community are explored. Real and imagined gendered traditions are examined across a range of dancer experiences that follows the trajectory of a typical learner: from finding a partner, attending lessons and forming networks, through to taking part in competitions. The analysis of these narratives creates a nuanced picture of a dance culture that is empowering, yet also highly consumerist and image-conscious; a highly ritualised set of practices that both reinstate and transgress gender roles. This innovative contribution to the feminist leisure literature will appeal to students and scholars of anthropology, dance, sport, gender, cultural and media studies.

Arguably the world's most popular partnered social dance form, salsa's significance extends well beyond the Latino communities which gave birth to it. The growing international and cross-cultural appeal of this Latin dance form, which celebrates its mixed origins in the Caribbean and in Spanish Harlem, offers a rich site for examining issues of cultural hybridity and commodification in the context of global migration. Salsa consists of countless dance dialects enjoyed by varied communities in different locales. In short, there is not one dance called salsa, but many. Spinning Mambo into Salsa, a history of salsa dance, focuses on its evolution in three major hubs for international commercial export-New York, Los Angeles, and Miami. The book examines how commercialized salsa dance in the 1990s departed from earlier practices of Latin dance, especially 1950s mambo. Topics covered include generational differences between Palladium Era mambo and modern salsa; mid-century antecedents to modern salsa in Cuba and Puerto Rico; tension between salsa as commercial vs. cultural practice; regional differences in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami; the role of the Web in salsa commerce; and adaptations of social Latin dance for stage performance. Throughout the book, salsa dance history is linked to histories of salsa music, exposing how increased separation of the dance from its musical inspiration has precipitated major shifts in Latin dance practice. As a whole, the book dispels the belief that one version is more authentic than another by showing how competing styles came into existence and contention. Based on over 100 oral history interviews, archival research, ethnographic participant observation, and analysis of Web content and commerce, the book is rich with quotes from practitioners and detailed movement description.

Rumba music starts and a floor full of dancers alternate clinging to one another and turning away. Here, Julia Ericksen, a competitive ballroom dancer herself, takes the reader onto the competition floor exploring the allure of this hyper-competitive, difficult, and often expensive activity.

In the wake of the blockbuster television success of "Dancing with the Stars," competitive ballroom dance has become a subject of new fascination—and renewed scrutiny. Known by its practitioners as DanceSport, ballroom is a significant dance form and a fascinating cultural phenomenon. In this first in-depth study of the sport, dancer and dance historian Juliet McMains explores the "Glamour Machine" that drives the thriving industry, delving into both the pleasures and perils of its seductions. She further explores the broader social issues invoked in American DanceSport: representation of "Latin," economics that often foster inequality, and issues of identity, including gender, race, class, and sexuality. Putting ballroom dance in the larger contexts of culture and history, Glamour Addiction makes an important contribution to dance studies, while giving new and veteran enthusiasts a unique and unprecedented glimpse behind the scenes.

"... Offers a backstage pass to a world where rhinestones and high heels accompany explosive athleticism and staggering talent"--From publisher description.

Told in interconnecting stories, Ballroom is a beautifully crafted debut novel—reminiscent of the works of Elizabeth Strout and Jennifer Haigh—about a group of strangers united by a desire to escape their complicated lives, if only for a few hours each week, in a faded New York City dance hall. Time has eroded the glamour of the Ballroom, but at the end of the 1990s, a small crowd of loyal patrons still makes its way past the floor-to-ceiling columns which frame the once grand hall each Sunday evening. Sweeping across the worn parquet floor under a peeling indigo ceiling, these men and women succumb to the magic of the music, looking for love and connection, eager to erase the drab reality of their complicated lives. Nearly forty and still single, Sarah Dreyfus is desperate for love and sure she’ll find it with debonair Gabriel Katz, a dazzling peacock who dances to distract himself from his crumbling marriage. Tired of the bachelor life, Joseph believes that his yearning for a wife and family will be fulfilled—if only he can get Sarah to notice him. Besotted with beautiful young Maria Rodriguez, elderly dance instructor Harry Korn knows they can find happiness together. Maria, one of the Ballroom’s stars, has a dream of her own, a passion her broken-hearted father refuses to accept or understand. As the rhythms of the Ballroom ebb and flow through these characters’ hearts, their fates come together in touching, unexpected ways.

Competitive ballroom is much more than a style of dance. Rather, it is a continually evolving and increasingly global social and cultural arena: of fashion, performance, art, sport, gender and more. Ballroom explores the intersection of dance cultures, dress and the body. Presenting the author's experiences at an international range of dance events in Europe, the US and UK, as well as featuring the views of individual dancers, the book shows how dancing influences mind and body alike. For students of anthropology, dance, cultural and performance studies, Ballroom provides an ethnographic picture of how dancers and others live their lives both on and off the dance floor.