Customer Reviews

Modern Ballroom Dancing

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I looked high and low for a ballroom dance book that I could recommend to my fellow ballroom dancers at Harvard. Most of the literature tended to be either too simplistic (for novices) or too boring (ISTD manuals). I especially loved the format of the book and the beautiful photographs of competition dancers. The foot patterns and detailed descriptions are helpful for the non-novice dancer. One big plus of this publication is that the author describes Silver & Gold patterns.

This is a pretty good book for anyone who's currently taking lessons in International-style dancing. It goes through all 10 dances used in International Rhythm and Smooth competition. The author presents about 12 or more variations in each dance. There are foot diagrams for about half the variations. He details the footwork (written), contrary body movement, timing, sway and amount of turn. All of the photos are of competitors at a dance event so they're not helpful if you're trying to learn how any figure looks. I don't think it's a book to buy if you're starting to learn how to dance but if you're already taking lessons, it's a good book to reinforce what you're learning. American-style is not covered at all.

I have both the Victor Silvester book and Alex Moore's ISTD ballroom manual. I personally find the ISTD manual more compact, and a lot better organized. It is a little more expensive than Silvester, and it also has no pictures, it is much more useful in my opinion.

The Victor Silvester book is a ballroom instructor's manual with pictures, and the reader's understanding of the material will be exponentially proportional to his prior experience. That is, the beginners will not find it useful at all, while the intermediate and advanced dancers will be able to learn quite a bit from it.
The pictures and figures contribute very little to explain the steps themselves.

Although the book covers all ballroom steps from beginner to gold, it didn't tell you which one is which. Even though this book claims to include both ballroom and latin, the latin syllabus are only covered upt to the bronze level. It also does not explain essential concepts such as Cuban motion and samba bounce. Unlike the other manuals, the Victor Silvester book also go over the basic steps for Viennese Waltz and (huh huh ...) disco. If the reader already finds the book useful (i.e., he can understand and carry out the steps by reading the book alone), these steps are probably not anything new or groundbreaking.

Also, a word for the prospective dancers. I have seen (and met) a lot of people who try to learn from the book directly, only to be discouraged by the less than desirable results. What a lot of these books won't tell you, or at least convey effectively, are the fundamental aspects of partnered dancing, such as posture, communication, movement, and body connections. These aspects have to be taught by a qualified instructor, because they can't simply be put in words and therefore can't be executed like computer programs.

I purchased this book to compliment my dance instruction. Being that I take lessons in Japan, I needed a book, in English, which would reinforce and further explain what was being taught to me in class. I have found it a very useful book. However, this is not a book for a beginning dancer! The explanations and footwork patterns are detailed, but if you have no experience with ballroom dancing, the figures and explanations will mean very little to you.

Some of the more complicated steps do not have foot diagrams, which would have been helpful. All and all, an excellent book!

This text is a very good reference for International style dancing. It is very complete and conforms fairly well to the syllabus. As stated by other reviewers, if you're a beginner its probably too much, but if you have a good teacher nearby to help explain some of the ambiguities you can learn a lot on your own from it. Definitely not a book that you can just pick up and start dancing, it requires some intellectual effort to digest, but once you've done that you'll have a clear and systematic conceptualization and schema for dancing that few teachers can impart. My only major complaint: an excess of glossy pictures from dancing competitions. This book is really most helpful for the standard dances (which is OK with me since that's my style, not latin.)

One of the better books on dancing and descriptions of figures.Assumes you know something about dancing and has many hint and reminders for the experenced dancer.Now if they would just re-publish Henry Jacques masterpiece,instructors and dancers would really benefit with a dance book.

I've been ballroom dancing for quite a while, and I bought this book in order to learn some more dance steps over and beyond the basics. I found the descriptions and diagrams IMPOSSIBLE to understand, and the steps I could figure out ended up being out of place among the steps that I usually dance. I think this book is only good if you're a dance teacher who is used to reading steps in a certain format and can translate them into motion. If you're a beginner, this book will do you NO GOOD!

Victor Silvester's book is a good alternative to Alex Moore's book of Technique of Ballroom Dancing.

It covers the world 10-dances in Standard and Latin. It is recommended for the novice to amateur who is currently taking some dance lessons.; though there is a short chapter on Beginner's Waltz.The content is technically sound and littered with lots of competition personalities.

What is lacking in the book are the much-needed foot diagrams for some complicated variations.

First, this book on international style will never replace a teacher. If you want to learn international style, give yourself about a year with a private teacher. If you're a couple, figure 2 years. It is impossible to learn to dance from a book. Footsteps show alignment only. Books do not teach technique, and international style is all about technique. If you want to learn to dance socially, take private ballroom dance lessons with a good studio. This book is not for you.
A piece of advice, Forget about group lessons. No one learns to dance in a group.

This book is very clear and written for someone who knows how to dance.

Last, you need to learn amalgamations, i.e., continuity. Learning one step at a time doesn't work. This book will tell you which figure precedes or follows a given figure.

MODERN BALLROOM DANCING has been valuable to me in improving my skills in those dances with which I was already familiar. The usefulness seemed to have been in direct proportion to what I knew before reading the book. It has not been very helpful in learning new dances.

The text includes several dazzling photos of competitive dancers in action.