Is there much of a difference in round dancing and ballroom dancing? I do Round Dancing and am looking to get into Ballroom dancing, and i was wondering if there were any places in Washington that had a good ballroom instructor.

I've known several people who crossed over from round dancing to ballroom and did very well. Ballroom isn't called, so there's a lot more reliance on leading and following. Apparently there are a lot of common patterns, but ballroom tends to put more emphasis on technique (depending on your focus and where you take lessons). Have fun!

do you know of anybody i could talk with that could get me involved with this website...i mean i'm only 18 but i want to learn how to ballroom dance professionally...i don't have a partner yet but still would like to learn all of this...so if you know of anybody that i could get in touch with that teaches up in washington then i would greatly appreciate it

Sorry, I'm in California. I think there's a directory on this site, and on ndca.org. You can also try your yellow pages. Good luck!

We did round dancing years ago and have recently started ballroom. Learning to lead and follow is the biggest change but it makes the dancing so much more of a conversation between the partners. I think our old round dance teachers would be thrilled to see how we dance now. Good luck on the teaching!

Evergreen, in Longview Washington, is a good place to start in Ballroom lessons... Wednesday;Thursday;and or Friday.

I am a Round Dancer and have talked with a number of Ballroom Dancers. One primary difference is that there is no competition in Round Dancing, even at the highest levels. People Round Dance for their own enjoyment. The steps in both are similar and many are identical. Watching ballroom dancers has convinced me that, while the steps and figures are identical, the styling is occassionally slightly different. Round Dancing is usually described as "Choreographed Ballroom Dancing". That is, someone writes Ballroom steps to a piece of music and distributes a "Cue Sheet" to Round Dance Cuers. Cuers all over the world then "cue" the dance and the dancers do the steps and figures. There is no memorizing of each dance and many songs have multiple dances choreographed for them. There are over 25 different rhythms taught in Round Dancing. Each rhythm is separated into "Phases" with the easiest steps being Phase 1 and the most difficult being Phase 6. Round Dancing has been under the auspices of Square Dancing for decades. Chances are, if you go to a square dance, the caller will call 2 squares, then a cuer will cue 2 Round Dances. Most Square Dance Clubs have Round Dancing and there are a number of clubs that are Round Dance only. The clubs that have Round Dancing usually have club sponsored classes. Many Round Dancers dance at the lower levels only and are not interested in spending the time necessary to become as good as most serious Ballroom dancers. They do it for fun only.
For more info see http://www.roundalab.org/

Hope this helps.