Winners are:

Modern – Scott Blant-Harwood & Shelley O’Hara – Riverhead Foxtrot
Old Time – Steven Shaw & Helen Blackburn – Sheridan Saunter
Latin – Ellen Harrison & Kelly Sloan – Mistral Mambo

Thanks.

These are the scripts written from memory from the 70′s, possibly early 80′s, but I can’t remember the names.

Anyone able to help ?

UKNOWN WALTZ

UNKNOWN SAUNTER

click here

I hope the memorial charity dance goes ahead as planned. If anyone has more details please post in. I was also interested to read that Joan was arranging a Quickstep during her last days whilst in hospital. Assuming it was finished, it would be nice to see it published !

For local newspaper report click here

For article on OTDS website click here

As I have always made clear, our site was set up as a historical archive to improve access to older dances that cannot otherwise be accessed in a practicable way, not to provide a script service. This remains our aim.

There are now no scripts of new dances available on line, here or anywhere else. If you want a script service to keep up to date with the latest dances, may I recommend Churchfield Dance Services at http://www.churchfielddanceservices.com/ which to my mind represents the best value for money available.

Meanwhile, why not take a look at the many excellent older dances from the archives that are available in our Script Library.

Joan and her late husband Lewis were one of the most successful sequence dancing couples of all time. As well as being excellent teachers and demonstrators, and Carl Alan award winners, they were prolific arrangers of prizewinning dances in the 60′s, 70′s and early 80′s, and in my view our best ever inventors. Many of their arrangements remain popular to this day: Tango Suhali, Rhythm Jive, Paso Deena, Samba Katrina & Helena Quickstep, to name but a few. In later years, Joan was often hired as script technician for the inventive comps – she knew her stuff and did a good job in correcting the mistakes.  She will be sadly missed.

This is the way I wanted it in the first place, but, with the membership control software I use, controlling access to pdf files has only recently become an option.

I am sure the new format will meet with approval !

(1) The only way to subscribe is through a Pay Pal account, but this is easy to set up through our site. To subscribe through Pay Pal, just press the Buy Now Button on the Subscribe Page of our site, and follow the on-screen instructions. It takes less than a minute (you will need either a bank account or credit card to use Pay Pal, who will then take the payment from your designated account).

(2) There are no fees to sign up for or to use Pay Pal to make your purchase.

(3) I’ve now re set the subscription process, so that the purchase is made in UK pounds sterling. But it doesn’t matter what your local currency is. Wherever in the world you are, be it Melbourne or Middlesborough, you can make a purchase and Pay Pal automatically converts the payment so that you are then billed in your own local currency. The current price is set at £9.99 (which is approx equivalent to 16 Canadian dollars, 16 UD dollars, 16 Australian dollars, or 21 NZ dollars).

(4) This above purchase is a one-off payment which gives access to the site for 1 year. If you want to continue to subscribe after the year is up, then just purchase another years subscription as before.

(5) The scripts are not E mailed, they are all directly available online ready to print off. There is no additional charge to access individual scripts.

(6) It is possible to pay through an e-cheque – there is option within the Pay Pal system for this, although 5 – 7 working days are required for e-cheques to clear.

(7) We do not accept cash, cheques or postal orders, nor are we able to accept payments direct through credit cards/debit cards – payment is only possible via Pay Pal.

Hope that helps !

www.sequencedancescripts.com

Well, I hope this isn’t the end of the story. One thing for sure though – if sequence is to survive it needs good material that will attract people who are actually interested in finding a way of doing ballroom socially (not an easy thing to do, but sequence really could be a very god way of doing that). The question is whether the new “winning” dances are sufficiently rich and varied to be fit for this purpose. What is clear is that the archive material I am now highlighting in our Library, offers considerably more variety and challenge, and in my view represents the best of what sequence has to offer – despite some of it being more than 40 years old. Please take a look – particularly if your’e one of those people whose previous experience of sequence has not been a good one. Or maybe you are one of those current sequence devotees, completely contented with the status quo – in which case, why not take a look anyway, just to be absolutely sure your’e not missing out on anything. You may be surprised.

The commentaries on the Latest Page give a good indication of what’s there in the archives, and some scripts are provided free to view. Some of the material I have dug out of late, (such as Melodrene Waltz & Fabian Foxtrot & Chicory Cha-Cha, all free-to-view) is really very good stuff that the discerning ballroom dancer would I’m sure approve of. Perhaps it is time to start using it ?

http://pub31.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=2586843722&frmid=10&msgid=898075&cmd=show

(For the benefit of newcomers to the Blog: I plan to produce regular bite-sized articles, focussing on (a) how to read and interpret the scripts, and (b) points of good technique that are not explicitly obvious in the scripts themselves. The idea is that examples from the dances in the library will be used to illustrate particular points, so the two strands of the Blog will mesh together fairly well. I plan to keep it fairly light, at least initially. This will hopefully lead to a series of articles that, collectively, will form a valuable source of reference material for the keen dancer, and, hopefully, be an interesting read too).

Other than that, I would just like to say thanks for looking in and reading the Blog. I hope you are finding it useful and revealing. Please feel feel to write in with any feedback, comments, requests etc. And I would be particularly intereted to hear if any one has actually resurrected any of the dances featured on Blog.

Have a good 2010.

HONEYSUCKLE JIVE Peter Varley, 1981: Advanced jive routine with an unusual variation on the change of hands behind the back. Plus open throwaways, and the argentine crosses (both now rare), and an attractively styled same foot variation. *** For photos of Peter & Jill demonstrating this dance click this link.

Note added Aug 2010: there are now more of Peter’s dances on the site (here – see the Latest Page – and on the new site), and more to come !

The likely reasons for the rise and fall in sequence dancing history are many and complex. In the post-war years sequence dancing became very popular but was unregulated – new sequence dances were published in droves by any Tom, Dick, or Harry that cared to produce them. Many of the so-called evergreens hail from the latter period and were arranged by social dancers-turned leaders with limited ballroom training, and this is evident in the party-dance/square-dance nature of those arrangements. It was not until the late sixties/early seventies that this situation changed. Regular competitions started to take place and with more regulation, and high calibre dance professionals with a proper understanding of the ballroom genre began to show an interest in these competitions. Their involvement as competitors continued until the late eighties, early nineties. Although a reasonable output of good new dances was maintained throughout the nineties, interest from competitors of this callibre certainly waned during this period. One can only speculate why, but many of those arrangers who had previously contributed probably felt that there was little point in continuing to arrange more sequence dances when the best variations/amalgamations had already been used (fair point too it might be said). And, having made their mark as competitors, many probably thought that they should look for bigger fish to fry. Another factor is undoubtedly that today’s sequence dancing public do not have the strong ballroom background that their counterparts thirty years ago did, and have picked up the some basic skills simply by attending sequence clubs and following others. Because of this more casual approach, their repertoire more limited, and, clearly, today’s arrangers have adapted to this situation with somewhat watered-down material.

The good news is that the tide is turning and, once again, people in the UK are getting interested in ballroom dancing and in investing in proper training in the dance schools. But if sequence dancing is going to benefit from this boom, it is vital the best sequence dances from the golden years be accessible and put to use. Good material is an absolute must as a starting point for the future prosperity of sequence, and the irony is that there is excellent material already out there but gathering dust in the archives – it needs to be show-cased ! And it is important also to be selective (as there is still a lot of rubbish out there even from within the vintage years, and it is quite costly for anyone to browse the archives in order to pick out the wheat from the chaff).

In summary, I strongly suggest you to take a look at the some of the material published here, even if you feel it is not relevant to you. Then compare it with what you are currently being offered, and decide which you prefer ! And if you like what you see, tell all your friends !