Viennese Waltz Classes, Mondays beginning in September

Viennese waltz (sometimes called turning waltz or rotary waltz) is the original waltz, and it's what waltz is all about: simply turning with your partner, one way and then the other, spinning gracefully around the the room. Viennese waltz is the hypnotic dance that became a worldwide craze; the exhilaration of simply turning with your partner is the reason waltz has endured to this day.
Viennese waltz is a very simple dance; fancy steps and figures aren’t what it’s about. Learning to waltz smoothly takes some work, but it’s oh so worth the effort. Waltzing is all about delicious, delirious turning; any waltz that doesn't turn isn't really a waltz, and dancing to waltz music without turning isn't really waltzing. The word waltz originally meant "to turn, to roll, to revolve;" to waltz is to turn. Learning to waltz is learning to turn with your partner, effortlessly and smoothly. That's it, that’s all you need to know.

Part of the beauty of Viennese waltz is that to do it well, you have to have a really good connection with your partner. For many dances you can go through the motions with little or no real connection with your partner, but this doesn’t work very well for Viennese waltz; waltzing in a disconnected way feels forced and clumsy, and it’s absolutely exhausting. Viennese waltz should feel relaxed and kinda dreamy; no one should have sore arms or shoulders. If it doesn’t feel that way to you, you might want to examine your embrace.

Viennese waltz in close embrace - I was taught to waltz in a very open embrace, with lots of space between me and my partner. “Imagine there’s a beach ball between your chest & your partner’s.” Wow - y’know, that’s a lot of space! Turning waltz is much easier when danced in close embrace, very close to your partner or even in direct contact, body to body. The more space between you, the more work you have to do to hang on as the music speeds up, and the more stress you put on your arms and shoulders. An open embrace is OK for slow waltz, and a flexibly open embrace is needed for cross-step waltz, but for Viennese waltz, the faster the music, the closer the embrace and the smaller the steps. Small steps and a close embrace; that’s how to waltz at warp speed. From what I can learn, close embrace is historically more authentic than open embrace, which for Viennese waltz may be nothing more than a figment dreamed up by puritanical dance teachers. In all my dance classes, I teach that how close you dance is a matter of individual preference. I encourage students to experiment with a closer embrace, and to pay more attention to their partner, no matter what dance they’re dancing.

Viennese waltz vs. other kinds of turning waltz - I teach a simplified version of the waltz as it’s taught in Vienna. The turning waltz I originally learned, and formerly taught, some refer to as rotary waltz to distinguish it from true Viennese waltz. This rotary waltz is a counterintuitive dance that uses two completely different steps and approaches for left turn vs. right and it requires awkward little fudges to get from one to the other, all just for the sake of always starting the turn with the same foot. In Viennese waltz, the right turn begins with the lead stepping forward with his right foot as the follow steps back with her left; the left turn is the mirror image of this, beginning with lead stepping forward with his left and follow stepping back with her right. You change from left to right turns using 3-step change figures or switches as I like to call ’em; these can be as simple as taking 3 steps, or can become elegant little turns. Waltzing this way is very intuitive, tho’ of course if you’ve learned another way there’s some relearning to be done. But once you get comfortable waltzing Viennese style, you’ll never go back. After all, they invented the dance. Viennese waltzing is the first and still the best.

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