Routines

Looking for a new challenge in your dancing?  Learning a choreographed routine could be your next step! 

Each year we offer a number of routine courses, always with an optional performance goal at the end of the course.  Even if you choose not to perform the routine, learning it is a great social experience that gives you the opportunity to get to know dancers from your neighbouring venues, and can be very rewarding for every level of dancer.

Other benefits of learning a routine are: enhancing styling and learning how to use those finishing touches that make the advanced couples look great aiding memory retention and increasing your repertoire of moves increasing awareness of and appreciation for musical interpretation on the dance floor (lead by example as the choreographers are all about musicality) appreciating and experiencing better technique in your dancing adopting performance techniques that will give you confidence not only in your dancing but in day to day life too!

Ceroc & Modern Jive Dance Company prides itself on its high quality routines with thanks to some of the most experienced and creative Modern Jive choreographers in the country:

 Release Me

 2010 Julie Gunn & Adam Niland

Routine Survival Guide

Whilst learning a routine is undoubtedly a fantastic experience, there can be some unexpected challenges that we’d like to tell you about!

• Choose your level wisely, and if necessary ask the advice of the routine teachers.  Decide firstly whether you’re up to the challenge of learning a choreographed routine where you need to remember and execute a sequence of moves that can last between 3 to 4 minutes.  If that in itself is a challenge, or if you are not confident doing multiple spins, dips etc, don’t be afraid to sign up for a routine at a lower level than your current dance ability, and progress to a higher challenge next time. Doing a routine is as much about improving your dancing as it is about having fun. Doing a slightly easier routine can help to reinforce good dance technique in a way that a harder routine may not. 
  
  
• Ensure you have the time and dedication to put in at least one practise session with your partner between each scheduled rehearsal session.  This is the key to performing the routine to your best.  Also ensure that your partner has the same expectation and commitment.

• Experience tells us that life partners don’t always make good dance partners during routine courses!  There are many cases that prove us very wrong, but there are many more that prove us right!  Why not consider both signing up for the same routine but with different partners?  That way you go through the learning challenges with someone else, but you both spend your rehearsal days in the same place, and who knows, maybe you might perform it together at a later time.

• Having ulterior motives for asking someone to learn a routine with you is rarely a good idea.  Choose a partner who matches you on the dance floor, not on the dating scene!  Coffee, brunch or movies is far more appropriate for a first date than Week One of the next intermediate routine course!  Amorous intentions during routine courses are often not appreciated, and not only do you lose your chance of a date with that person, but generally you end up not completing the routine either! 
  
  
• Understand that everyone has a different learning style.  If you have signed up for a routine with a new partner, understand how they learn.  Think about how you give them feedback – they may not respond well to frustration and loss of patience. If in doubt about to give feedback to your partner, do ask your routine teacher.

And remember, routines aren’t for everyone.  If you struggle to remember basic class sequences and prefer to just dance socially with no extra challenges, then maybe routines aren’t for you.  But for the rest of us – they’re the highlight of our Ceroc year!  Enjoy!