The Weirdest Floor You've Danced On?

[pygmalion]

I know most of us prefer a nice floating wooden floor -- not too old, not too new, with just the right degree of stickiness/slipperiness. But you don't always get that. Just curious. What is the weirdest surface you've ever danced on?

[KevinL]

I know most of us prefer a nice floating wooden floor -- not too old, not too new, with just the right degree of stickiness/slipperiness. But you don't always get that. Just curious. What is the weirdest surface you've ever danced on?

The USS Hornet, an aircraft carrier at Alameda Air Force Base in the San Francisco Bay. That wasn't really that weird, though, they did import several of those portable wood floors.

A ferry on the lake last summer. Basically it was a paved parking lot floating in the middle of the lake. Not that you could _see_ the lake because of the walls of the ferry, but we were in the middle of the lake...

Kevin

[Spitfire]

In sand at the bottom of a wash. I was doing a country swing with a buddy's girlfriend at this place some miles outside of town that me and my two friends use when we go target shooting with our guns which we didn't do on this occasion and it was at night.

[msc]

Argentine Tango performance on concrete at a winery.

[ShyDancer]

Id have to say the grass in my backyard! Not great for anything really, its really difficult to glide on. Couldnt turn to save myself :lol:

Or when I first moved out of the beginners class, where they had an older style floor, out onto the main floor where they had just installed a new competition level floor. I had no idea it would be any different and BOY was it slippery! Even the teachers were sliding around. Thankfully it has been "worn in" now and Im no longer at risk of sliding from one end to the other!

[dnquark]

Lindy in the middle of Pac Bell Park

[lilsexyclogger07]

on a stage made out of those long tables you see at places like...i dunno bingo night lol but they are liek brown......very slippery and wouldnt suggest anyone attempt it :P

[pygmalion]

LOL! I had forgotten about that. You just reminded of when I was younger and a groupie for a local rock band (all G rated -- don't get any weird ideas! :lol: ) I danced on folding chairs -- one foot on each chair, for a whole two hour concert. It was great! :D

[lilsexyclogger07]

LOL! I had forgotten about that. You just reminded of when I was younger and a groupie for a local rock band (all G rated -- don't get any weird ideas! :lol: ) I danced on folding chairs -- one foot on each chair, for a whole two hour concert. It was great! :D

lol all g rated...uh huh dont worry no weird ideas..(what if?........hmmm...lol j.k) that would be kinda fun though at a concert...i was unforunatly performinginfront of a pretty large audience and my tap got stuck in between the tables......very interesting.....lol :oops:

[youngsta]

concrete driveway at a house party.

[SDsalsaguy]

Long picnic table at a German beer festival (in Murnau, near Munich).

[Tasek]

A cobblestone terrace outside a restaurant, the unevenness makes it real fun.

[bordertangoman]

on a newly varnished floor in a club. the varnish hadn't quite gone off and safety floor or what? You couldn't possibly slip on it.

on a gritty concrete floor in a basement of a restuarant which they had just cleared out for a latin jazz band.

[Jmatthew]

we have our saturday Lindy practices outside on a brick walkway which is a fun experience. You can sort of turn. sort of.

What really wierds me out is the girls that dance on it barefoot. Ouch.

[LauraB]

Um, on a bar... Try that in 4 inch heels without knocking anyone's drinks over. :lol:

[Jmatthew]

I don't know if I'd want to try it LauraB, but I'd love to watch it. <g>

[Vince A]

Me too . . . :shock:

[LauraB]

hee-hee! I've got pictures, I'll have to post one... (Don't get too excited, I'm fully clothed.)

[dancing_moogle]

we have our saturday Lindy practices outside on a brick walkway which is a fun experience. You can sort of turn. sort of.

What really wierds me out is the girls that dance on it barefoot. Ouch.

I danced V. Waltz on carpet with bare feet. Now that hurt! :x

[petitetonya]

hmmm...this is pretty funny. I would say the floor on a very rocky boat going from Dover, England to Calais, France. Mainly because the floor kept rocking back and forth.

[msc]

I danced V. Waltz on carpet with bare feet. Now that hurt!

So much for closing the foot with floor pressure. Ouch.

[LindyQuest]

On the stage of the Paramount Theater in Oakland. Halfway through the tour, our tour guide led us onto the stage, turned on some swing music, and away we went! :D

[crystal clear]

The path outside my house. And carpet on the stairs in my house.

The path was a strange feeling on my feet..... metal (taps) on concrete..... it makes my teeth feel like they are clashing against each other. :evil: :P

[Terpsichorean Clod]

Um, on a bar... Try that in 4 inch heels without knocking anyone's drinks over. :lol:
hee-hee! I've got pictures, I'll have to post one... (Don't get too excited, I'm fully clothed.)
Where's the picture? ;)

[Terpsichorean Clod]

Snow. I was doing the Charleston in downhill ski boots. :cool:

[old dog]

Not unusual for us to dance on the carpet when the portable floor in a hotel ballroom is too small to accommodate all the couples at the event. Usually it is a brief detour in order to pass a slow-moving couple on the "outside" but sometimes if we want to dance, we have to dance on the carpet. (Why is it that, more often than not, hotels provide dance floors that are way too small for the occasion?)

Maybe not "weird" but we often find older portable wood floors are in poor condition with exposed metal edges at the joints and/or dirty and sticky -- all of which make dancing difficult if not hazardous. (Could there be a liability issue with this?)

We have started seeing a portable dance floor with a surface made of what seems to be vinyl or linoleum squares. The contact surface is not too bad as portable floors go, but when this is laid down on top of carpeting (as in a hotel ballroom), it is quite flexible and has a "spongy" feeling, i.e. it 'gives' or 'sinks' a little under your weight but has little or no 'rebound' as a stiffer sprung floor would have. This gives it a really "weird" feeling. To top this off, the example we have seen had black and white squares arranged like a checkerboard which played tricks with our eyes -- especially when moving lights were projected onto the floor during the dance.

Went to a dinner/dance at a private service club once where they had a nice-sized, nice-looking wood floor. However, they must have used the wrong kind of finish or it wasn't cured well enough or it had had a lot of drinks spilled and not cleaned or whatever. It was so sticky that it almost pulled your shoes off -- pretty much unusable for dancing. After hearing a lot of complaints the management brought out the dance wax and applied so much that the floor was soon so slippery that folks were almost falling down. After another long break while management tried to mop up the excess dance wax, we found the floor was still very slippery in some spots but also quite sticky in others. Most of the more 'serious' dancers gave up and went home.

[Joyful Dancer]

1) The paved parking area in front of my townhome... great on a warm Spring night.

2) On a ballet room floor what was covered in what appeared to be a "tarp". The
ballet class wouldn't let my salsa class use it otherwise.

3) The back of my uncle's sailboat. Kind of fun but a bit "wobbly"

[WorksForShoes]

Lots of brick, for some reason. Probably will dance on a weirdly sloping brick patio (with a drainage grate in the middle of it) this New Year's. Favorite place to dance, period, is on the brick patio area just outside El Meson de Pepe in Key West, overlooking Mallory Square, at sunset. In flip flops. With mojito in hand. The heck with good foot technique.

[BR-folk-square]

They close half of the Mackinac bridge to cars on labor day. Many years ago I joined a local group that mounted a cassette player, amplifier and a speaker on a backpack and danced across the bridge.

The group I danced with was international folk dancing, not ballroom dancing, but wouldn't it be cool to get a group together to ballroom dance across the bridge?

www. mackinacbridge. org/annual-bridge-walk-7

--Carey

[BR-folk-square]

Both on a full floating wood floor (OK not weird, just nice) at the Lighted Lantern camp (all day and evening), as well as on a dirt hillside by the radio tower after formal dancing was over. Again, this was international folk dancing.

--Carey

Not worthy of a separate entries:

Numerous asphalt street dance parties (folk, square, round)

Gazebo at Lambs farm, a residential and work community for mentally impaired young people (square, round)

In a barn at fermilab, Batavia. This is a rough (uneven) wood floor. (English country, Scottish country, international, and, finally, even some ballroom waltzing) The barn is now used as a community center, it has been cleaned up and heated.

On the stage in the auditorium at Fermilab, where the same groups move in the summertime since the barn is not air conditioned (scottish country, waltz)

On the grass in the park along the lakeshore in Chicago (international).

[sambanada]

in Poland, on a floor that was actually rising up as we danced. Poeple were actually tripping on it!