Dance Mixers... This Boy needs HELLLLLP

[Pirate Smith]

If you're a ballroom dancer, learning to dance.. NEVER, NEVER volunteer to DJ the music for an event... ROTFL..........geez this is hard... I am DJing for a 1950's style Sock Hop.... and well... I was barely born in the 50's... ok so I lie a bit... but I was too young to remember the songs.... any help on what was popular to dance to in the 50s is helpful at this point....

NOW THEY HAVE ADDED A TWIST TO THE NIGHT... they want dance mixers.. the only one I know of is a "FOXTROT RACE"... where the couples line up at one end of the dance floor... Foxtrot to the other end.. and must exchange partners to get back to the other side... so on , and so on, and so on...... ANY HELP ON DANCE MIXERS would be appreciated... especially for Merrengue music... heck... any music... I just need some mixer ideas... Thank you in advance.. Pirate Smith

...all these smilely faces.. I am gonna invent a panic button icon... ROTFL

[Angel HI]

Unsure of the question. You seem to understand mixers well. Are you asking for more mixer ideas...music ideas...or, ???

[tanya_the_dancer]

There's something called a snowball mixer. You start with one or two couples, have them dance for a few measures, then stop the music, they split and each of them takes a new partner, then they dance for a bit again, then split and everyone takes a new partner, and you repeat the process until everyone had a chance to dance. It works best when you have a gender balanced group.

Another type of mixer (again, works best with a gender balanced group) is this: men make a circle facing outside. Women make another circle around them facing inside. Play some music and have both circles move in opposite directions (i.e. men - clockwise, women - counterclockwise). Stop the music and have people pair up with whomever they're facing for the next dance. Repeat for a couple more dances.

But the line mixer still works the best for a situation when you have a big disbalance between men and women.

[Pirate Smith]

Thank you Tanya.. for two new ideas of dance mixers.... may I ask what a line mixer is...


Angel Hi.. I am looking of both... dance mixer ideas... and if anyone remembers the music they danced to in the 50's....

Thank you both for reponding... Blessings Pirate Smith

[tanya_the_dancer]

Line mixer is sort of what you described. Men and women line up along opposite sides of the room, the first in each line pair up and dance down the room, split in the end and go to the end of their respective lines. If there are more women than men, men's line would move faster, but nobody is left out. It works best with a dance which moves down the line of dance, like foxtrot or waltz. The other two work with any dance, even something stationary like rumba or chacha.

[Pirate Smith]

Thank you Tanya... that is another idea..... the Foxtrot race, I was in.. we all started as couples at one end of the dance floor... dance to the other end and then begin exchanging partners...but I do like your idea of seperating the partners into lines...from the very beginning... very nice... Thank you Pirate Smith

[Angel HI]

Seems like Tanya has you well taken care of re the dances. Re the music, not sure how much help I could offer. Almost all music is appropriate depending upon the dance preferred. There are many threads for "Favorite Songs for .... (insert dance)" here on the DF. Search through some; you'll find lots of ideas.

[Easy]

The stroll. The twist. Lots of swing...Buddy Holly, Dion and the Belmonts, Bobby Darin......

[Pirate Smith]

A special salute and Thank you, to Tanya... reason for asking for songs.. I have found that many of the songs popular in the 50's and done by the original artists... aren't that good for dancing... some of the remakes by later artists have stronger defined beats.. and this group may be made up of beginner students... heck.. right now.. I just hope we sell enough tickets... ROTFL......Easy.. thank you for the response... I just found out about the "stroll"... and found a great old song remade by the "Stray Cats"... "Bee Bop a Lula".... should work out just fine..... Blessings to all for all the help here... Pirate Smith

[BR-folk-square]

Line mixers don't work when groups are almost exactly balanced, or when people get up to join the mixer as couples, as you get the same person over and over, or one of two or three over and over....That happened to me Sunday, I just sat down, so then it wasn't exactly balanced any more, and hopefully the remaining dancers got new partners each time around. I wish they had done a circle mixer.

[and123]

Even if the lines are balanced, I've noticed that some guys tend to hold on to their partners longer than others, thereby shifting the order a bit when they get back in line. Can't remember the last time I saw balanced mixer lines though. Always far more followers.