The perfect place to dance?

[pygmalion]

So if you could describe the perfect dance venue, what would it be? a bar? A club? A studio? A private home? What kind of music? What hours? How big/how many people? Indoors? Outdoors? What do you think?

[Spitfire]

Somewhere with a large spacious floor and a good sound system. A good snack bar is great. 8)

I'm not picky about such things, but I do like a well furnished seating area such as what I saw last summer at a studio in Redmond, Washington.

I do like dance parties at private homes; particularly the back yard BBQ type. 8)

[etchuck]

A really large European ballroom that's three stories high with balconies and crystal chandeliers beaming light off the gold leaf on the walls and a solid, freshly finished wooden floor. There would be a 40-to-50 piece orchestra, and chairs and tables would be placed around the main floor with stadium seating in the balconies. And this would be housed in a convention-center-sized complex with eight additional floors all blaring different types of music for 12 hours (sundown to sunrise).

Short of that, my basement floor seems to be fine for WCS. :)

[Vince A]

Actually, I have the perfect floor for me . . . I built one in my house. Perfect for me . . perfect to practice on. Too small for a major competition though.

So, any cushioned, fast (slick, not silppery) wooden dance floor . . . great sound system . . . a water bar that also carries Heinekin on tap . . . light snack/fruits, etc. It should also be well-ventilated and air-conditioned for the summer. Nice personal facilities that would allow for changing clothes and cleaning up.

A few of us are working on (planning) on such a place here in Modesto . . . as we write!

[Chris Stratton]

The one I keep thinking about is to get an old mill building, rennovate all but the top floor into apartments of various sizes suitable for dancers of various stages in life. Then on the top floor, spend what you half to on structural steel to support the roof without pillars, and put in a full size ballroom. The problem is that this might require replacing the typical flat roof with a slanted one supported by trusses - and even then, I'm not sure the outer walls are always capable of supporting the roof load without help of internal pillars (while we no longer get regular 2-3 foot snow falls, they are possible - hmm, some sort of emergency pillar that deploys from the ceiling when excessive load is detected? try selling that to the insurance company)

Pillars are not a total showstopper though, if placed right. For example, Ballroom on 5th in NY has them widely enough spaced that the primary floor is a full-length strip between an exterior wall and a row of pillars, with seating back behind those pillars. It's not a full sized ballroom, but it's wide enough to do full long walls in opposing directions with some care.

Of course there are also the crazy ideas:

1) Copy the inflatable "tennis bubble" - probably with a portable floor that can be stored in a shed if need be

2) A barge, on the river basin. Not sure what regulations on long term anchorage would be. Unfortunately, the passage to the harbour and under the bridges upstream are fairly narrow, so trying to claim it was 'just parked there for a while' would be problematic, since the only way to get anything of usefull width in or out would be if it somehow was made of sections that could be bolted together.

3) Buy a portable floor and get good at negotiating cheap temporary use deals with owners of unoccupied commercial space. Found a tenant? fine, we'll be out by Sunday night.

[dr daffy]

honestly, in my opinion, there is no "perfect" place to dance. i'm happy to dance anywhere. and i do dance anywhere :wink: when i get to the age where i can actually get into clubs, i'm sure i'll have just as much fun dancing there that i have dancing at my dance studio. wherever it is, it doesn't matter, as long as i'm dancing and i'm having fun. of course, dancing in my school hallways may get me in trouble every now and then ( :oops: ) but it's incredibly fun, lol.

in terms of when i like to dance, again, doesn't really matter. i like to dance whenever i feel like it. i take dance classes at school as well as out of school. and i dance on my own for the fun of it. i do a lot of dancing and it doesn't really matter what time it is or when during the week it is, as long as i'm dancing and having fun. my friends and i will stay up all night dancing when we have sleepovers :D

maybe i'm weird, but i like the spontaneous side of dancing... just doing it when you feel like it... dancing's not a job to me, it's a way to relax and enjoy myself... at any time. you don't need anything to dance but yourself :P