Pat McNees

You can go dancing every night of the month and many afternoons as well, in the Capital area. You won't find that many politicians on the dance floors I'm familiar with, but you will find a lot of good dancers, and you can hear some of the best dance music in the country. Until I can find the time to update Dancing: A Guide to the Capital Area, I hope these links and pieces on dancing will help you find a place to meet your needs.

Contra Dancing in Maryland (a great state for contra dancing)

Dance Forums on various specialties, and here's a collection of articles about dancing.

Dancing in Other Cities
Let me know what links I should add here.
• Seven Day Guide to Folk, Social and Traditional Dancing in and around Philadelphia
• Central Jersey dancing
• Swing dance in Boston and New England
• The Back of the Closet (a wonderful miscellany)
• Dance Gypsy (the search engine does NOT turn up all dances in DC area)

Diamond Dance Circle (The International Folk Dancers of Bethesda).

Glen Echo dancing calendar page, and here are some videos of dancing there, in the Spanish Ballroom and the Bumper Car Pavilion:
• Swing dancing in the Spanish Ballroom
• A waltz in the Bumper Car Pavilion (to one of my favorite waltzes)
• Friday night contra dance in Spanish Ballroom (this gives a good view both of the ballroom and of what contra dancing is like. Nerds prefer contra to ballroom because it is "called" and it is a predictable set of steps--yet you can see the ample room for variations).
• Dawn Hampton, who danced at the Savoy Ballroom, dancing with John Dokes at Glen Echo (at the Gottaswing dance, which emphasizes 8-count swing, or Lindy). One thing you'll notice: this is a cross-generational venue.
• Dancing a Scandinavian Hambo in the Bumper Car Pavilion
• The Friday Night Contra Dance in the Spanish Ballroom (one way it differs from American Square Dancing is that the music is always live--and there are GREAT contra bands in the DC area)
• Dentzel Carousel (outside the Spanish Ballroom, in Glen Echo Park)

Richard Powers, Historic Social Dance (a/​k/​a Vintage Dance). Powers, based in the Stanford Dance Division, sometimes does workshops in the DC area, and some dancers travel to go to his workshops. The strong vintage dance series we once enjoyed at Glen Echo died out, sadly. But you can learn a lot from these articles on Richard's dance website:
• Ultimate Partnering
• Welcome Chance Intrusions! ("Lateral-thinking dancers see differences from what they expected to happen as opportunities, not mistakes.")
• Sketchy Guys
• Conditional vs. Absolute Learning (the power of uncertainty)
• The American Spirit of Creativity and Crossover
• Intelligent Dance . Intelligence is what we use when we don't already know what to do, wrote Jean Piaget. Powers applies this to dance (vs. authority-based dancing).
• The Three Worlds of Ballroom Dance (social, competitive, exhibition)
• Thoughts, philosophies and musings on social dance (these and more stories by Richard Powers)

This spot on my personal website is a stand-in for Dancing: A Guide to the Capital Area, my information-packed guide to social dancing, mostly in the suburbs of DC. It includes a social history of social dancing in and around Washington, D.C., including the Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs, describing and listing nearly 200 regular dances, dance groups, and classes in:

International, Cajun, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indian, Israeli, Italian, Polish, Turkish, and Scandinavian folk dancing;

English and Scottish country dancing and Irish ceilis, American squares and contras, morris dancing, and clogging;

Ballroom dancing, swing (East coast and West coast, lindy, jitterbug, shag, and so on--and Charleston), and country western;

And the marvelous Sunday waltzes and LaSalle Band tea dances at Glen Echo Park -- in the Spanish Ballroom and/​or the Bumper Car Pavilion (link below), where the contra dances Friday and Sunday evenings are also held, as well as countless swing, ballroom, Cajun, and zydeco dances. Glen Echo's ballroom is generally VERY sweaty in the summer months, as there is no air-conditioning, but as of June 2006 there were six wonderful big standing fans in the ballroom, which suggests that the park management is listening to dancers' suggestions!

This little guide (very slowly being revised, because I am swamped with other work) was most recently available through Travel Books & Language Center, 202-237-1322.

"What an extraordinary job. I can't believe that you've done such a complete search. Very valuable."
-- Dr. Gabe Mirkin, fitness expert

"Well worth the price." --Country Dance & Song Society News

"An essential tool for the neophyte." -- Michael Dolan,author of The American Porch, in Washingtonian Magazine

My favorite dance is the Sunday afternoon waltz at Glen Echo's Spanish Ballroom (or, second Sundays, the ballroom dances to the LaSalle Band's music from the '20s and '30s), with swing and jitterbug a close second -- and little by little (it takes forever)I am learning the Argentine tango. But I've tried most of the kinds of dancing offered in the Washington area --a surprisingly wonderful and affordable venue for dancing. Elsewhere on this site are selections from my guide to dancing in the capital area, which I put together because many of the dances aren't listed in the Post's Weekend Section. (It is their policy to list only dances with live music, although many kinds of dances are done to recorded music, including Argentine tango and many kinds of folk dancing.)

"This guide is as entertaining as it is informative."
--Roberta Gottesman, Finding Fun & Friends in Washington