Steve Holdener
Rumba is not to be confused with a famous alcoholic beverage mixed with Coca Cola!
My wife Rita and I were first exposed to Rumba on a sea cruise in 1988 where we learned the basics of a box step. We said to ourselves at that time that we should learn these dances for real when we retire. Flash forward almost 20 years later and we are in a Rumba class in SaddleBrooke taught by Bob and MaryAnn Osborne. They did a fantastic job in teaching us Rumba steps that we still use often today.
The Rumba is known as a dance that tells a story of love and passion between a strong, male lover and a coy, teasing woman. It is full of sensual movements and the Rumba is considered by many to be the sexiest of all the ballroom dances. This dance of love is one of the most popular ballroom dances and is seen around the world at nightclubs, parties, weddings and dance competitions.
As you would suspect, the Rumba is a very slow, serious, romantic dance with flirtation between the partners. It’s fun to watch as the dance has a teasing theme in which the lady flirts with and then rejects her male partner, often with apparent sexual aggression. The Rumba spotlights the lady’s rhythmic body movements and hip actions resulting in intense, almost steamy, scenes of passion.
Rumba as a dance term has different meanings as it’s often considered shorthand for Afro-Cuban rumba, which is a group of dances related to the Rumba genre of Afro-Cuban music. The most common Afro-Cuban Rumba is the guaguancó. The other Afro-Cuban Rumbas are Yambu and Colombia. The Afro-Cuban Rumba is entirely different from the Ballroom Rumba both in rhythm and dance.
Our dance club provides a forum via our monthly dinner/dances at SaddleBrooke One in the Vistas Dining Room with the adjacent Vermilion Room dance floor on the first Tuesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. as well as weekly open dances/practices on Sunday (4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at MountainView Ballroom) and Wednesday afternoons (4:00 to 5:30 p.m. at the Vermilion Room). We have wonderful music provided by great DJs who play excellent dance music.
We are looking forward to more ballroom dancing with SBDC dinner/dances on March 20 and April 11, 2015. These events will be here before you know it, so please save the dates for these events on your calendars!
You are very welcome to join us and meet new and old friends and share in the joy of dancing at our first Tuesday gatherings at the SaddleBrooke Clubhouse as well as the weekly open dances/practices. You are invited to visit the new Facebook page that we share with Let’s Dance (just type Let’s Dance in the search box on Facebook). Please feel free to share your own favorite dance story or ballroom tune; you can write me at [email protected].