48 Fun Facts About Ballroom Dance

Which star's RKO screen-test report supposedly read 'Can't sing, can't act, balding, can dance a little'?

Fred Astaire had the last laugh: in 1947 the man written off as able to 'dance a little' co-founded the Fred Astaire Dance Studios, a chain teaching ballroom under his name.

Which dance, new to English ballrooms, did Lord Byron mock in an anonymous satirical poem of 1813?

The waltz put couples face to face in a 'closed' hold, which scandalised many: an Edinburgh magazine writer of 1820 was 'inexpressibly shocked' to see Scottish women dancing it.

Which Latin dance, built on a Spanish military march, casts the leader as a matador?

Paso doble usually casts the follower as the matador's cape, swept around the floor. The ballroom version is so tightly choreographed that it is almost never danced socially.

Which competition 'Latin' dance is really a swing dance, carried to Europe by American soldiers during the Second World War?

Jive is grouped with the Latin dances in competition even though its roots lie in swing, and its name comes from African-American slang popularised by bandleader Cab Calloway's dictionary.

Standard couples travel around the floor following the 'line of dance', which runs in which direction?

Counter-clockwise travel around a rectangular floor is the rule for the Standard dances, while most Latin routines are performed more or less in one spot.

Since 1920 the Blackpool Dance Festival has filled the Empress Ballroom, part of which entertainment complex?

Winter Gardens has been the festival's home since its first year, in a ballroom built in 1896. Blackpool's other great dance floor, the Tower Ballroom, is a separate venue.

After its long-time head judge died in 2023, Dancing with the Stars renamed which prize in his honour?

The Mirrorball Trophy was renamed from season 32, when many of the original professionals returned to perform a group dance to 'Moon River' in tribute.

Ballroom star Vernon Castle survived wartime flying over the Western Front, then died in 1918 doing what?

Training pilots in Texas, he took sudden action just after take-off to avoid another aircraft and crashed. The crash-site monument records that his student and his pet monkey, Jeffrey, survived.

Which silent film star popularised a stylised Argentine tango in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)?

Rudolph Valentino's tango scene made him a star and set off a tango craze among American audiences.

Which Australian director turned his 1984 student play about dancer Scott Hastings into the 1992 film Strictly Ballroom?

Baz Luhrmann drew on his own childhood for the story: he took ballroom lessons as a boy, and his mother taught the dances for a living.

Which dance did Vernon and Irene Castle refine and popularise in Watch Your Step, Irving Berlin's first Broadway score?

Foxtrot, by Vernon Castle's own account, had been danced by African Americans at an exclusive club for fifteen years before he and Irene made it a craze in 1914.

Which Latin dance grew out of the less syncopated music that Cuban violinist Enrique Jorrín began writing in the early 1950s?

Cha-cha-cha took shape at Havana's Silver Star Club, where dancers met Jorrín's new tunes with a quick triple step whose shuffle is said to have given the dance its name.

Which International Latin dance, the slowest of the five, is adapted from Cuban son?

Rumba, despite its name, differs completely from Cuban rumba in both music and steps: American dance halls of the 1930s borrowed the word for a blend of big-band music and son.

Which Brazilian dance, popularised in the United States by Carmen Miranda, is competed with a knee-driven 'bounce'?

Samba in the ballroom would look foreign in Rio: the international version has drifted far from Brazil's own partner samba, the samba de gafieira.

Which slow dance is one of the five American Rhythm dances but has no place in International Latin?

Bolero reached the ballroom from Cuba, where it began as slow romantic songs for a lone singer with a guitar. It is unrelated to the older Spanish dance of the same name.

Which competitive style dances the Standard repertoire with open and separated movements as well as closed hold?

American Smooth allows closed, open and separated movements where International Ballroom permits only closed positions, and its men have even abandoned the tailsuit.

Ballroom tango differs from Argentine tango through its more open frame and what kind of strong movement?

Staccato movement, with its sharp head snaps, marks ballroom tango, a style that took shape once the dance had left the River Plate for Europe and North America.

In ballroom terminology, a turn described as 'natural' rotates which way, as opposed to a 'reverse' turn?

To the leader's right is 'natural' and to the left 'reverse'. In Victorian English ballrooms 'reversing' was thought bad form, so couples spun the same way all evening.

What is the ballroom dance term for a three-step figure in which the feet are closed on the second step?

Chassé is French for 'chased'. English speakers mangled the word into 'sashay', first recorded in 1836 for a gliding dance step.

What name is given to the rhythmic hip rotation seen in Latin ballroom dances?

Cuban motion is not driven by the hips at all: they rotate because the dancer bends and straightens each knee in turn, keeping both slightly soft.

Ballroom tango does without which technique that shapes the other four Standard dances?

Rise and fall means lifting through the knees and feet and lowering again. Tango's basic technique leaves it out on purpose, which is why dancers call it the 'level' or 'flat' dance.

Men's Standard ballroom dance competition dress, with tail coat and bow tie, follows which formal dress code?

White tie is the most formal evening dress code, by now rare outside state banquets and grand balls, yet men's Standard finals are still danced in tails.

The term 'dancesport' was invented to help competitive ballroom dancing gain what?

Olympic recognition arrived in 1997, when the IOC accepted the sport's governing body. Ballroom itself has never been on the Games programme, as of 2024.

In which 1992 film does Al Pacino's blind ex-colonel lead a young stranger through a tango?

Scent of a Woman sets the dance to 'Por una Cabeza', a 1935 Carlos Gardel tango whose title is racetrack slang for winning 'by a head'; its narrator is a compulsive gambler.

Which ballroom dance took shape in 1920s England, growing partly out of the Charleston?

Quickstep began as a hybrid: English dancers of the 1920s took a fast version of an older ballroom favourite and worked in the Charleston, minus its wild kicks.

Which London body, formed in 1904, codified the ballroom technique now called International Style?

Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing members formed a ballroom committee in 1924 to work out the technique. One member's handbook stayed in print for decades, running to more than fifty editions.

The ballroom film Shall We Dance? takes its title from a song in which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical?

The King and I has Anna teach the King of Siam to polka to it. In the 1956 film Deborah Kerr only mimed the number: the voice belonged to Marni Nixon, Hollywood's hidden singer.

Bandleader Victor Silvester, whose dance records sold 75 million copies, insisted on holding every tune to what?

A strict tempo meant each record kept to the exact beats per minute laid down for its dance. His bands and their imitators even did without singers, who might blur the rhythm.

Which studio-chain founder, born Moses Teichman, staged the world's first 'radio dance' at Georgia Tech in 1920?

Arthur Murray dropped his German-sounding surname amid First World War anti-German feeling, and his wife Kathryn hosted The Arthur Murray Party on TV from 1950 to 1960.

A 1982 Frank and Ernest comic strip said which star did everything her dance partner did, 'backwards and in high heels'?

Ginger Rogers got the tribute from the strip's creator, Thaves, but the line is often credited to Texas politician Ann Richards, who made it famous in a 1988 convention speech.

Dancer Irene Castle is credited with introducing American women around 1914 to which hairstyle?

The bob that Irene Castle wore, soon known as the 'Castle bob', spread through the next decade: by the 1920s the short, boyish cut was the mark of the flapper.

James Reese Europe, the African-American bandleader who toured with the Castles, led which regiment's band in First World War France?

Harlem Hellfighters was the nickname of the 369th Infantry, whose band under Europe toured France in 1918 and introduced jazz to European audiences.

Which television dance judge was steered into ballroom by a doctor, as therapy for an injured foot?

Len Goodman hurt the foot playing football. Before dancing paid his way he had been a welder at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Woolwich.

Which future Strictly Come Dancing judge danced in Elton John's 'I'm Still Standing' video in 1983?

Bruno Tonioli was one of the dancers on the Riviera shoot. Its choreographer, Arlene Phillips, would sit beside him 21 years later on Strictly's first judging panel.

Which former Latin champion nicknamed 'the Queen of Latin' became Strictly Come Dancing's head judge in 2017?

Shirley Ballas had never appeared on the show: she won the head judge's chair through a selection process that drew many candidates, and went straight in at the top.

Which of Strictly Come Dancing's four original judges comes from Ballarat, Australia?

Craig Revel Horwood left Australia to work as a dancer in Paris, then came to London and never left. He is the only one of the four still on the panel, as of 2025.

Which Strictly professional reached an eighth-series quarter-final with Ann Widdecombe despite her poor dancing?

Anton Du Beke danced in every series from the start but first reached a final in series thirteen, with Katie Derham. He later swapped the dance floor for a seat on the judging panel.

Who hosted Strictly's results show from 2010 before becoming Tess Daly's full-time co-presenter in 2014?

Claudia Winkleman stepped into Daly's co-presenter role as Daly took over the main one, and the pair left the series together in 2025.

Which newsreader won the first series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2004 with professional partner Brendan Cole?

Natasha Kaplinsky beat EastEnders actor Christopher Parker in the final on 3 July 2004, and later covered for Tess Daly as stand-in presenter during maternity leave.

Eric Morley, who created the BBC's Come Dancing, went on to found which beauty pageant?

Miss World began in 1951 as a bikini contest he staged for the Festival of Britain. Like Come Dancing, it was built to promote Mecca, the dance-hall chain he worked for.

Which veteran entertainer co-hosted Strictly Come Dancing with Tess Daly from its 2004 launch until 2013?

Bruce Forsyth was 76 when the show began, and no stranger to a dance floor: he had gone on stage at 14 as 'Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom', a song-and-dance act with an accordion.

For its 31st season in 2022, Dancing with the Stars moved from ABC to which streaming service?

Disney+ kept streaming the show simultaneously when it returned to ABC for season 32 the following year.

Which six-time champion as a professional joined the Dancing with the Stars judging panel in 2020?

Derek Hough took the seat when the head judge could not travel from London under COVID-19 restrictions, and his sister Julianne became the show's co-host in 2023.

Which actor, a one-week Strictly guest judge in two series, became the main host of Dancing with the Stars in 2023?

Alfonso Ribeiro had won the show himself as a contestant in season 19. He came back as co-host for season 31 and took over the main job a year later.

Which supermodel took over as host of Dancing with the Stars in 2020, also becoming an executive producer?

Tyra Banks hosted seasons 29 to 31, arriving the day after the original host announced on Twitter that he had been dismissed.

Which actor plays the Chicago lawyer who secretly takes up ballroom dancing in the 2004 remake of Shall We Dance?

Richard Gere's lawyer hides the lessons from his family, then loses his way mid-routine at a big competition when he hears his wife and daughter in the crowd.

'Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear', the line inscribed above the stage of Blackpool's Tower Ballroom, was written by whom?

William Shakespeare wrote it in Venus and Adonis, his poem about the goddess of love trying to charm a youth who would rather go hunting. The 1996 film Shall We Dance? opens on the inscription.

Which actor played real-life ballroom teacher Pierre Dulaine in the 2006 film Take the Lead?

Antonio Banderas's Dulaine volunteers to run a school's detention class and teaches it ballroom. The real Dulaine's schools programme, Dancing Classrooms, is the one filmed in the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom.