New Vogue originated from both Old Time and Ballroom. Old time are "sequence" dances. New Vogue uses the same type of music and everyone dance the same routine of steps. They are allowed to vary hand styling to suit their personality. New Vogues absorbes some of the styles from ballroom dances.
My teacher maintained that New Vogue is just an Australian way of calling English old time dancing. He is so Australian, but he insisted that New Vogues dances are essentially old time dances invented in Australia in modern time. I find new Vogue so much easier to learn comparing to ballroom because there is a fixed sequence of steps that people do. It is harder at first to pick up all the 30+ steps required, but after that it simply flows into styling and enjoyment.
The other thing is that there is no longer a restriction on special music for New Vogue dances. These days we use any music we find appropriate instead of the classy music specially composed for sequence dance.
New Vogue is very popular in Australia and New Zealand and is included in all dancing competitions both amateur and professional. It is danced to all sorts of music. The foxtrot new vogue dances include - Merilyn, Charmaine, Carousel, Excelsior. The tangos are the Tangoette, La Bomba, Tango Terrific (a new addition). Waltzes danced to VW style of music include the Swing Waltz, Tracey Leigh Waltz, the Lucielle. There are also marches included - the Evening Three Step, The Gypsy Tap, Militare, Imperial Two Step. There are also some modern waltz ones which are only done socially - the Serenade, the Dream Waltz are probably the most popular. There are also cha chas and rumbas done in New Vogue style only socially as well.
There are about 350 or so different New Vogue sequence dances that have been invented over the years. Some fade away never to be seen again.
The majority are 32 bars long and because they are sequence dances they are very easy to teach. Some of the more simple dances are 16 bars long. As for the patterns they change quite dramatically from one style to the next and from one dance to the next.
[Gayle Martin G.Martin@ITC.GU.EDU.AU ]. [Van Dao Mai mai@wumpus.cc.uow.edu.au ]
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Last modified on: Saturday, October 9, 1999.