Take your partners and
move towards that syncing feeling
Like the tango, it
takes two to ceroc - but thousands are lining up to try a
sensational new dance craze
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Take your partners and
move towards that syncing feeling |
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With 20 basic starter moves and a further 200-plus steps for intermediate dancers, there is a lot to learn. Depending on who you ask, ceroc is "sexy, fun, sociable or a way of keeping fit". For 28-year-old Maria, a temp, it is a less sleazy alternative to the crotch-grinding intimacy of the lambada. Ian, 31, a solicitor, finds a ceroc session an ideal opportunity to hear good music and meet new people. Both deny they are specifically on the lookout for love, but it is acknowledged, if unspoken, that the social mix of ceroc is conducive to the creation of longer partnerships than the time it takes to master the "swizzle-stick". "I know two people in Glasgow getting married soon who met their partners at ceroc," confides Alice, a 30-year-old public relations executive. "Dancing with someone can be tremendously erotic. If you're compatible it's like electricity flowing through you - and you can often tell instantly if you're going to make good dancing partners. I don't go to nightclubs very often any more, and I'm immediately suspicious of the sort of men who try and pick you up in a pub, but I've met two guys at ceroc I subsequently went out with. |
"That's not the reason I go every week. I just like the atmosphere - it's more of a friendly get-together than anything else and once you can do it, the great thing is you can dance to any music." If you have not heard of ceroc, don't be surprised. Although it is the largest and fastest-growing modern partner dance in the United Kingdom, it is not advertised. Its enormous success is purely attributable to a much superior publicity machine - word of mouth. An estimated 200,000 people take part in Britain every year, and in Scotland it is in the ascent. Ceroc evolved from the rock 'n' roll introduced to France by American GIs stationed in France at the end of the Second World War. Reinvented in the Eighties for a British audience, proof of the dance's unusual level of grass-roots popularity lies in the fact that there is a notable absence of doleful female couples self-consciously shuffling across the floor. Unlike any other dance class you care to mention, at ceroc there are more than enough men to go around. |
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©The Scotsman Publications Ltd - reproduced with permission |