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 JUDITH WOODS

THE touch of a stranger's hand is disconcerting at first. It is just a light clasp, less pressure than a handshake, but it is the unfamiliarity of the physical contact rather than the actual person which is most offputting. The dance-floor hegemony of disco, house and rave has rendered the notion of pairing up with a partner unsettling. More, if dancing really is the vertical expression of horizontal desire, the sheer random nature of our coupledom is also disquieting.  Once the class begins, however, there is little time for cultural deconstruction as the head-miked instructor and his partner walk through the seemingly intricate steps on a raised stage in the Moray House College students union, off Edinburgh's Canongate. Five long ranks of men and five of women are lined up and start swinging into action, the more experienced guiding the dazed and confused, smiling encouragement until the step is mastered. Then the women move along the row as the men stand still and each gains a new partner for the next move, ensuring no-one is lumbered with a dud for more than a few minutes.  This is the welcoming world of ceroc, derived from the French c'est le rock, a phenomenon that is sweeping a generation of twenty- and thirtysomethings away from the show-off exhibitionism of clubland and straight into the arms of a stranger.

It may be partner-based and, in the finest non-PC tradition, male-led, but it is a far cry from dirty dancing, instead falling firmly into the good clean fun category - chic and cheerful, a ballroom blend of jive and rock 'n' roll with a generous soupçon of Gallic panache.  At this lesson, novice faces are an almost comical study of concentration. More relaxed old hands may take pride in their fancier footwork, but in the beginners' class the atmosphere is friendly and reassuringly non-competitive. When a dour, thin-lipped man in a black shirt chides his partner for her bizarre hand movements the entire row quivers with vicarious indignation. Criticism is not the done thing.  Hands are important, though, as the emphasis lies in arm movements rather than what the feet may be doing - the man sending the woman into a "Wurlitzer" spin, bodies up close in a "comb", bodies passing in a "'manstep". Continued on next page

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