Intro to Foxtrot Dancing

Series Summary

The Foxtrot, an American dance, was developed by Harry Fox in 1914 as a simplified dance to allow for quicker acquisition of dancing ability. Originally danced to ragtime music, the Foxtrot is now danced to swing-style big band music and artists such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong. Though it was originally designed to be very simple, the Foxtrot incorporates several different dance steps and moves that make it complex enough to be fun to dance and not very difficult to learn.

In this free video series learn to dance the Foxtrot from professional dancer and dance instructor Leslie Sack as she demonstrates Foxtrot dance steps such as the Foxtrot walk, basic step for men and ladies, left rock turn, Foxtrot promenade, right rock turn, Foxtrot patterns.

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Leslie Sack with expertvillage.com. My website is lesliesack.com, and I'm teaching you to foxtrot. It is called a get acquainted dance, and this dance is going to be done to all kinds of different music. Normally in the past, it has been known to be done to big band type music: Glen Miller, Harry Connick—that kind of music. But it can be done to either slower music or faster music, and it just depends upon how we count it and how we step with the music: that is what is going to create a different feeling. Show I am going to show you the normal way to do it, and I am also going to show you different ways to count it with the music. So I will call it slow fox trot, and the other thing that is really fast is quick step. So quick step is a super fast fox trot. So we are not going to be doing that, but just so you are a little bit educated on the subject. We are going to start out with just the basics. "