More Reviews 
Dance BooksBook Review
By Doris Pease, Senior Editor, Dancing USA Magazine
Feb/March 1998 Issue
Jeff Allen, a dance instructor in Cranston
RI, designs his books to provide the most basic and simplistic dance lessons and dance
experience.
Allen says, "It is very suitable for those who want to just get by. Anyone who expects
to dance well must be prepared to invest alot of time and money."
Quickstart To Social Dancing©
is a friendly beginner level dance manual covering
basic information including direction, timing and frame. There is a special section for
the bride and groom with details of the "First Dance" and how to make it meaningful
and memorable.
Allen's second book is The Complete Guide To Slow Dancing© with a tempo range
as low as 14 measures or bars of music per minute to 26 BPM. He says, " Without
some alternative, couples have resorted to junior high school technique. They huddle
in place, rocking back and forth. All the while, the movement, romance and elegance of
ballroom dancing are in the back of their minds.
"Once you have studied and rehearsed the content
of this guide to slow dancing there will be no reason why you cannot simply and comfortably
dance together to the symbolic and beautiful love ballads in a form deserving of the
music. What I have done is taken pieces of the waltz, fox trot, and rumba, and over my
15 years of teaching, converted these segments into what I call Slow Dancing©
Allen is the recipient of 30 Top Teacher
Awards and amateur and professional championships competing in both the American and
International styles.
He teaches techniques in forward and
backward walks, frame, dance positions, and slow dance figures with easy to understand
descriptions and photographs.
I have been to wedding dances where
the nervous couple would certainly have been happier if they had studied this book before
the wedding so they would look good and elegant in stature on the dance floor.
Book Review
By Karla Schriner , DANCE TEACHER NOW
Magazine
March 1997 Issue
Good for teachers to send home as a practical
guide for beginners, this book thoroughly covers basic information including dance direction,
timing, and frame. In class, the teacher need only review the basics. Students can then
move on to more advanced materials and steps faster by using Quickstart at home
between lessons.
Quickstart To Social Dancing also includes sections for the bride and groom. The
special section offers advice
for the wedding couple including how to announce the first dance and present the bride.
The sections are good for teachers who have only a few lessons before their students'
"big day". Again, teachers may send the book home with their students, leaving valuable class time
to work on the dance rather than the details of the "first dance ceremony".
More Reviews
Dance Books
Click your Heels to Return Home