Dancing Classes – Thurles Club For Dancing

You are retired, the kids are gone and you want to re-kindle lost youth or maybe you are getting married shortly, you possess two left feet and live in dread of that first dance in front of all your guests, – well have we got good news for you.

Thurles Club For Dancing

The Club for Dancing here in Thurles are holding their next set of dance classes, for beginners, starting on Tuesday 31st of August in the Premier Ballroom.
Before you say “I can’t afford dance classes” the charge is just €20 for a six week course, which starts each Tuesday at 8.30pm sharp and concludes at 10.00pm.  This €20 charge is just to covers the clubs cost of advertising, hire of the hall, etc.

Dance has always been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since the birth of human civilizations. Movement of the body through dance, to music, has been long regarded as a form of  communication between humans, creating social interaction.
The aim of these very enjoyable classes is to teach people the basic steps of the Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep.

Young people may not be aware, but when ‘Rock and Roll‘  first emerged in the early 1950s, record companies were uncertain as to what style of dance would be most applicable to this music. Famously, Decca Records initially labelled its Rock and Roll releases as “Foxtrots”, most notably “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets. Since that recording, which by some estimates, went on to sell more than 25 million copies, “Rock Around the Clock” is technically the biggest-selling “Foxtrot” of all time.

In California the waltz was banned by Mission Fathers until after 1834 because of the “close” dancing position.

The close contact with one’s partners body back then, contrasted sharply with the stately dances of the aristocracy, who danced the minuets, polonaises, and quadrilles, and one was sure one kept one’s distance.

A first-hand account of a village dance in the latter part of the eighteenth century read:
“The men dancers held up the dresses of their partners very high so that they should not trail and be stepped on, wrapped themselves both tightly in the covering, bringing their bodies as closely together as possible, and thus whirling about went on in the most indecent positions. As they waltzed around on the darker side of the room, the kissing and the hugging became still bolder.”

Naturally, the scandalized upper classes could not endure to have the lower classes having all the fun, and so, in time, the waltz finally achieved a degree of legitimacy, yet not losing any of its basic dance appeal.

Henry Louis Menken an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture once wrote:

“The waltz never quite goes out of fashion; it is always just around the corner; every now and then it returns with a bang. There is something about a waltz that is irresistible. It is sneaking, insidious, disarming, lovely. Try it on the fattest and sedatest or even on the thinnest and most acidulous of women, and she will be ready, in ten minutes, for a stealthy smack behind the door, nay, she will forthwith impart the embarrassing news that her husband misunderstands her and drinks too much and is going to Cleveland, Ohio, on a business trip tomorrow.”

Now here in Thurles, we will have none of that carry on in the Premier Hall, if you please, but we assure you that after six weeks even the shyest individual will be observed leaping around the dance floor.

So mark your diary folks:

Date: Tuesday 31st August. Time: 8.30pm Sharp to 10.00pm.  Age Group: Suitable for over 16s. Venue: Premier Hall, Thurles.

Contact: Tom Gleeson, Tel No: 087-9732837 for all further information.