What is the Viennese Waltz?

Answer 1

The Viennese Waltz is a fast-paced ballroom dance, set to 3/4 music, with a 1-2-3 1-2-3 lilt to it. Like its name reveals, it comes from Vienna, Austria, and many classical Viennese waltz numbers were composed by Austrian musicians. In standardised ballroom dance competitions, the Viennese waltz is set to music speeds of about 58-60 bars per minute.

Though very fluid and graceful when performed properly, it is actually a fast dance, and is the fastest of the International Style Standard dances. A true Viennese Waltz contains only turns and changes, and moves around the ballroom in an anti-clockwise fashion continuously, i.e.

• The Natural Turn
• The Reverse Turn
• The Closed Change Forward
• The Closed Change Backward

Standardisation by International Style ballroom teachers has added a move called the Fleckerl, which essentially spins the couple together as one unit on one spot, and the Contra Check, which is a very quick move that puts the woman into a rather steep backward dip (Note: This is an inadequate description, see the first few seconds of the video).

For a video demonstration of International Style Viennese Waltz, see:

www.YouTube.com/watch?v=iwdWE-X2vRI