"Dancing Tid-bits" Issue #114, Thursday, August 8, 2002


Dancing Tid-bits
Cha Cha Cha Chasses

Hi Max, I love reading your 'Dancing Tid-bits' which is very informative & interesting. I'm a beginner learning my favorite 'cha cha cha'. Would you please tell me the names of different chasses in 'cha cha cha?' Thanks. Best wishes, Nina
Thank you Nina for helping me to pick a good topic for my Dancing Tid-bits. Cha Cha is an easy dance to learn and if we can "master" different types of chasses, we have mastered the dance. You could be doing different basic chasses in open to close position and really with a little style you can look quite advanced and impressive throughout the song.

In this Tid-bits I will only enumerate the well known types of Chasses done in this dance. I am sure many readers will want more details and the technique. We will discuss some aspects in the coming weeks.
  1. Basic side to side
  2. Progressive Basic
  3. Lock Step
  4. Left Foot Ronde
  5. Hip Twist
  6. Foot Slip Chasse
  7. Cuban Break Chasse
  8. Time Step
  9. Other Innovations such as changing Timing etc. (Guapacha).
The best references for study are the Laird book "Technique of Latin American dancing" and of course the new ISTD manual on Cha Cha Cha. I am sure there are many videos but I learned a lot from Corky and Shirley's video after lessons from my teachers.

So go ahead and study for this week and next week we can go into some details. With Best Wishes, Max


This article is part of and should be seen in the frame context of Dancesport UK, Tid-bits