Thank you so much Jonathan for taking time to answer my inquiry.

Do you and everyone happen to know any "arm and top-line styling" videotape for a lady student of the International Modern Dances?

Thank you in advance.
katy

Forgot to mention that I have the ISTD books also. They are good and I agree with the opinion expressed here about them. A coach told me to order them from Europe because it was cheaper. It was! I saved a lot of money even with postage.

The "official" books are the ISTD technique books, as found in the Ballroomdancers.com book store. They are extremely informative, albeit somewhat dry. It is these books that people refer to when people are checking up on a technique or studying for an exam. They're great as study aids, but not the most exciting tool for learning new steps.

So depending on your situation, I may or may not recommend them to you. If you want to learn things for the first time, I would suggest videos. If you already have your repetoire down and you want to understand the technique better, then the books are great. Of course, a combination of both is good, too.

If you're really serious, the best solution is private lessons. Combine that with books and video, and you almost can't miss.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson

Dance Active is the name of that UK pub. You avoid it for the same reason I do. It is too costly for the content. For some reason publications like this appear in the UK. They fail to compete with existing mags on price. They also fail quite rapidly. I expect this to happen to Dance Active.
Dancing USA is a domestic rag which has an anti-international, anti-competition editorial lean. There is a new owner, but with a large readership, I expect the editorial content to remain as in the past.

Yes, I recieved my first "DanceSport Magazine" and "Dance Beat."

Thank you all.

Hey, Vanessa:

Can you list some of these websites to share with us?

Regards,

Keh Gough

Personally, I like DanceSport magazine. It has up to date articles and beautiful all color pictures. It is a US magazine put out by Colin and Joy Hilary. Cost is $16.00 for 4 issues. It is not published on a regular basis. It comes out when they have news. Recent articles included Burn the Floor, US National Championships, Argentine Tango, World Ten Dance. You can get a single issue to preview. www.dancesportmagazine.com

I recently subscribed to Dance Active magazine and received my first issue. I had heard many good things about it. However, I did not like it at all. There were very few color photos and most of the time the photos did not include captions identifying who they were. Also, each photo had the name of the photographer printed across it. Very annoying. There was a lengthy article on Blackpool that was hard to follow if you did not know the UK dancers by first name. There were couple of articles on the body-one on hormones and one on diet. There was an interview with a couple. I think I wasted my money on this one!

I like Dance Beat also. I've never been too fond of Dancing USA. Then there is the USABDA magazine which is rather dull IMO.

You can find a list of magazines at the Washington DC dancenet website. The best place to find information is the Dancescape website. DanceVision is pretty good as well.

As for videos, DanceVision has one about top line. I haven't seen it but have been pleased with the videos I have received from them. I ordered from Pro Dance. What a disappointment. The videos I ordered were of poor quality and looked like they had been shot by amateur with poor quality camera. There was backlighting so that you couldn't even see faces. I returned them but never received a refund.