I am guessing that most of us go to dances where they line the ladies up on one end and the gentlemen on the other for a Foxtrot mixer; many of us where I go dancing wish they would not do them while others seem to like them. What is the feeling here?

"Wherever you go, you represent the team. You will talk like, you will look like and you will act like the most dignified professional in your hometown" - Vince Lombardi to his players.

Lyndie,

The Foxtrot mixer that I refer to is generally done by having the ladies and gentlemen lining up on opposite sides of the dance floor and meeting up one by one in the middle and dancing down the length of the line and breaking off at the end and getting back in line and moving forward to meet the next partner.

Like Dronak I don't really care for them and for the same reason; I would rather ask for or be asked for my own dances.

"Wherever you go, you represent the team. You will talk like, you will look like and you will act like the most dignified professional in your hometown" - Vince Lombardi to his players.

Thanks for the explanations of the mixer dances.
I think I understand now!

I don't mind them too much. When I was working at the studio *grumbles* we did fox trot mixers at all of our parties and it was a great way for me to be able to say hi to each student in case I didn't get to dance with them anymore that night. I've never had them in a social situation but even there i'm sure that I wouldn't mind. I'm kind of a shy guy when it comes to making that first step towards talking to a girl I don't know so a fox trot mixer would help me out.
~LB

You Haven't Truly Made It Until Your Head Is On A Pez Dispenser

A "mixer" is just some way of (semi-)randomly pairing people up to dance for a short time, not even a full song, just a short part of one. This can be done in various ways including lines pairing up one couple at a time or circles pairing up everyone at once. In a line-type one you'd typically keep the music playing all the time, dance down the floor, get back in line, and repeat. For a circle-type one, you need some signal to tell people when to stop dancing and circle up again for a new partner. That could be done by stopping the music or using a whistle or something. I'm sure there are names for at least some types of mixers, but I don't know what they all are. A "foxtrot mixer" would just be a mixer where the dance used for it is a foxtrot instead of say a waltz.

Personally I don't like mixers. I'll ask people when I want to ask them and I'll accept requests from any woman who asks assuming I know the dance. I don't need mixers forcing me to dance with people. They can be good, but I don't like them.

If you're going to do them though, I think it's generally better if you do it in such a way that most of the people can be dancing at the same time. The circle style pairings are great for that since everyone gets a partner at the same time. OK, an uneven male:female ratio throws things off, but the people who miss a cycle will probably get someone on the next partner change, so it's not too big of a deal. The linear ones aren't quite as good because you still have a large fraction of the dancers standing in line waiting for their turn. The snowball can be even worse in a sense. That's where one or two couples start dancing for a bit, then they're told to get a new partner which doubles the number of people on the floor. (The number of dancers grows and grows just like a rolling snowball increases in size, hence the name.) Repeat until everyone's dancing. Ghostdancer seems to have a different definition of a snowball, but this is the one I've always heard. The problem with this is that some people may not get picked until the end for whatever reason and end up sitting out nearly the entire mixer. For those people, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a mixer.

Just a few thoughts on the subject.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

Dronak,

Actually your description is the one I am referring to; I left out the part of two couples starting and at the swing dances I attend people form a circle to get it started and in the end there are enough couples switching and that's the part that in a way reminds me of Salsa Rueda if I understand Rueda correctly. I have never done Rueda; only watched it a few times.

"Wherever you go, you represent the team. You will talk like, you will look like and you will act like the most dignified professional in your hometown" - Vince Lombardi to his players.

What exactly is a foxtrot mixer? I have never heard of it. How does it work ?

I myself don't really care for mixers. For one thing I don't like to do Foxtrot as it is not one of my favorite dances and I get a lot more out of a dance when I ask for one myself or get asked by someone - and I'll dance with anyone who asks me, rather than doing so at someone's direction.

There's that other one called a Snowball which I don't mind where you switch partners on command and is often done to a swing. Kind of a variation of Salsa Rueda.

One that I do like is done at the monthly swing dance I attend called "Stop Boogie Woogie" which is a song where on the word "stop" you stay motionless in whatever position you and your partner are in and on the words "now boogie!" you resume dancing. Has or does anyone else do this exact same thing?

"Wherever you go, you represent the team. You will talk like, you will look like and you will act like the most dignified professional in your hometown" - Vince Lombardi to his players.

Ghostdancer,
Just to clear up a comment you made... Rueda is danced in a circle and then you have a person in the middle who calls out commands and when the command is shouted, every couple does the step on the next set of 8 beats and then when the caller calls for the switch, the switch is made kind of like a cross body lead.

The entire dance is very fun and very exciting to participate in, especailly in a club setting when you just go around the room and give the ebala (I think I spelled that wrong but that's ok) sign to get people into a circle and just start it.

~LB

You Haven't Truly Made It Until Your Head Is On A Pez Dispenser

I wonder if you know of another mixer dance, which has the opposite effect, vis; the Monte Carlo. In this dance you start with a full dancefloor and end up with one couple, who usually carry off a small prize. Can be fun!
Maybe!