There seems to be quite a difference of opinion on the approriate tempos for the different ballroom dances. Can anyone send me an approved list of the acceptable tempos that I can use to "argue" my point with the dancers? Also, what is the signifigance between the difference in tempos for "Internation" and "American" tempos?

You could also try looking at the USABDA competition tempi which is included in their rule book. It's probably on line for you to look through, but I haven't checked it for quite a while. http://www.usabda.org/ is the web site, but if you feel like looking at a page I put together about competition rules that includes the dance tempi from the last rule book I saw, you can go to the bottom of http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/dance/rules.html (my main ballroom page is at http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/ballroom.html if you're interested). There is some difference between American style and international style, but not always and not always big differences. For the most part, the tempo only really matters at competetions where people are expecting songs to be played at a standard tempo. For social dancing you usually get a range of speeds and adjust. I hope this helps.

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

I did want to add that there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to this(except compition). All tempos are subjective to a dancers personal preferances. I may prefer Int Rumba at 25 mpm and someone else may prefer 27 mpm neither is wrong. Just a personal preference.

The best place to look for approved tempos for compitions in the US is www.ndca.org in the rules and regulations. In my opinion the differences between the international and the american tempos are to sigmify the different styles of dancing. I prefer international tempos but unforunatly not all djs play them. It also allows the dancer to be able to dance a specific dance to a certain tempo of music ie. latin music. You have Bolero which is slow, Int Rumba, a little faster, Amr Rumba, even faster, then Cha Cha. Aslo tempo plays a factor in how you dance to a specific piece of music. I hope this helps.