Are suites still danced to today? [closed]

I looked up ballroom dances and these were the recognized ones in America.

Ballroom Dances

The Baroque Suites

Have suites just been reduced to music only?

Up to a few years ago, I worked regularly in dance bands (in UK) playing all of the top list. But, the dancers were dwindling rapidly - older folk who couldn't get up and dance much any more, and those who died. Recently, 'Strictly Come Dancing' - a UK t.v. competition, has revived nearly all those dances. Entered by celebs and the common man alike. However, those on the Baroque list, while all very popular in their time, haven't been rekindled (yet!), but their music - like sequence dance music - still lives on. I'm waiting for 'Strictly Period Come Dancing'. There's an opening for someone!

– Tim
Sep 15 '18 at 10:16

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is about music performance per se.

– Dave
Sep 15 '18 at 15:35

This may be on topic at Music Fans (I may be wrong here - check with the mods over there)

– Doktor Mayhem♦
Sep 15 '18 at 18:48

2 Answers
2

From Wikipedia:

A characteristic of the Baroque form was the dance suite. Some dance
suites by Bach are called partitas, although this term is also used
for other collections of pieces. While the pieces in a dance suite
were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for
listening, not for accompanying dancers.

So, even in the Baroque period, while the actual dances were still popular, most dance suites composed by composers of the day weren't really meant for dancing. The composers tried to further develop the language of music which could often result in the piece being hard to dance to. For example, Bach's Cello Suites are more of a soloistic meditation (often performed in a free tempo) than dance music.

So, you can imagine that nowadays the Baroque dances aren't widely popular. Nevertheless, there are some groups of period dance (see here) that do practice Baroque period dances. Personally, I really enjoyed this video where the English Bach Festival Dancers dance to Handel's Water Music.

I'm not sure suites were danced to much, as suites, then either. The Baroque suite - though based on dance forms - was art music, in the path that led to the Symphony.

Today's composers are going to use today's dance forms of course. And there's no current art-music tradition of collecting a waltz, cha-cha, quickstep etc. into a suite in the manner of the Baroque suites.

But ballroom dancing is currently very popular, in the UK at least. In a way, they're danced in 'suites', the band will play a 'set' then take a break. (Though the more avid dancers complain if a 3-hour dance session doesn't contain 3 hours of continuous dance music!)

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