There's Slow Fox, and there's Slow Fox...

I've picked some of my favorite Foxtrot performances from the recent 10 years to share.  The trends are so different.  The latest one from the top rank amateur couple Evaldas & Ieva as I could see, is still in development.  I don't know how Slow Fox will end up looking like in the next few years, but for sure, it is definitely not the same old Slow Fox as we have come to know it.

I view the current Slow Fox being evolved from the traditional harmonized partner ballroom dancing which emphasized swing action and smooth movement to a more modern lyrical expression that emphasizes body fluidity with exaggerated and dynamic shapes and individuality in a couple.  As any trained eyes could tell, a lot of the classical pure swing action is missing from the current Slow Fox dancing, despite the extensive movement.

Let's take a stride down the memory lane of this evolution.

Luca & Loraine (Barry) Baricchi have held the reign of the arguably the most smooth, jazzy and harmonized partnership in Slow Foxtrot.

Mirko Gozzoli & Edita Daniute have developed something entirely different with each became a star of his/her own. 

Now the students of Mirko/Edita & Fabio, Evaldas Sodeika & Ieva Zukauskaiti have taken this development even further.  The body abilities of these two are probably the best so far in the dancesport world. They have much softer exaggerated shapes with very soft legs.  I actually preferred their dancing 5 months ago to the recent performance but I trust that they're exploring this new trend & trying to stretch this big shape & unconventional choreography to the extreme and see where it would lead to.

So here're the few performance clips of these wonderful legendary (or to be legendary) couples:

Luca & Loraine


Mirko & Edita

Evaldas & Ieva (5 months ago)


Evaldas & Ieva (1 month ago)