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I f you've recently been contemplating dance classes, now is the time.Why now? For one thing, social dancing, according to an article published in April in the Los Angeles Times, is a proven remedy for getting through tough times. During the Great Depression, a dance craze swept the country, and is believed to have helped people move past the pain of economic stagnation. A similar article in the New York Times in March observed that today's social dancers, like '30s Lindy hoppers, use dancing to connect with their community.

But an even bigger reason that now is the time is because the local options this weekend are wide and varied.

This year's DanceFest - the fourth annual festival coordinated by Heather Haugland, Tim Adair and others - features instruction in no less than 18 different styles of dance, from tango to swing, and also offers live music when the day is done.

Time to tango

Rebecca Smith, one of this year's guest instructors, will lead a class on Argentine tango with her dance partner Eric Lindgren. She will also hang around for a week after DanceFest to continue giving classes.

Both Smith and Lindgren have visited Buenos Aires (Lindgren lived there for a year) in order to immerse themselves in the dance form and the culture where it originated.

Argentine tango is the "pure" form of the dance, Smith said, and is characterized by improvisation and fluidity of movement. Ballroom tango is a much more rigid, pattern-oriented affair, and arose from Americans' need to tone down the scandalous leg-brushing and kicking-through-skirts of Argentine tango.

"When it was adapted to ballroom, it lost also its sensuality," Smith said.

Though lacking a specific formula, Argentine tango isn't as hard to learn as it looks, Smith said. It consists of relatively simple movements that a beginner can pick up quickly. The complexity comes with practice, as dancers learn to improvise and, perhaps more importantly, learn to communicate and coordinate with their partner.

"Tango offers something extremely unique in its focus on connection, because its improvisational nature is really paramount, "Smith said.

Learning the form is a kinesthetic exercise grounded in learning to read another's body movements and physical cues, she said.

"At its base, it's an exchange, an expression of communication between partners," she said. "You can go anywhere in the world and dance tango with strangers - it's its own language."

And if you get stuck with a partner you don't particularly like, there's a built-in way out: Tango music is arranged in sets of three or four songs, called a tanda, and partners routinely switch after sets.

As with all DanceFest classes, bringing your own partner to tango class is entirely optional. Partner switching, in any case, is highly encouraged.

The versatility of swing

Another option this weekend is East Coast swing, led by local instructor Alysia McLain. McLain, who works at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum, has been teaching swing and Charleston lessons in Juneau since 2005.

East Coast swing differs from West Coast swing, she said, in that it is a circular-patterned dance, whereas West Coast swing consists of back-and-forth movements.

It is not a hard dance to learn, McLain said, and once learned, swing is very versatile. After you have the basics of the turns down, for example, you can use those same movements in salsa dancing.

"You can just change the footwork and the timing so what you learn in one dance you can use in another," she said.

And it's easy to throw in a few fancy flourishes to make yourself look like you've been at it for awhile.

"You don't have to be a great dancer to be able to learn these variations that make you look like you know what you're doing."

Those who take McLain's class can show off their skills at Friday night's Thunder Mounting Big Band show.

New this year

Tango and swing are but two options. There's also lambada, taught by a visiting Brazilian instructor Dora Oliveira; bachata, taught by Haughland's husband Antonio Diaz; hustle, taught by local Pat Belec; two-step, taught by visiting instructor Rachel Lidskog; and waltz, taught by locals Dan and Lorinda Kassner, and many others.

Three of this year's classes - samba, Polynesian dance and nia - are oriented toward single dancers, said Haugland.

"We like to have a few dances that are no partners, on-your-own type dance," she said.

Nia, a free-form, expressive dance that brings in elements of martial arts and healing arts taught by local instructor Deanna Ewing, is offered for the first time this year.

Also new this year is a Mambo On-2 class, taught by visiting instructor Esteban Beamon. On-2 has gained enormous popularity in clubs in New York and, though difficult to describe, shifts the accent of the dancer's rhythm to the second and fifth beats of the standard eight-count salsa step.

Finally, children's classes also have been added, led by Juneau Dance Unlimited's Creative Director Janice Hurley. Three creative movement classes are offered, and are divided into age ranges: 3-5, 5-7 and 8-12. Parents are asked to attend both the 3-5 and 5-7 age-range classes.

For more information, or to view a complete schedule, visit juneaudancefest.org..