Walter Laird, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWalter Laird
British dancer
Date of Birth: 26-Jul-1920
Date of Death: 30-May-2002
Profession: dancer
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Leo 
About Walter Laird
- Walter William Laird (26 July 1920 – 30 May 2002) was a major influence in the development of Latin American dancing in Britain after the Second World War.
- He was World Professional Latin Dance Champion three times.
- He coached many successful dancers including Allan Tornsberg, Vibeke Toft, Espen Salberg, Jukka Haapalainen, Sirpa Suutari, Donnie Burns & Ian Waite.
- Peter Maxwell & Lynn Harman were amongst his first major champions and a couple on which much of his ultimate technique was developed.
- Laird was a Fellow and Examiner of the IDTA, and until 2000, he was Secretary (and later President) of the Ballroom Dancers' Federation.Laird first danced with his sister Joan in the 1930s.
- His professional partner during the war and after was Andé Lyons (née Ashcroft, and subsequently Andé Tyrer).
- They met when Andé was sent to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough as a shorthand typist.
- One day she took dictation from Walter Laird, who was a scientist working there.
- At the end of the dictation, he asked her if she was keen on dancing.
- "By this time, the Americans were in force in the area.
- Like most of the girls, I now knew how to Jitter Bug (later called the Jive), and I was having a great time! My answer to him was that I loved dancing and that I was pretty good at it too! We made a date and to my horror it turned out Walter was a professional ballroom dancer.
- I soon realised that I was well out of my depth.
- However, Walter offered to teach me to dance properly as he thought that I had potential.
- So that was how my second career was born!" The Laird–Lyons partnership was entirely traditional ballroom dancing.
- Laird did not switch to Latin until some time after the war.
- Laird's three world championships (1962–1964) were in partnership with Lorraine Reynolds (now Rohdin), known professionally as 'Lorraine'.
- Later Walter married Julie, who continues the dance school in South London.
- One of Laird's greatest achievements was his Technique of Latin dancing, first published in 1961; further editions in 1964, 1972, 1977, 1983, 1988, 2003.
- Initially Laird followed the traditional descriptive format, but in 1972 edition he published the results of a major analysis of Latin dance, and used a tabular form, including a column for 'action used' to help definition.
- This edition was widely influential, and has since been accepted by many dance teacher organisations as a definitive work.
Read more at Wikipedia