About L O Dance
Making 500 years of dance history accessible, from Renaissance courts to modern competition floors.
The Four Meanings of L
Library of Dance
The most comprehensive cross-referenced dance figure database ever assembled. 177 primary sources spanning 500 years, unified into one searchable system. Every figure, every variation, every name it's been called.
Line of Dance
The counterclockwise path dancers travel around the floor — and the thread that connects every tradition, from Renaissance courts to modern ballrooms. The universal language of partner dancing.
Life of Dance
For those on the journey to mastery. LODance organizes your entire dance life — practice tracking, teacher connections, competition preparation, and the skill progression from your first waltz to the winner's circle.
Lineage of Dance
The family tree of dance styles. See how the Waltz emerged from the German Ländler, how Tango evolved from African and European roots, how modern Quickstep traces back to foxtrot pioneers. Every dance has ancestors.
The Mission
Dance history exists in scattered sources: dusty archives, out-of-print books, fragmented syllabi, and the collective memory of teachers who learned from teachers who learned from teachers. Dance communities exist in isolation: separated by organization, geography, and tradition. A dancer in one studio has no window into another's world.
Our mission is to make those connections visible. To create a living, cross-referenced library where a dancer—whether you're exploring Renaissance history, preparing for competition, building partnerships, or tracking your 10,000-hour journey—can find what you need, understand where it came from, see how it connects to the wider world of dance, and discover the community that shares your passion.
LODance exists so that dancers can connect—with history, with each other, and with the joy that drew them to dance in the first place.
The Story
Born from a Dancer's Desire for Connection
LODance began in fall 2022 when Perry Chaffee walked into an Arthur Murray studio in Burlington, Massachusetts, and decided to start dancing. Not as a lifelong pursuit—as an adventure into the unknown.
Perry is neurodivergent and finds joy in solving complex puzzles. Dance became one. He added International Standard at SuperShag in Waltham with coach Erik Pali, then followed Erik to Dance Stream Studios and Eastern Ballroom Alliance in Newton. Then Ignis Arts in Billerica. Three studios. Multiple teachers. Multiple frameworks. The same figure had different names. The same step appeared across centuries with no bridge connecting them. And most importantly: the dancers themselves—teachers, partners, competitors—were scattered across organizations with no way to truly see each other's work or grow together.
Perry saw an impossible puzzle: 500 years of dance history, 177 primary sources, tens of thousands of variations and lineages—all fragmented, un-indexed, invisible to each other. It consumed him. Like the conspiracy theorist meme with pictures and strings connecting data points all over the walls, except with dance figures. Armed with AI tools and "legions of sub-agents," he became obsessed with solving it.
A Vision of Joy
There's a scripture that says, "Men are, that they might have joy." Perry believes dance is joy expressed. LODance is an attempt to weave together all those scattered pieces—the knowledge, the lineage, the community—so that dancers can discover the full dimensions of their art, connect with partners and teachers across invisible boundaries, and find joy in understanding where their practice comes from and where it might go.
This is the puzzle fully solved: a librarian's archive + a dancer's obsession + a tool for connection. That they might have joy.
A Community Tool
Today, LODance is a platform for anyone curious about dance. Teachers use it to understand the history behind their technique and see how their students might grow. Competitors study the evolution of figures across organizations and coaches. Dancers planning their journey can see every path available to them. Historians explore cultural patterns across centuries. And above all: dancers can find each other, understand each other's traditions, and build stronger partnerships.
Building for Dancers
LODance exists to serve dancers, teachers, choreographers, and historians. Every design decision, every figure in the database, every feature we build is guided by the simple principle: help people understand dance better.