About Us

Dancelife History

Ledinko was founded in 1976 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as an international trading company and the management of franchised dance shops. The name was changed to Dancelife in 1979 when the company decided to concentrate solely on the sale of dancing shoes to the big market of Social Dancing in Western Europe.

As a result of the close contacts with the studio owners, the trading instincts of Dancelife would quickly sense upcoming trends in dancing. Packages of instructional videos, music and clothing were developed to assist dance teachers in introducing Aerobics – Country Line dancing – Argentine Tango – Salsa – Tapdance/ Riverdance – Streetdance and HipHop. Music was made available for such hypes as Disco, Lambada, Macarena etc.

Being on the ball all the time placed the Dancelife label on the summit as most innovative supplier to the dance world, resulting in Awards by dance teachers’ organizations all over Europe and the prestigious Business Award of the Town of Rotterdam – back then the world’s largest transit port and economic motor of the Netherlands.

When Philips introduced the CD-Player in 1984, Dancelife developed a pitch-control device, an essential requirement for dance studios, to pitch the music to the right tempo. After having sold 500 CD-players, Dancelife had thus created its market for dance-CDs for the dance industry and its music catalogue was converted from Vinyl to CD. Adapting to the new era of music availability, DancelifeMusic developed a unique and comprehensive streaming system for dance studios, offering all of the above mentioned dance music next to Ballroom with over 40,000 tracks already available, adding the latest danceable releases monthly.

Dancelife was also the first company to introduce POP-Music for Ballroom Dancing to please the younger dancers. This idea met with a vast success, quickly followed by other dance music labels. This Dancelife initiated development has resulted in the fact that students can now dance to nearly any music.

Focusing on the dance competitors, Dancelife innovated new shoemaking techniques for competition dancers, the idea being that with more intensive training; the traditional techniques were inadequate and would have their adverse effect on the joints at a later age of the dancer. By using computerized animations of dancing and implementing – wherever possible – the same materials that are used in the shoes for other sports disciplines, comfort has been greatly improved. The Dancelife GTI-Series of Latin Sandals was developed, offering improved cushioning and sports lining to prevent burning feet.
The Dominator technique of shoemaking for men was immediately copied by other shoe manufacturers.

Dancelife continues to innovate, designing practice wear and new shoe styles, either under the Dancelife label or under private label for the various other trendsetting companies in dance apparel.