bio
A Doctor’s Prescription for Dance
Now is the time
for New Year’s resolutions. If you included exercising more, socializing more,
learning something new, exercising your mind more, or having more fun on your
resolution list, then we’ve got something for you. One simple activity can
provide you with all these things simultaneously. I’m of course referring to a
weekly dance class.
We are all aware
of the benefits of exercise on physical health. Research has shown that
physical exercise also has many psychological benefits, including relief from
stress and depression. Dance is a great form of physical exercise.
Other studies
have shown that continuing to learn new things as you go through life protects
you from loss of mental function and depression. The mind, like the body, needs
to be used regularly to maintain optimum performance. Dancing exercises the
mind just as much as the body.
Another factor
research has proven to aid physical and emotional health and wellbeing is the
amount of socializing you do. The more people you interact with on a regular
basis, the better your health and wellbeing. Dance classes are a great way to
meet people, develop friendships, and increase social confidence and poise.
In short, adults
need to play just as much as children do, maybe even more so. Dance is play for
adults. I think it’s the most fun you can have and still be legal!
Dance classes
provide you with all these benefits while being inexpensive, requiring little of
your time, and are so much fun that you won’t even realize you’re doing
something that’s good for you.
As a natural
health doctor, with 28 years practicing acupuncture, chiropractic, and
nutrition, I wholeheartedly recommend dance as an activity that provides you
with the biggest health-bang for the smallest $/time buck.
Marc Imlay, DC,
LAc
Kent, WA
www.DrMarcImlay.com
DANCING WITH PARTNERS OF DIFFERENT
SKILL LEVELS
Introduction
Anyone who dances socially will in the
course of an evening dance with partners of all skill levels. For the purpose
of this article, we will consider only three skill levels: 1) those
who are more skilled than you; 2) those who are less skilled than you;
and 3) those with an equivalent skill level to yours. In my opinion, with
the right attitude, one’s dancing can benefit from dancing with partners in all
three of these levels.
Dancing
With Partners of Equal Skill
Most of us begin dancing with
partners of our own skill level in a beginner level class. Yet even here you
find those with varying natural abilities like physical coordination and the
sense of rhythm. No matter what your skill level, dancing with equivalent
partners is helpful because it is easy to be relaxed with them. Learning to
relax while dancing is important. It encourages you to experiment and be
playful in your dancing and this is fun for both you and your partner.
This is the best opportunity to bust out and refine those new moves and try new
things. Always be careful to not do anything that might injure your
partner or others. It would
be a mistake to decide to dance only with those of your own skill level for
reasons that will follow.
Dancing With Partners More Skilled Than You
The next skill level budding dancers
experience occurs when they’ve gotten up the nerve to actually attend a dance.
There they encounter an intimidating number of dancers that are better than
them. If they get polite partners they will soon find that they dance their
best with partners that are better than they are. This is because the more
skilled dancers are able to make up for the less skilled dancers’ mistakes.
Dancing with those better than you can accelerate your growth as you “feel” how
to do it right, which is an entirely different style of learning than group
lessons with those of equal skill. The joy that comes from dancing with better
dancers is that of gaining new experiences and insights into all that dance has
to offer. When dancing with more experienced dancers, stay with material
you have mastered, avoid the temptation to initiate things you are just starting
to learn, but be open to allowing your partner to guide you into new waters.
Well done basics are far more enjoyable than more advanced material that is
poorly executed. Do not at this point make the mistake of dancing only with those
better than you as you will miss the benefits and pleasures of dancing with
those at other levels.
Dancing
With Partners Less Skilled Than You
If one persists with classes and
attending dances, they will improve and will encounter dances with those less
skilled than they. Leads will feel that they can’t dance up to their usual
level as accommodating their partners’ mistakes takes a lot of their attention.
It requires much more attention to the detail of leading patterns clearly, which
is a skill that will subsequently improve their leading of partners equal to or
better than themselves. Follows feel that the less experienced lead is leading
less complicated patterns and mainly basics. This could be boring unless the
follow takes advantage of this opportunity to practice and refine those
syncopations and stylings that they don’t have as much opportunity to practice
when following a more experienced lead. They will be more likely to pull out
that syncopation or styling with the better leads thereafter. Both leads and
follows can use the “simplified scenario” of dancing with a more basic partner
to experiment with improving their musicality (how they express what’s happening
in the music in their dancing). Start with well done basics, gradually
increasing the complexity of your dancing until you've reached your partners'
limit of skill. Stay at that limit until they relax and then try to take
them just a little beyond this, being careful to seamlessly accommodate any
errors they may make. This is the best opportunity you have to learn the
fine art of "damage control" which is indispensable in becoming an accomplished
dancer. Avoid the temptation to verbally instruct or criticize your
partner during the dance as this is very invalidating. The joy that comes from dancing with less
experienced dancers is that you provide them with what might very well be one of their
best dance experiences of the night. It is always fun to provide another with a
joyful experience.
Summary
Dancing with partners in each of these skill levels provides you with valuable
lessons and meaningful joys. At different stages of your dance evolution
you may feel like dancing mostly with partners in one of the above levels.
In my own experience, I was more comfortable dancing with equivalent dancers
early on. After more exposure, I preferred dancing with those who were
better than me. In recent years, I have found it just as important and
rewarding to dance
with those less skilled than me. Bear in mind that a dancer that may be
less skilled than you generally, may be better than you in some discrete areas
or know a cool pattern, syncopation, or styling that you don’t. You can
learn from and enjoy dancing with every level of dancer if you have the right
understanding and attitude. This facilitates the transformation of a group
of dancers into a dance community with everybody helping one another improve in their skill
and enjoyment of dancing.
Note: Marc welcomes comments and discussion. You can send your
responses by email to him at
marc (at symbol) SwingDanceFusion.com
back to top
Past Articles
The Three Orders of
Dancing
Terminology
THE THREE ORDERS OF DANCE
“Why
dance?” There can be many reasons, ranging from attracting potential mates
to making a living to getting exercise to just for the enjoyment of it.
I’m going to limit the rest of this article to the last reason listed, so we’ll
be focusing on the various reasons one might dance just for the fun of it.
There are three reasons one might dance for fun. I’m going to refer to
them a “First Person Dancing”, “Second Person Dancing” and “Third Person
Dancing”.
The Three Orders of Dancing
“First Person
Dancing” is dancing just for the pleasure one feels within themselves. It
is primally fulfilling to move to music. Everywhere archeologists have found
ancient human habitats, they have found musical instruments. I remember seeing
a show on PBS about music and dancing in humans and animals. There was a
beautiful flute made from an eagle bone found at one site. Their theory was
that humans originally made music and danced for the same reasons as animals;
1) to attract mates; 2) to establish ones position in the social hierarchy;
and 3) to establish territory. One might argue that we modern humans dance
for much the same reasons today. Whatever the reason, I find moving to music as
primally fulfilling as gardening, walking in undisturbed nature, or meditating.
A successful “First Person Dancer” is capable of enjoying dancing as meaningful
movement of their body to music. They feel good to themselves.
“Second
Person Dancing” involves dancing with another. In partner dancing the
individuals are able to cooperatively perform movements and feel
acceleration/deceleration forces that they cannot create when dancing alone.
This dancing involves a higher order of complexity as one must compromise ones
own movement to some degree to accommodate their partner. This expenditure is
more than amply rewarded by the joy one experiences in meaningfully connecting
to another and the music. A successful “Second Person Dancer” is able to
provide their partner with a pleasurable dance experience. They feel good to
their partner.
“Third Person
Dancing” involves performing. The purpose of this dancing is to look good
to a third party observing one dance. While the first two orders of dance are
primarily a matter of tactile feeling, this order is primarily visual. Can a
third person clearly see and understand your movements as a meaningful and
pleasing expression of the music? In short, are you able to provide a
pleasurable experience to someone watching you dance? A successful “Third
Person Dancer” is capable of pleasing an audience.
Each of these
orders of dance has its own rules. Being successful at any one of them does not
necessitate your being good at the others. Each order of dance also provides
its own unique pleasure to the dancer. But there is one common denominator
found in all three of these orders of dance; meaningful connection to and
expression of the music!
back to top
Terminology
WHAT IS FUSION DANCING?
As I research the history of the
various American and Latin dance forms, I’m left with the question, “What dance
isn’t a fusion dance?” All of these dances either resulted from the fusion of
two or more previous dances and/or evolved by incorporating elements from other
dances. Since any definition is going to be arbitrary, I’ll begin with the
arbitrary definition that “fusion dancing” is intentionally incorporating
recognizable elements of one currently distinct dance form into another. I use
the word “intentionally” because many people who dance only or principally one
dance form often don’t realize that a move they were taught was actually
borrowed from another dance form.
Fusion dancing
involves degrees of fusion. At one end of the spectrum, it is using
bridging moves to transition smoothly and seamlessly from one dance form all the
way into another and back to the original form again. An example of this is
moving from West Coast Swing (WCS) into Argentine Tango (AT) and back to WCS
again (see our Swango DVDs). Another level of fusion would be the
incorporation of elements of one dance into the structure of another.
Replacing WCS triples with Samba triples or using Samba triples as women’s
takeover adornments in WCS (see our Swamba DVD) are representative of this
degree of fusion. Subtler degrees of fusion include: 1)
replacing the pulsing unique to one dance form with another (e.g. replace the
WCS pulsing of upbeats only with Samba pulsing of every beat – see Swamba DVD);
2) replacing the dance posture unique to one dance form with another (e.g.
replace the closed “H” posture of WCS with the closed “A” posture of the Latin
Rhythm dances – see Swamba DVD); and 3) adopting the
“attitude” characteristic of one dance form in another (e.g. bringing the
smoldering reserved feline sexuality of Argentine Tango into WCS – see Swango
DVD).
Generally one
dance form is predominant and the fused form accents it. Like adding spice to
food. The food is the major component and just a small amount of spice is added
to jazz up the flavor. In cooking, the spice is an intensely concentrated
flavor. In fusion dancing, the fused elements are the flashiest, recognizable
moves characteristic of that dance form (e.g. AT ganchos fused into WCS basics –
see Swango DVDs).
Finally, “fusion
dancing” is dancing to fusion music. Many pop songs in the USA are
incorporating foreign musical rhythms. Many pop songs in foreign cultures are
incorporating the driving bass lines and rhythms of American music. This
results in fusion music that just begs for fusion dancing.
WHAT IS CROSS-DANCING?
Certain distinct
types of music have a distinct dance associated with them (e.g. Cha cha, Tango,
Rumba, Samba, Mambo, Salsa, Hip Hop, Hustle, Zydeco, Waltz). One form of
“cross-dancing” involves dancing to a song that has a distinct dance associated
with it using a different dance form (e.g. Dancing Tango to a Rumba song).
Some distinct
types of music have no distinct dance associated with them (e.g. Blues, Pop,
etc.). Dancing to this type of music with a dance style associated with another
type of music is another type of “cross-dancing” (e.g. dancing Tango to Blues
music).
Certain distinct
dances have no distinct music type associated with them (e.g. WCS, ECS, Foxtrot,
Nightclub 2 Step, etc.). If you apply one of these dance types to a song that
is associated with another type of music (e.g. dancing WCS to a Tango song) then
you are “cross-dancing”.
WHAT IS CROSS-FUSION DANCING?
If you are
“cross-dancing” (e.g. doing WCS to Tango music) and add in some elements of
Tango dancing (e.g. a gancho) for styling, you are “cross-fusion dancing” (cross
dancing and fusion dancing simultaneously).
back to top
