Working with Nate again has been really interesting. In addition to confronting some old favorite " bad habits" of mine, it's actually managed to universalize my understanding of dance slightly more. Concepts and ideas that have been inherent in my tango instruction and blues/swing dancing are actually the same in my rhythm to an extent further than I knew. Funny to be reintroduced to concepts you thought were second nature in light of a different technique. Last week, we focused on partnering and again I came back to the concepts of elasticity, motion and energy.
Sometimes my understanding on music is challenging to articulate, because it is highly intuitive and followed by theory to bevel the edges of my own understanding of what I want to do when I hear the music. Inevitably everything I describe turns into allegories and metaphors. In this case, I think of the "beat" as a drum that we are hitting with our bodies. The final part of the step being the *hit*. Being on beat in simplest terms means hitting that beat, but the journey to hitting that beat can follow myriad paths.
The "half time" and further fractionalizing of a beat (and one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a... for instance) is a way of understanding that, but for me the simpler idea is that the space between beats can be filled with our movement towards a step in different ways. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but dance abhors motionlessness. Stillness, yes, please, but there is always motion in dance. I remember sitting out on my porch a few days ago looking at the trees and the landscape. Although everything appeared absolutely still, things were always moving and growing. Eventually a flower fell of the tree as a result of forces acting on it likely for days. Just because we do not see the motion, does not mean it is not there. And moreover when we dance and wish to create a sense of stillness, this does not mean killing that natural energy of movement.
Since each step requires a million micro-steps (before you walk, you must shift your upper body forward, bend your knee, build momentum, extend the leg...), the way we divide these micro-steps to fit within the music defines the timbre of the movement. We can stay relatively stationary until just before the beat and then rapidly move to the next beat, where we hold stationary again - this is that sharp staccato motion you might see associated with the older more D'arienzo type milonguero styles. You can move evenly through the beat, which has a more uniform flowing feel. Or you can hesitate for a second, building the energy for the step, accelerate through half of the beat and then deccelerate into the step - this gives a wonderful mix of motion and control, which somebody once described to me as a hydraulic way of dancing.
The stationary hold in any of these styles is actually rife with energy, building more and more spring and compression for the explosive finality and requires a sequence of internal motions to absorb the energy once we land. This is similar to catching a baseball - you don't merely put your hand out and stop the motion of a fastball if you want to catch it; instead you intercept it, move your hand with the momentum of the ball for a brief while as you slow its course and eventually both you and the ball come to a stop. The speed through which you move from one beat to the next is directly proportional to how long the wind up and absorbing take within that motion. The more wind-up, the faster the move and the more absorption will be necessary.
The beating of the rhythm is metaphorical, but it can be mirrored in the body. This is why a perfectly timed boleo has a snap created out of allowing the leg to fly loosely and then rebound as the orientation of body and energy of movement is changed. It's a natural reaction to the creation of an equal and opposite action, but to lead it requires an understanding of the moments surrounding the beat, as most of the action occurs there. As we absorb the energy of one move, we can use that motion to create the compression to spring into the next.
This requires understanding and connection between both lead and follow. The difference between the necessary elasticity in lead-follow and being a "heavy" lead or follow is how we use that tension. The ideal connection is one that gives exactly what it gets. Before I take a movement that the lead gives me, I give a little or a lot (depending on the energy) of contrary motion and this in turn allows for that build and release of momentum that takes me between steps. That means once the step actually begins, all tension is released. A heavy follow merely remains stationary when given energy and puts the idea of "tension" or "compression" entirely into her arms, which results in arm tussles. A follow attempting to be "light" may instead refuse to meet to the energy given her (letting it diffuse through limp arms and an unconnected core), drastically limiting the scope and strength of motion available to both partners.
I think that dancing with the music provides an additional common ground between lead and follow - at least so long as both can hear it. For instance, if a follow does an embellishment and you can feel that she has initiated one, instead of having no idea how long that embellishment might take, you have certain time spans that you can expect to wait - half a beat, a full beat... etc. and this allows a certain shorthand to supplement your natural feel and allow you to enjoy the additional movement while changing your own timing accordingly if it needs accommodation.
As a follow, I try to follow the lead first and foremost, but it becomes particularly disorienting to dance off-beat. It's similar to the kind of clutter that occurs, when a lead has other little tics that may or may not be intended as leads but which conflict with other body language. There's an instinct to move with the music and an instinct to move with the lead, which in the best of all dances is perfectly complimentary. Granted, my interpretation of the music may not be the same as the lead's and there's novelty in that which allows a grand sharing of perceptions through lead and embellishment, just so long as I can actually see that there is a version of the music. Still, one of the most amazed things I can murmur about a lead to evidence my sense of connection is "we hear the same music!"
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Update:
This week, it was east coast swing and mambo - talk about playing with the beat. Competitive ECS and social swing are entirely different creatures, it should be said initially. Competitive, for instance, is far more upright and incorporates a lot of latin motion (albeit far looser) from the other rhythm dances. There's a universal sense of momentum and elasticity, but still quite different.
But returning to the concept of music - competitive ECS focuses with a laser pointer on the distinctive musical elements of swing music. Swing is divided into triple-time, but without a step on the 2. The downbeat is emphasized. This gives it that rubato feeling, with the delay in motion on the two and the heavier landing on the three.
Now in theory, we all do that, but in practice, most of the time people swing very evenly, so that their triple-steps are equally divided in time and emphasis. This is perfectly functional, but lacks the styling that really distinguishes swing. There are motions to be done *exactly with* every division of the beat, something that can usually be found in the snare drum or other underlying percussion in a swing song, so you'll know if you match it up or not.
Oh and then mambo. I haven't gone on too much about the agonizing process of listening over and over again to the om-ba-ba-ba-BA-ba of the snare in order to really get the whole "dance on two" aspect of mambo. That was years ago and ingrained enough.
What's super challenging about mambo is that it is FAST. The settling you might have on a non-moving beat in rumba will not be happening, because the contrast between still and moving creates an illusion of quickness that matches the music and sharpens the dance. What's fun, but also terrifying about mambo is that you can choose to emphasize any beat except the one. The *one* is static, but I can emphasize the two (my first step), the four (the last step and return to hold) or the three (the rock step, which to me is the most challenging and interesting to emphasize).
As a follow, I try to follow the lead first and foremost, but it becomes particularly disorienting to dance off-beat. It's similar to the kind of clutter that occurs, when a lead has other little tics that may or may not be intended as leads but which conflict with other body language. There's an instinct to move with the music and an instinct to move with the lead, which in the best of all dances is perfectly complimentary. Granted, my interpretation of the music may not be the same as the lead's and there's novelty in that which allows a grand sharing of perceptions through lead and embellishment, just so long as I can actually see that there is a version of the music. Still, one of the most amazed things I can murmur about a lead to evidence my sense of connection is "we hear the same music!"
**********
Update:
This week, it was east coast swing and mambo - talk about playing with the beat. Competitive ECS and social swing are entirely different creatures, it should be said initially. Competitive, for instance, is far more upright and incorporates a lot of latin motion (albeit far looser) from the other rhythm dances. There's a universal sense of momentum and elasticity, but still quite different.
But returning to the concept of music - competitive ECS focuses with a laser pointer on the distinctive musical elements of swing music. Swing is divided into triple-time, but without a step on the 2. The downbeat is emphasized. This gives it that rubato feeling, with the delay in motion on the two and the heavier landing on the three.
Now in theory, we all do that, but in practice, most of the time people swing very evenly, so that their triple-steps are equally divided in time and emphasis. This is perfectly functional, but lacks the styling that really distinguishes swing. There are motions to be done *exactly with* every division of the beat, something that can usually be found in the snare drum or other underlying percussion in a swing song, so you'll know if you match it up or not.
Oh and then mambo. I haven't gone on too much about the agonizing process of listening over and over again to the om-ba-ba-ba-BA-ba of the snare in order to really get the whole "dance on two" aspect of mambo. That was years ago and ingrained enough.
What's super challenging about mambo is that it is FAST. The settling you might have on a non-moving beat in rumba will not be happening, because the contrast between still and moving creates an illusion of quickness that matches the music and sharpens the dance. What's fun, but also terrifying about mambo is that you can choose to emphasize any beat except the one. The *one* is static, but I can emphasize the two (my first step), the four (the last step and return to hold) or the three (the rock step, which to me is the most challenging and interesting to emphasize).
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