Great dj. There are two kinds of dj's that I love: 1) the kind whose encyclopedic knowledge of the entire blues repetoire is utilized in introducing me to music I never knew I needed to have, cherish and listen to over and over again; 2) the subtler greatness that comes with a dj who plays songs I've always loved, but don't seem to be played very often.
In both cases, there's an instinctive mastery of pace and variation. There's nothing I hate more than the same genre/sub-genre played over and over again. It's wastes the versatility that is blues and limits the an evening's pleasure to the kind of partner who fits a given style. At a place like Waid's, you could play the Alphabet Song and get a crowded floor, but the energy that comes from an amazingly well-played set mixed with familiar, unfamiliar and well-contrasted songs is astounding.
Great partners. Last night I got to dance with two of my favorites. It's hard to calculate exactly how many favorites I have, given my generally emphatic nature, but the super-duper-all-time favorites are rare enough that it's more of an event when it occurs. I vaguely categorize favorites into three (or four) different styles, centering around the way leads use their energy:
- The Riffers and Cutters - these leads are generally light to airy, and sometimes the word "lead" barely seems appropriate. It's all play; it's counterpoint and polyphonics over melody and harmony, with some magical element of partnership holding it all together. Both partners have an extensive degree independance. Sometimes it's a traditional dance off - "I do x, what will you do in response" - sometimes lead and follow switches off so quickly it's hard to tell who is taking which role... because it's so barely partner dancing, and so easily could simply become two people doing their own groove thing, the sustained connection is a touch uncanny and pretty incredible.
- The Bombastic-Elastic Leads - these leads are all about compression and release; a mounting build up of energy, an explosion and and a controlled stop; a dance of starts and stops,full of contrasts. A dance built off of the things that can be done using momentum and leverage. It's a style approximating the best of fast lindy or a really good tango nuevo. It also usually involves a great deal of lifts, leverage moves, skids, drops, slides and anything else that ultimately requires strength, strong partnership, and a little bit of fearlessness. A lot of really awful dancers are attempting to become these leads, since this can be one of the flashier and more entertaining styles to watch; but they lack the elasticity or partnership skills to achieve anything more than jarring. Take away the ability to build and absorb energy and you have a wretched, wrenching "dance." On the other hand, add just the right amount of hydraulic suspension with that fearlessness and you have one of the biggest thrill rides imaginable. It's also a versatile style, being adaptable to both fast songs and slow ones depending on the amount of energy and stretch one allows to build.
- The Blues-Milongueros - Alternately known as house-party dancers, or micro-bluesers. These leads can make an entire dance without taking a step; they lead with *every single part of their body* and I follow in kind. A dance with this sort may be built entirely from harmonized body isolations in obscure muscles, but it likely also involves a fair amount of counter-balance, compression, and leverage. It can be so subtle as to be virtually non-existant to the naked eye, but it carries through the body like a shockwave. Oh the feeling! The focus! I've said before that in a good tango, I am so in tune my partner that I can feel an itch on his foot and this is that same feeling. It's the same meditative state that one reaches off a good tango, but transposed into blues vocabulary. It's also heart-breakingly intimate and affectionate in a way that adds meaning to the dance. And like the milongueros, these leads tend to be the most musical, matching every twitch, shake and shimmy to the music in an innovative and refreshing way.
The best leads have a little of each of these and supply a dizzying versatility. I should mention there are also the fusionistas, who aren't really a separate category, since they bring different steps and techniques instead of a different energy, but in any style these are fun. One of my leads last night led some of the best tango I've danced in months. Simple stuff, but exquisitely executed and sensationally delicious. Amusingly, he doesn't tango, generally disliking the music. He also led me in some of the tastiest swing outs I've done since I moved to Seattle. Lindy is definitely my most hit or miss dance in terms of connection. A lot of times, I just can't feel my lead's pacing; maybe our musicality clashes; maybe I just don't have a good sense of his energy. It can be extraordinarily frustrating. But these were perfect! Fast, musical, dynamic, elastic, giddy. When it doesn't work, it's dreadful, but I'll give lindy the fact that very little matches a that rare awesome swing connection.
Great State of Mind. The most important thing for a good dance, of course, is me. Some nights I simply can't get out of my head and it shows. I'll grimace through a beginner dance, scoping the crowd and wondering where the good partners are. I won't be able to pay attention to the good leads. I'll throw my energy around inefficiently and conflict with the lead's energy. Other nights, I'm just there in my body.
To a large degree following is about taking off the brakes. I can't describe it better. Blues, more than any other dance, is about "looseness," but what this means exactly is fairly elusive. Nobody wants to dance with a dish rag; a follow with an unengaged core and spaghetti arms is a terror. And it categorically is not about shaking one's hips maniacally; the roll of the hips detached from the momentum that causes the movement is actually antithetical to looseness and interferes with a dance faster than anything.
My best understanding is that sometimes - and there always is an exception to the rule in blues, even if there are no rules - the best following is one that uses no more nor less than the energy recieved. Of course, this is a baseline. Sometimes the follow wants to change the energy of the dance, and may do so by unobtrusively playing the lead's role, using the lead's energy in an unexpected way, absorbing some, rebounding some... But in order to whole-heartedly follow, this principle is fairly solid.
Unless I'm intending to do so, I ideally don't move with my own energy, but I also don't simply absorb my lead's energy and let it stop dead in my body. A lot of times when we teach the idea of the lead "moving the follow," the follow's instinct is to become a barrier, an inanimate obstacle conflicting with his forward energy and stopping it dead. Better than no connection, but just barely. This isn't letting the lead's energy move her; this is resisting his energy. Instead, I allow it to move through me, like a breeze ruffling a sheet on a clothes line.
Which comes back to taking off the brakes. When I'm driving down a hill I can either use both my brakes and the gas, or I can use neither; both will get me to the bottom of the hill. The former is safer and gives me more control; it also essentially involves absorbing the kinetic energy from the incline and then using my own to move. The latter hits a giddy sweet spot that cannot be matched. There's still control - I have to steer down that hill, the car has to be intact enough to allow the wheels to roll freely - but only this much and no more. It's the same principle in any dance, I suspect. In tango, for instance, there is the free leg, which "is moved by the lead," into boleos and ganchos and piernazos with an airy free range of motion that looks stilted if the follow attempts to initiate on her ow.
When I'm dancing with a blues-milonguero, the best I can dance is to become completely supple - controlled enough that every ounce of his energy can channel through my body uninterrupted. In this way, a simple motion ripples through my body unconsciously through pure forces of nature and anatomy, building and changing in ways I may not consciously have anticipated. The less I try to control my movements, the more complex and in tune our dance connection can become, because I never risk interfering with it. When I'm dancing with a bombastic-elastic, I'm allowing the weight of my body to provide resistance, allowing the energy he's given me to fizz up in my body into that explosion and letting it push me into movement without ever applying the breaks, instead letting him choose when to absorb that energy again.
So, as I said, excellent night. It's so great when everything is on.
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