Body Organics in dance
Yesterday, at the suggestion of the lovely and wise anobion, I attended a workshop on Body Organics in Rhythm dancing at Panache, taught by Tom Slater (who is a world-champion dancer -- not just some dude). It's a half-kinesthesiological, half-metaphysical perspective, which works just fine for me.
I'm going to take down notes here for the dancers on my flist (and most especially anobion, since she didn't get to take the class while she was here).
Much of the time was spent introducing and implementing an interpretive frame for discussing and experiencing energy and motion in dance. Each 'Center' was primarily associated (abstractly, rather than concretely) tied to a part of the body.
1) Foundation -- Associated with the feet. Foundation, unsurprisingly, equals balance. Without a good foundation, nothing else will work. Tom talked about the design of human feet, and how that design and the sensation of weight over different parts of our feet should serve as indicators to whether we're moving through our feet correctly. (Moving through the instep is preferable for the dances discussed than moving through the outside of the foot, esp. since doing so can roll the ankle).
2) Power -- Associated with the upper thighs, the glutes, the lower abs, lower back and the groin. This is where a dancer's power comes from, metaphysically and physiologically. Compression for dances like West Coast Swing come from this center, and it's also the place where turns will originate, as well as other pivots. It's the place where a lot of dancers do disservice to themselves by under-using the center, or using it wrong.
3) Awareness -- Associated with the heart/lungs/sternum/ribcage, this is the sensory aspect of the dance-mind-body. Awareness controls the arms, which for any frame work are the messengers, to be transparent to the desires of the awareness center. Turns are not led by the arms, they are lead by the awareness center, and the message of that lead is transmitted by the arms. This helps eliminate the rough steering problem that some leads have by wrestling with the follows by using arm strength to lead. Awareness is also where sensory information is received and interpreted emotionally. If something feels good, or feels wrong, it's awareness that makes that evaluation.
4) Cognition -- Associated with the head/mind/brain, this is the CPU of the dance-body-mind. Cognition stores the patterns and skills and knowledge about dance, it does the conscious decision-making, and works very closely with the Awareness center to process and make decisions about sensory data.
5) Performance -- Is kind of cheating in the body-association, since Tom talks about Perfomance being as far above the top of your head as the top of the head is above the heart. This reminds a dancer to extend and lengthen their body, making it long up so that each part of the body can move unfettered by the part above it -- much like how a marionette hangs long on the string, gravity's effect contextualized by the tether on the head.
For me, the center most important to work on feeling and manipulating accurately was the Power center -- My current 'home' style is Argentine tango, which privileges the Awareness center, since compression happens there in tango, and it's also where the point of lead/follow occurs. The power center is very important as well, for tango and especially for dances like West Coast Swing, since compression happens lower. Tom's description about using different parts of the power center built on similar instruction from tango instructor Florencia Taccetti, who did workshops earlier this year.
Later on, with the five centers in place, discussed three types of partner dance motion in rhythm dances -- Compression, leverage, and tandem motion. Compression is one or both dancers pushing in towards one another, leverage is sitting/pulling away from the other dancer, and tandem motion is side-to-side motion.
Compression and leverage tend to be double the magnitude of tandem, energy wise. I decided to think about it this way. Compression is a positive charge, leverage a negative charge. If both dancers compress, thats a 2+ charge. If both dancers leverage, it's a 2- charge. If one dancer compresses and the other leverages, it's a 0 charge (nothing useful happens, and no energy is created. A tandem move, however, is a single dancer creating compression (to a side) -- reacted to and released by the other dancer. Therefore tandem motions always have a 1-point charge as opposed to a 2-point charge of compression or leverage. /End Mike's scientific metaphor.
The last part of the workshop was breaking down various social dance moves/basics in terms of leverage, compression, and tandem steps.
Perhaps the most important thing the workshop did was help me set aside my bias against Anything Not Tango, and help me move toward a pantheistic approach to dance (Pantheism in religion being like Hinduism, where each of the many many gods are just reflections of one god), where all dances are just different facets of the great whole that is Dance. (which itself is a part of the over-whole of Kinesthetic Excellence, including Sports/martial arts, etc.)
Hopefully, this was an interesting read for some who bothered to read through the whole thing.
I'm going to take down notes here for the dancers on my flist (and most especially anobion, since she didn't get to take the class while she was here).
Much of the time was spent introducing and implementing an interpretive frame for discussing and experiencing energy and motion in dance. Each 'Center' was primarily associated (abstractly, rather than concretely) tied to a part of the body.
1) Foundation -- Associated with the feet. Foundation, unsurprisingly, equals balance. Without a good foundation, nothing else will work. Tom talked about the design of human feet, and how that design and the sensation of weight over different parts of our feet should serve as indicators to whether we're moving through our feet correctly. (Moving through the instep is preferable for the dances discussed than moving through the outside of the foot, esp. since doing so can roll the ankle).
2) Power -- Associated with the upper thighs, the glutes, the lower abs, lower back and the groin. This is where a dancer's power comes from, metaphysically and physiologically. Compression for dances like West Coast Swing come from this center, and it's also the place where turns will originate, as well as other pivots. It's the place where a lot of dancers do disservice to themselves by under-using the center, or using it wrong.
3) Awareness -- Associated with the heart/lungs/sternum/ribcage, this is the sensory aspect of the dance-mind-body. Awareness controls the arms, which for any frame work are the messengers, to be transparent to the desires of the awareness center. Turns are not led by the arms, they are lead by the awareness center, and the message of that lead is transmitted by the arms. This helps eliminate the rough steering problem that some leads have by wrestling with the follows by using arm strength to lead. Awareness is also where sensory information is received and interpreted emotionally. If something feels good, or feels wrong, it's awareness that makes that evaluation.
4) Cognition -- Associated with the head/mind/brain, this is the CPU of the dance-body-mind. Cognition stores the patterns and skills and knowledge about dance, it does the conscious decision-making, and works very closely with the Awareness center to process and make decisions about sensory data.
5) Performance -- Is kind of cheating in the body-association, since Tom talks about Perfomance being as far above the top of your head as the top of the head is above the heart. This reminds a dancer to extend and lengthen their body, making it long up so that each part of the body can move unfettered by the part above it -- much like how a marionette hangs long on the string, gravity's effect contextualized by the tether on the head.
For me, the center most important to work on feeling and manipulating accurately was the Power center -- My current 'home' style is Argentine tango, which privileges the Awareness center, since compression happens there in tango, and it's also where the point of lead/follow occurs. The power center is very important as well, for tango and especially for dances like West Coast Swing, since compression happens lower. Tom's description about using different parts of the power center built on similar instruction from tango instructor Florencia Taccetti, who did workshops earlier this year.
Later on, with the five centers in place, discussed three types of partner dance motion in rhythm dances -- Compression, leverage, and tandem motion. Compression is one or both dancers pushing in towards one another, leverage is sitting/pulling away from the other dancer, and tandem motion is side-to-side motion.
Compression and leverage tend to be double the magnitude of tandem, energy wise. I decided to think about it this way. Compression is a positive charge, leverage a negative charge. If both dancers compress, thats a 2+ charge. If both dancers leverage, it's a 2- charge. If one dancer compresses and the other leverages, it's a 0 charge (nothing useful happens, and no energy is created. A tandem move, however, is a single dancer creating compression (to a side) -- reacted to and released by the other dancer. Therefore tandem motions always have a 1-point charge as opposed to a 2-point charge of compression or leverage. /End Mike's scientific metaphor.
The last part of the workshop was breaking down various social dance moves/basics in terms of leverage, compression, and tandem steps.
Perhaps the most important thing the workshop did was help me set aside my bias against Anything Not Tango, and help me move toward a pantheistic approach to dance (Pantheism in religion being like Hinduism, where each of the many many gods are just reflections of one god), where all dances are just different facets of the great whole that is Dance. (which itself is a part of the over-whole of Kinesthetic Excellence, including Sports/martial arts, etc.)
Hopefully, this was an interesting read for some who bothered to read through the whole thing.