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View Full Version : One thing has been bugging me for a few months now.....



JiveLad
10th-December-2006, 02:26 AM
........which is how to dance to the wonderful track 'Ain't No Other Man' by Christina Aguilera?

This is a top tune............and I always enjoy it because of the sheer energy and passion - but how can I dance to it well?

I think there may be 2 issues:

(i) the nature of the song lends itself to a female lead (which is true of several other songs of course....but here, particularly so)

(ii) the breaks and structure of the song make it hard to be 'smooth'.

Tonite, it came on - and I asked a lady who is possibly one of the best dancers ever.........and I hoped that she would have a routine up her sleeve and I could stand there like a lemon from time to time while she strutted like Christina. Not to be........and I got stuck and probably looked a bit stupid......:o

Any ideas? Is there a YouTube vid of a Ceroc interpretation of this song?

Any particular moves or suggestions would be very welcome!


Thanks, :)

Lee Bartholomew
10th-December-2006, 08:43 AM
Depends on your natural dancing style.

personally I'd go for a few body rolls, floor slides and more hip hoppy movements.

If I remember, I will play it tonight and try and film a dancer or two dancing to it (prob two as MJ is a partner dance:what:) and try and get it up on Youtube on Monday.

Gus
10th-December-2006, 11:22 AM
I think there may be 2 issues:

(i) the nature of the song lends itself to a female lead (which is true of several other songs of course....but here, particularly so)

(ii) the breaks and structure of the song make it hard to be 'smooth'.Musy admit I'm not entirly sure where you are coming from on this. Its a great track with good punctuation ... buts its just like a number of other powerful Rock Chick tracks e.g. U and Ur Hand etc. Some elements do lend themselves tro close contact moves, e.g. Hug moves but I still find the good old bascis like 1st moves, almost american spins, whpped RH combs seem to get me through on the beat.

Lee Bartholomew
10th-December-2006, 11:27 AM
Would say just treat it as any other song. Beat is pretty much standard which is why it gets played all the time :grin:

JiveLad
10th-December-2006, 11:38 AM
Depends on your natural dancing style.

If I remember, I will play it tonight and try and film a dancer or two dancing to it (prob two as MJ is a partner dance:what:) and try and get it up on Youtube on Monday.


Thanks Woodface - that would be great - just to see how others do it well.

Lee Bartholomew
10th-December-2006, 11:41 AM
Thanks Woodface - that would be great - just to see how others do it well.

Didn't say they could do it well. :blush:

JiveLad
10th-December-2006, 12:55 PM
Didn't say they could do it well. :blush:

:grin: Well there is a 98% probability that it will be better than my attempt!

Lee Bartholomew
10th-December-2006, 12:57 PM
:grin: Well there is a 98% probability that it will be better than my attempt!

More likley the other way round (God I hope my students dont read this. lol). Could always dance to it myself, but that would make you dizzy :rofl:

JiveLad
13th-December-2006, 10:25 PM
Ok - this may sound a bit silly/beginnerish - any advice welcomed.

I've narrowed my challenge down to the main 'riff'. By that I mean right at the start of the record:

"I could fee it from the start.....DUUUUUUUH DUH

Couldnt stand to be apart........DUUUUUUUH DUH

The DUUUUUUUUH DUH (being the riff). Now in this particular musical phrase and specifically up to and including the riff..........what moves would be appropriate??

Maybe I am overcomplicating by trying too hard to 'dance-to-the-beat'? But I just think it could be cool and slightly dramatic.

I did ask a teacher a few weeks ago about maybe doing a routine to this and (i) she didnt know the track and (ii) and didnt get the idea of a 'routine'.

Regards :)

ducasi
13th-December-2006, 11:19 PM
It's a double accent, so you just need to do two clever things in a row.

Can't think exactly what I do, but it doesn't need to be complicated. How about a simple figure of eight? That would be quite cool.

Just one example... Can do other things with combs, poses or blocks.

Another tune with a similar double accent that cries out for attention is Red Alert by Basement Jaxx.

Oh, btw, learnt some of this stuff about marking accents from a musicality workshop given by Amir. :worthy:

marty_baby
14th-December-2006, 12:19 AM
Hiya Cronshd,

Good post!

Exactly the same thing has been bugging me for ages! Its a song that cries out for something fast and really special - But I never can hit the breaks just right!

Hhhhmmmm for the 1st time ever - may just sit down, listen to it again and again - and work out what moves can do to the "shoop shoop" bits... :na:




Gus,

Bang on with that "u and ur" hand track! For some reason that one is alot more intuitive for me - if that track ever comes on, when I'm dancing with Lyndsey - we will absolutely nail it!... totally confident about that - even thought I've never dance with Lyndsey to that tune! :D



Ducasi,

Yup, done a couple of musicality workshops with the incomparable Amir as well - hhhmmmm...... must put into practice the stuff covered!


Martin :)

MartinHarper
14th-December-2006, 01:13 AM
DUUUUUH DUH

Here's one option: close hold slides.

Stand in close hold, facing your partner, have her face you, with your hand on her back. On the very start of the "DUUUUUH", step out to the left with your left foot and transfer all your weight onto it. For the duration of the "DUUUUUH", slide your right foot to meet your left foot, so that it touches your left just in time to the "DUH".
When the second DUUUUH-DUH comes along, do the opposite: step out to the right with your right foot, transfer all your weight onto it, and slide your left foot to join it. In between the two ri***, make eye contact, smile, wink, whatever. It's just a few beats gap, so no big deal.

That said, you really don't need particular moves, as long as you fit what you do to the timing. The timing to DUUUUH-DUH should be, roughly, DUUUUH-DUH. That timing can be fitted into lots of moves, including all the beginner moves. Just follow this rule:

DUUUUH = travel
DUH = arrive

Caro
14th-December-2006, 08:07 AM
"I could fee it from the start.....DUUUUUUUH DUH


as a follow if I have the right opportunity at this time (if I'm at the end of a travelling return for example, not in the middle of a first move cause it calls for a sharp 'mini break' at the end) I like to do a ronde on that (slow ronde on DUUUUUUUU and fast and sharp finish on DUH).

Lee Bartholomew
14th-December-2006, 12:35 PM
Hip hop or disco to it.

It's songs like this that make you realise that there is more to styling modern jive than Tango and Blues.

David Bailey
14th-December-2006, 12:57 PM
Hip hop or disco to it.

It's songs like this that make you realise that there is more to styling modern jive than Tango and Blues.
Traitor - Burn Him!

Lee Bartholomew
14th-December-2006, 12:59 PM
Traitor - Burn Him!

Now an AT/ Hip Hop fussion :rolleyes:

JiveLad
14th-December-2006, 04:28 PM
Some great replies - thanks Marty and Martin - some good practical and specific ideas - which I appreciate. Thanks! I'll try it soon...........



Hip hop or disco to it.

It's songs like this that make you realise that there is more to styling modern jive than Tango and Blues.

A couple of further points: what do you think of Christina's dancing/posing itself: I like it a lot. Hmm - maybe if she turned up to an evening she could help me out a bit.

One thing I have been thinking is that MJ effectively becomes the 'uber-dance' of everything - if we are covering elements of (now) Hip-Hop, Disco and Street Dance.........not to mention.......just about everything else? Maybe there is another thread which covers this.....

Lee Bartholomew
14th-December-2006, 04:42 PM
One thing I have been thinking is that MJ effectively becomes the 'uber-dance' of everything - if we are covering elements of (now) Hip-Hop, Disco and Street Dance.........not to mention.......just about everything else? Maybe there is another thread which covers this.....

There is now http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10805

MartinHarper
15th-December-2006, 02:26 AM
One thing I have been thinking is that MJ effectively becomes the 'uber-dance' of everything - if we are covering elements of (now) Hip-Hop, Disco and Street Dance.........not to mention.......just about everything else?

To answer from a Lindy vs MJ perspective...

There's a fair chunk of Lindy in MJ, certainly, so you can see MJ as "covering" Lindy. However, most of Lindy isn't in MJ, and could never be properly assimilated into MJ. It's just incompatible with MJ lead/follow principles. Just because there's overlap doesn't mean that one dance will swallow the other.
Also, some MJ moves are described as being Lindy imports, when they are completely alien to Lindy. For example, an MJ "Lindy kick" owes rather more to the goosestep than to Lindy Hop. I think that can make people think that MJ is rather better at assimilating Lindy that it is.
My guess is the same applies to other dances that MJ borrows from.

Lee Bartholomew
15th-December-2006, 02:19 PM
I think if you think of AT, Lindy, Salsa as a pedigree. MJ is a Mongrel

MartinHarper
15th-December-2006, 03:22 PM
If you think of AT, Lindy, Salsa as a pedigree. MJ is a Mongrel

Lindy is very much a mongrel dance. Off the top of my head, the precursors included Charleston, Tap, Jazz, Texas Tommy, Big Apple, Foxtrot, Breakaway, and Cakewalk. Modern influences include "street dance" and other swing dances (balboa, wcs, shag).

I don't know whether Salsa and AT have a similar mongrel history.