I was extremely impressed by Russell Saxby's 'Smooth Grooves' class at Prestatyn - another up and coming star teacher?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo Don't build his ego up any more! Took him to Bromborough on Thursday night. Despite the language barrier (Cockney v Souce) he managed to communicate ok and was rarely off the floor. He was the subject of MUCH admration.
Seriously though ... I think Russ is a very good teacher ... but not innovative. He teaches a style that is becoming increasingly common ... due to some good teaching, but I don't think its a step in another direction. Ready to be corrrected on this though.
As I said on a previous thread - Woodface , you need to get out more...
What I was meaning - travel, see the Ceroc/MJ world, take lessons from the best...
Travel the country, even try other countries...
For example Nigel, who has been mentioned, travelled extensively, learning from all he could... before he even was thinking of competing or teaching
I don't know what you mean by "Innovative":
Doing 'new' things? I suggest that the only reason you don't see new things is that you're getting a bit long in the tooth yourself - You have been exposed to MJ for a while and what may seem fresh and new to others, you have seen before by some of the 'old school'.
Locally I am still inspired by Lisa, Freya, Caro, Tramp (when he's not off globe-trotting) - Innovation to me is inputting something 'extra' into a dance to make it stand above the rest of the crowd - their are only so many sources to draw uppon for this 'extra' - can you suggest any new ones?
(I would love to see more 'street' and 'street-running' style stuff; an area I don't think has been exploited to it's full... perhaps it needs a bit more fitness and flexability than I have though )
I wish to God people would stop saying this...
Personally, I don't agree with Gus's initial comments, I don't believe the level of innovation within MJ is at an all-time low. I reckon the lowest point so far was around 1998 - but then, you could argue that's when N&N started their whole Blues thing, so it's all subjective really.
I also think that "innovative dancers" and "innovative teachers" are not always directly related, although there is probably some degree of correlation between the two.
Yes, I think so - someone can be inspiring by doing (for example) nothing but standard Ceroc-style moves, but doing them superbly well. Of course, you could argue that the only way to be inspiring doing standard Ceroc moves is to be innovative...
But "inspiration" is subjective, and "innovation" is more objective, in my view.
Although in MJ, an awful lot of "innovation" is basically taking ideas and concepts from another area of dance and incorporating them into MJ. The same could be said for many other dances, of course. And there's still genuine innovation involved in blending the styles. But that's not really my point.
There was a time when you could throw in a couple of hip-hop moves into a MJ routine, and everyone would be "Wow, that's so original!". But now, a combination of factors (competitions, weekenders, DVDs, internet forums, and visiting teachers from the US) mean that there's a lot more cross-fertilization. Everyone's seen hip-hop, latin, tango already and so it takes a lot more to really stand out from the crowd. But I think we've got a lot of dancers now who would be thought of as innovative if you transported them back to 1998.
If there is a lack of innovation at the moment - is this necessarily a bad thing? Could it just be that the innovations of the last few years are still progressing and developing?
Several names have been mentioned who have obviously made a huge contribution to the MJ scene, and continue to do so - that's obvious from the reactions to various workshops/opportunities to dance with these leading lights. And they're still continuing with what they've started.
Maybe the MJ scene will consolidate these innovations (and the new, outstanding, dancers absorb them) before the next batch develop? Possibly the newer dancers already mentioned will become innovative (in a formal way - developing new styles and teaching them) once they've learnt more from what currently exists?
Very subjective, as in 1998 N&N had a range of workshops, including musicallity, dancing to fast and slow music, blues and others. It was a high point in the SE England where I at the time ran a dance company and was one of the first to employ them, after their first champs entry, where they took out showcase. [I had booked them before the champs, but did benifit from the fact they were current champs]
The workshops created numbers until then unknown - they made cash and I made a sh1tload of cash.
I would say that is ground breaking.....
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