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Thread: Evolution of Dance

  1. #41
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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Lost Leader View Post
    I think some dancers develop a bouncy hand style without necessarily having been specifically taught it, for some I think it simply starts as a way of keeping to the beat. The problem comes when they are not taught why this is a bad habit and the way in which it can interfere with the lead. In other words it is not always the case that bouncing is specifically taught, it is just that it is often not actively discouraged.
    Seconded on that one - I was certainly never explicitly taught hand-bouncing, and have never seen it taught, but I somehow picked up the habit regardless, and it took a long long while to iron it out.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by seamus
    If you learn with a push, you never, EVER, learn to bounce. You don't loose the half beat it takes you to do the "C" and you start off creating a better lead with tension in your arm.
    I think this is too big a claim seamus.

    As geoff332 mentioned, the bounce isn't taught in NZ. Many (perhaps even most) beginners still do it quite naturally though until they're told not to, and why. Occasionally they keep on doing it no matter what anyway. I think to some extent it's a natural way for muggles to mark the beat.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Amir View Post
    To round up the posts so far, it seems one of the major sources of smooth dancing among 'early adopters' was exposure to WCS. This among teachers like Nigel & Nina, and dancers like David Barker, etc. (Although none of the above have said themselves on this thread that it was WCS that was the dance to influence them.)

    Maybe a round up of posts so far.

    WCS had nothing to do with the fact I learnt smooth from day one. My teacher had never done WCS.

    It was only when I went up to London, that I got exposed to "the bounce" and the further north or west I went, it became more bouncy.

  4. #44
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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    Maybe a round up of posts so far.

    WCS had nothing to do with the fact I learnt smooth from day one. My teacher had never done WCS.
    Okay, but what had your teacher done? Where were they teaching and who were they!?!

    Your teacher, or your teacher's teacher (etc) probably learnt from someone out of this crowd:


    or


    So at what point did it change from this kind of high energy style to what I'm referring to when I mean smooth, and why? In other words, your teacher must have seen something or thought something to change the style.

    By the way, I'm not talking about bouncing the hand, I'm talking about the general bounce, lilt, or swinging motion in the whole body, which I don't think is 'bad', its just that many hardcore modern jivers today don't do it.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin View Post
    WCS had nothing to do with the fact I learnt smooth from day one. My teacher had never done WCS.
    By the way, you don't have to do wcs to be influenced by it. They might have just seen it.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Amir View Post
    By the way, you don't have to do wcs to be influenced by it. They might have just seen it.
    They might also have discovered it for themselves. I discovered sliding my feet along the floor to certain tracks, when the floor and shoes permitted, without ever being taught it. It wasnot deliberately imitating anything I had seen. It just felt different and right at that moment.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by bigdjiver View Post
    They might also have discovered it for themselves. I discovered sliding my feet along the floor to certain tracks, when the floor and shoes permitted, without ever being taught it. It wasnot deliberately imitating anything I had seen. It just felt different and right at that moment.
    Yeah for sure. I'm not claiming that people might not have developed this stuff by themselves. I'm just saying that the fact that someone hasn't done a dance is not proof that they were not influenced by it. The only way to know is to ask them, and hope that they are self aware and honest.

    Some new ideas maybe totally independent, but most are sparked by some kind of observation or influence, even if it is nothing more than an apple falling from a tree.

    Even in your case, there were external conditions to your discovery (the right music, shoes and floor) with out which you may never have developed your slide style.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Amir View Post
    ... Some new ideas maybe totally independent, but most are sparked by some kind of observation or influence, even if it is nothing more than an apple falling from a tree.

    Even in your case, there were external conditions to your discovery (the right music, shoes and floor) with out which you may never have developed your slide style.
    I feel uncomfortable with "style" in a sentence anywhere near me. I do not dance to look good.

    I doubt that any idea can be so independent that it cannot be seen to have derived from existing components. It is common for people not to be able to identify where an idea came from. Most new ideas are discoveries rather than inventions.

    On thinking about it, it is likely that the pre-cursor to my slow slidey discovery was my boxers bounce/skip discovery. Being at the carthorse end of the human spectrum there was no way have found that I could change my weight from foot to foot quickly. On very fast numbers (ah the good old days, when the DJ threw in a few tracks for the Lindy Hoppers!) I used to cheat by bouncing on both feet, as in skipping, and moving both feet at the same time. Thinking about it my feet were pretty close to sliding doing that.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    There's a number of factors which has influenced my smoothness, though I can only talk about things that have happened in the past few years.

    I was taught Ceroc by a "old-school" teacher – she has been teaching Ceroc for well over 10 years. Nearer 15. She doesn't have a very bouncy style (hand or body), and never taught us to move with a bounce.

    I noticed though that a lot of dancers around me were quite bouncy. I never fully understood this, though I guess reading on the forum, I saw bounciness (at least in your hand) as a bad thing.

    The next major influence was when I had been dancing about 6 months. I was visiting Dundee, and had a dance with a friend who at the end said something like "ooh, very smooth!" I took this as a great compliment, and decided that I wanted to be not just a non-bouncy dancer, but a smooth dancer.

    Subsequent workshops with Franck, Marc (& Rachel) and Amir taught me more about connection, smoothness, slotted dancing, and musicality.

    Besides these teachers, watching both Trampy and Dave Hancock influenced my dance style to some extent. I wanted to dance like them, and they appeared smooth, slotted and, quite simply, cool.

    As for the WCS influence... I had probably heard of it, but not much more than that. I presume at least some of the teachers I came across had learnt either directly or indirectly from it. (I know that Franck learnt a lot a lot about connection from David B.)

    I think that's it's right and proper that MJ takes technique from other, more (technically) mature, dances. WCS is an obvious candidate donor, though I wonder if (or if not, why not) Lindy has also given a lot of technique to MJ in the past, when it was more fashionable in the MJ world.
    Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Amir View Post
    Tee he he, I loved that.. Mike Ellard looks so sweet!!

    I think I first aspired to dance 'smooth' when seeing people I really liked to watch and identifying there was a common link between them all!

    Lisa from Scotland, Val Forsey, Carol Haynes and Kate, all seemed to have that 'floaty' look, which I admired and tried to emulate.... A very smooth topline and dragging their movements out, till the very end of the beat.
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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Not sure if this is the right place for this but this thread got me thinking about our modern taste for smooth jive compared to ye olde bouncy bouncy of jive's roots.

    So last night I had a lovely smooth dance with a lady to a nice mid tempo track. She asked for a second dance, so we stayed on the floor and I heard the first few bars of "Thunder on the Mountain" ringing out. Now I think this could be described as a fairly up tempo energetic romp of a song, so I thought it'd be nice to have a contrast, and so tried to inject a bit of punch into it with some Lindyish kicks and (what I thought was) snappy footwork etc, to try and experiment with ye olde stylee. Immediately, her thumbs came down, hand started going up and down like a pneumatic drill, the tension increased tenfold, the beat was lost and my fingers were treated to a bit of a mauling throughout the next 8 minutes or however long it is.

    Moral of the story? I'm not sure. Perhaps that if smooth jiving is nothing more than a current fashion and shouldn't be seen as a normative prescription, then it's a welcome fashion, IMO. Or perhaps it's just: beware of experimenting with historical dance reconstructions to Bob Dylan epics.


    Dan

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by gebandemuishond View Post
    ...so I thought it'd be nice to have a contrast, and so tried to inject a bit of punch into it with some Lindyish kicks and (what I thought was) snappy footwork etc, to try and experiment with ye olde stylee. Immediately, her thumbs came down, hand started going up and down like a pneumatic drill, the tension increased tenfold, the beat was lost and my fingers were treated to a bit of a mauling throughout the next 8 minutes or however long it is.
    Why? because your partner was trying to feel the connection you had in the 'smooth' dance. You can still be "bouncy", but it shouldn't interfear with the connection with your partner. When you 'kick', you place all your weight on one foot and your whole body moves, your balance shifts and your hand that's connected to your partner gets shoved about.
    Try doing the same kicks and 'ye olde stylee' while holding a full glass of water and see how much is left in it at the end. Once you can do it without spilling, then you will find that the thumbs lift again and your dance will be much better.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by Gadget View Post
    Why? because your partner was trying to feel the connection you had in the 'smooth' dance. You can still be "bouncy", but it shouldn't interfear with the connection with your partner. When you 'kick', you place all your weight on one foot and your whole body moves, your balance shifts and your hand that's connected to your partner gets shoved about.
    Try doing the same kicks and 'ye olde stylee' while holding a full glass of water and see how much is left in it at the end. Once you can do it without spilling, then you will find that the thumbs lift again and your dance will be much better.
    Sorry, I should clarify. When I said kick I meant more of a sharp flick of the foot out to a side then back, not a fully flung martial arts take out of the person next to me. I wouldn't have thought this would interefere with the lead as I was trying to keep the same dynamics in my hands (i.e. point of contact with my partner) as the previous dance, just with changing the way the rest of my body was moving. Thus the glass of water should still have been full by the end.


    Dan

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    Quote Originally Posted by gebandemuishond View Post
    ...Thus the glass of water should still have been full by the end.
    I can't do it.
    If I want to be "bouncy", I have to have a 'bouncy' partner and get the frequency right so we both 'bounce' together.

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    Re: Evolution of Dance

    An interesting thread.

    I only started dancing in 2006 at an independant and from the start the teachers taught a smooth style, with a push to move back and emphasis on gliding and minimising body rotation.

    Never having had the 'bouncy' experience in teaching my first night at a CEROC venue was frustrating - all of the bouncing seemed to get in the way of leading the lady and musicality was all but impossible. Since then I have learned to adjust when faced with bouncing, but feel that after a night of it I've had exercise but perhaps not much dancing.

    I can't help but think that new leads would find it a lot easier to connect with their partners without the bounce and the rotation.

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