John Bohannon, creator of Dance Your Ph.D., presents a modest proposal at TEDxBrussels:
Year: 2011
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Introducing the Macon State Dance Club
After a lot of “We should” and “Why isn’t there” and “How do we,” I am excited to announce that Macon State College is finally starting a dance club! This project fell into my lap a few weeks ago already half done; the students who wanted to start the club came to me with the initial paperwork done and a Facebook group started. When I went to join the FB group myself, I was excited to see that it already had over 50 members. And while I was loafing on my parents’ couch last week, the club’s most dedicated members were cutting rugs at Mambo’s. So today’s organizational meeting with the officers-to-be was practically just a formality. Our first full-scale meeting (general interest/business meeting with a side of dancing) is on its way to being scheduled for January 25. Stay tuned for more from this great new group, represented today by Neil, Minwoo, Danielle, and Amanda!
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Sugar Prune Fairy
YOU GUYS. In ballet tonight we started learning the Sugar Plum Fairy variation.
For the first few minutes I did not think much about the fact that this experience represents a milestone in my ballet life. I was busy thinking “Oh, cool, Sugar Plum. Wonder if I will get to perform this at some point?” (haha, “at some point.” See what I did there?) And then I was thinking “Gaaaah, so much pointe work that I’m not sure I can do” and then “I don’t understand these counts and second arabesque and flip around and somehow second arabesque again and WHAT.”
Then we started doing it to the music a couple of times. I got a sense of where the accents are and thus an idea of how the choreography is supposed to look (note to self: watch some videos). And I went out to get some water with that music thrumming in my head, remembering how excited I was as a kid to learn that it’s not a HARPSICHORD and it’s not a XYLOPHONE, it’s a celestina. And it finally struck me (I’m slow to catch on) that at age 38.5, I am learning Sugar Plum for the first time ever.
Holy Nutcracker!
It is very exciting even though I’m not very good at it right now, and I don’t know if I’ll ever do it in front of people, and I’m not sure I am Sugar Plum material in the first place.
Every version of the variation is a little different but this is the one I found that is most like what we are learning:
This is the part I think I’d like, but I’ll have to start working now on lifting my leg up next to my head. Daniel already thinks I’m totally capable of doing the partnered penché move at 2:43:
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America’s Funniest Comp Videos
Okay, maybe not America’s Funniest but I enjoyed watching this: the clip starts with one of our cha-cha heats. As it turned out, we were not entered for the rumba heat that followed it, but we needed a minute, and a consultation with Vince The Voice, to figure that out.
We reappear around 21:15–go ahead and jump forward because a big part of the clip consists of a long social-dance break to accommodate a judging panel change or some such.
This video is from the “Dancing for our Heroes” charity ball back in July; I just got a copy on DVD a few weeks ago. Those of you who are Internet stalkers observant viewers will notice common elements between this routine and the one in the previous video. We took this version as a basis when we added the exhibition “tricks” in the more recent version of the routine. Kind of necessary if, like me, you have not lost stamina or flexibility with age but have entirely lost the ability to remember choreography. Sigh.
One more thing: the picture is funky for about the first 10 seconds of the video, but it does clear up. More video soon; stay tuned!
I’m hoping to post several recent videos over the next few days; here’s the first. These are the exhibition performances from last Friday at the Atlanta Dance Classic. We appear at the 12-minute mark but the whole show is worth watching. Great dancing all over the place!
The Atlanta Classic was a lot of fun; we have to give particular props to our instructor Eddie Ares for stepping in to partner me for a few heats because Daniel wasn’t feeling well. Tune in again soon for more video from this and other recent events!
Several people asked us for details about our participation in the Atlanta Dance Classic competition next weekend. The venue is the Westin Peachtree Plaza, 210 Peachtree Street, Atlanta 30303. We are dancing several American Smooth heats Friday morning in the 11:00 hour, then we will do our rumba exhibition number during the evening session. There’s no charge for spectator admission during the day but a ticket for the evening session is $35. We’re also dancing American Rhythm during the day Saturday; most of our heats are during the 1:00 hour.
The website for the competition is www.atlantadanceclassic.com. I’ll put this information on our website and also on Facebook. We would love it if you could come and cheer us on! These competitions are always fun, high-energy events. You are sure to see some great dancing!
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Rules for the Dancefloor
Our dancers have been helping us come up with a list of rules for ballroom dancing. Herewith, the rules so far:
- No tickling, no groping: Keep your hands where they’re supposed to be. Gentlemen, I’m lookin’ at you.
- Stand like a king: Daniel came up with this great phrase to characterize the ideal male dance posture that is both regal and relaxed.
- Respect the bubble: Baby & Johnny had this one figured out a quarter-century ago: “This is my dance space; this is your dance space. I don’t come into yours; you don’t come into mine.”
- Don’t snatch: In the South you can use the verb “snatch” to characterize any action of grabbing something suddenly. Snatching your dance partner is not cool. Some moves appear to require snatching, but this is an illusion.
- You can’t go till he goes: Ladies, this one’s for you. Your partner gets to decide when you start dancing. Wait for it. . . wait for it. . .
- Don’t “Hulk out”: Concentration does some odd things to one’s facial expressions, neck veins, hand grip, etc. Keep it loose and light. (If you start to turn green, you’re doing it wrong.)
- No apologetic birds, no sad princesses: Dance big and smile! Everything you do will look better.
I think I am leaving some out. Guys & gals, leave me a comment if you remember one that I forgot.
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It’s not about the steps
Posture and frame, and their influence on lead/follow, are among the biggest challenges for ballroom dancers. Your average 21st-century American just doesn’t absorb a dancer’s upright carriage without years of practice and many, many corrections, and the nuances of communicating movement to another person through the body are even harder to talk about than they are to get right. Nevertheless, posture and frame are so important that for the past 2 weeks I’ve been on a personal crusade titled “It’s Not About The Steps.”
People associate dancing first and foremost with moving the feet. This association is not wrong, of course. Last week I tried out my It’s Not About The Steps theory on one of our wedding couples and the groom said, “But if I don’t know any steps, I can’t dance.” He’s right, and he has identified the reductio ad absurdam point at which my theory ceases to operate. I would suggest, though, that a person can’t get very far with learning steps before posture and frame become essential to successfully executing the steps. If you can do the step by yourself but can’t do it with a partner, IT’S NOT ABOUT THE STEPS.
The theory works in this way: dancers really only need to know a small number of steps to have a good time getting around the floor. You could manage to dance a basic waltz, for instance, with only 2 steps: traveling half-boxes down the walls and a twinkle to get you around the corners. But a twinkle requires a change of body position, from closed hold to promenade and back again. Turning into promenade isn’t difficult, but in order for both partners to get into it and out of it, they have to pay attention to their posture, frame, and head position. Keep the frame consistent in promenade (that elbow stays perpendicular) and clearly turn your head to match your direction of travel: nose follows toes. If the frame was consistent on the way into promenade, getting out of promenade should just be a matter of keeping the frame up while bringing the torso back into closed position and adjusting the head to match.
Holding a good frame also alleviates a lot of personal-space-invasion problems and stepped-on toes. New dancers tend to want to gaze into each other’s eyes as they dance, which is totally romantic but, at least in the smooth dances (waltz, tango, foxtrot), problematic. I fear looking like a cold-hearted cynic when I say this, but when Daniel and I dance smooth in competition, I’m deliberately conscious of NOT looking at him unless we do a step like the “butterfly” in foxtrot where we are supposed to look at each other. It seems a lot less lovey-dovey but it actually looks more impressive and more like we are in tune with one another if we can move in and out of positions without ever making eye contact: like I just know where he’s going to be, and vice versa.
We all want to focus on getting the steps right, and it’s true that the steps are an important basic starting point. But as soon as you have a step memorized, start improving everything that’s needed to make it successful but isn’t about moving your feet. Like the steps themselves, posture and frame will become more and more automatic with more and more practice. Good posture and a big, elegant frame also help a dancer look confident even if he/she is only a beginner.
One of my Tweeps posted this video today of an International Standard tango by Arunas & Katusha. Standard style is different from what Daniel and I dance because you have to stay in closed hold all the time–promenade is allowed but there’s no shadow position, no side-by-side work, no open positions of any kind. In this choreography you can REALLY see that it’s not about the steps. The body positions and head weight communicate the lead/follow and give the dance its characteristic, dramatic look:
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The Beat
Here, these should keep y’all busy for a few minutes till I have time to write a proper post.
“Hip Hip Chin Chin” became one of my favorite songs because of this:
. . . and now this is popping up on Twitter:
Twitter also says it’s National Ballroom Week. Around here that is EVERY week.