Dance the RIGHT Thing at the RIGHT Time
The Right Thing; The Right TimeI used to listen to an inspirational radio station that would play sermons on various subjects. One day the subject was Doing the Right Thing. It went on for quite a while with good but forgettable advice. Then the speaker said something very memorable, "The right thing at the wrong time is still wrong."
Doesn't matter what the subject is, I still habitually turn it to apply to my favorite activity: dance.
So how important is doing the right thing at the right time in dance?
Let's say you are doing a special, routine choreographed to a special piece of music. Unless you know all the timing the movement highlights will often miss the musical highlights. If you do it by feel, the dance could come out differently every time.
If you are learning medal level material for social, hobby or recreational dancing, unless you and your partner both know the timing, the music turns into background. That's fine in some circumstances. It would never work for performance and it doesn't work well for hobby dancers.
I love to experiment and just do what the music says, but to do that with a partner, both dancers must be in the same skill level or/and of the same frame of mind as far as structure and interpretation goes. If one dancer is highly skilled and the other is not, the lesser dancer is receiving rather than contributing to the full picture. That is satisfying and fun for some to a certain degree, but it cannot be the desired end result.
To really dance with energy, conviction, visual clarity, musicality, at a very high level with a partner, one must acknowledge the math in the madness, one must clarify the structure, OR one must give in to being a puppet of the leader. So, dance the RIGHT thing at the RIGHT time. Know your basics, know the music. Know what to do and when to do it to get a good result every time you dance.
The Right Thing; The Right TimeI used to listen to an inspirational radio station that would play sermons on various subjects. One day the subject was Doing the Right Thing. It went on for quite a while with good but forgettable advice. Then the speaker said something very memorable, "The right thing at the wrong time is still wrong."
Doesn't matter what the subject is, I still habitually turn it to apply to my favorite activity: dance.
So how important is doing the right thing at the right time in dance?
Let's say you are doing a special, routine choreographed to a special piece of music. Unless you know all the timing the movement highlights will often miss the musical highlights. If you do it by feel, the dance could come out differently every time.
If you are learning medal level material for social, hobby or recreational dancing, unless you and your partner both know the timing, the music turns into background. That's fine in some circumstances. It would never work for performance and it doesn't work well for hobby dancers.
I love to experiment and just do what the music says, but to do that with a partner, both dancers must be in the same skill level or/and of the same frame of mind as far as structure and interpretation goes. If one dancer is highly skilled and the other is not, the lesser dancer is receiving rather than contributing to the full picture. That is satisfying and fun for some to a certain degree, but it cannot be the desired end result.
To really dance with energy, conviction, visual clarity, musicality, at a very high level with a partner, one must acknowledge the math in the madness, one must clarify the structure, OR one must give in to being a puppet of the leader. So, dance the RIGHT thing at the RIGHT time. Know your basics, know the music. Know what to do and when to do it to get a good result every time you dance.