Dance ponderation
Aug. 24th, 2007 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bethlakshmiSo... I've had this post kicking about in my head this week, but as I had writing-with-a-goal in mind going on offline, I hadn't gotten around to spewing this randomness until now.
This Pennsic I had a really good time practicing every day - I did so from 9-10:30ish every day in little half hour blocks of stuff. All of it Indian, since doing Burlesque at Pennsic kinda breaks the Lakshmi Headspace for me. When I got home, I got to do two wonderful weekend days of dance the weekend after Pennsic. My teacher has scheduled us to take part in the Waterfront Festival on Sept. 8th, and so between the 4 regular hours of dance, plus the new Kola Attam number for the festival, plus Indian Serendipity where the 1 hour Kalari class becomes two hours, plus regular Babydolls rehearsal - I spent easily 10 hours of time in scheduled dance activities, probably 12 hours if you count practicing.
And I loved every minute even if I hurt a bit on Monday. And my practicing paid off to my instructors, and I felt better in class for having done the work.
I'm keeping the momentum going this week - practicing most mornings and most evenings, too in a nearby park, because my dance room isn't big enough to do the Kalari Mei Payattu - which is a long exercise regime to build stamina and correct form.
So.. here's what I've been thinking about...
How to get good at dance?
As a student, performer, choreographer and dance captain this is something I ask myself nearly constantly and have been asking myself for probably the last 10 years - probably ever since I started studying dance as an adult. As a kid, dance class was something fun to do with my friends, and a way to wear a shiny costume and have everyone pay attention to me. As an adult - I get all those things from dance, but I could as easily get them from any number of other venues that are less work, less money, and less potential for injury. So... why dance? Because I like it, because it's a good way to keep my body in shape, because I want to be good at it. And that begs the question - how do you get good at dance?
I should start by saying I'm of the school of thought that EVERYONE can be a good dancer - you don't have to have some perfect body type, or have all your joints in good working order, dance is part of being human, so we all qualify. That said - we may not all qualify for all types of dance and we definitely don't all qualify for all dance troupes or dance venues. I, for example, will never be a Rockette - I'm too tall and too curvy. But, a Rockette will never look as good on a Middle Eastern stage as I do - she hasn't trained her body for that.
But... leaving aside style, body type and a whole bunch of things... what makes a good dancer and how do you get better at it?
That'll probably be the discussion of several posts, because I have to leave in a few minutes...
But...
The first that comes to mind is practice. When I talk to those I consider successful and talented, I'm generally awed by the length and rigor of their practice sessions. It has no bearing on what dance form you use - you need to practice and you need to practice HARD. Elitha (a fabulous shimmying goddess from Florida) says she aims to do "perfect practice" by which she means always, always, always doing the proper form, focusing on proper timing, and with full control of all her body parts. I think that's a pretty good one. Even if you're practicing your eyebrow movements (yes, I know a set of eyebrow movements), your posture should be good or no one will see how cool your eyebrows are.
It also occurs to me, that there are several parts to my practice regimes, no matter what art I am practicing:
- the warm up - any movement class will tell you how important this is. You need to get the muscles you'll be using ready to work or you can hurt yourself. It is also a good time to push your body to improve its flexibility and balance. A good number of my Bharata Natyam warm ups are actually as much about balance as muscle flex.
- working on movements - every dance form has simple movements and combinations that are the basic building blocks. I generally start doing these right after warm ups. That way I'm doing them at the least-tired stage.
- combinations and routines - these are the simple movements strung together. In any dance form, they start easy and get harder. Don't be afraid to go back and refresh the easy ones - having pushed your skill level up, you'll find more to refine when you revisit old material. Even if you prefer to dance improv, I think learning routines is an important skill. It's vitally necessary if you ever want to dance with other people, and the rigor of learning something complex and being able to replicate it allows you to add complexity, even when you are improvising. The more complicated my routines have become, the less repetitive my improv work has become.
- creativity - some dance forms leave this until the very end of training. I think that's a mistake. You have to play with your dance, or it will quickly become unfun. For me, it can be as simple as turning on music I like and dancing around. The thing is... even when you are doing this, you should have your mind on posture, control and timing. And you should keep an eye on what transitions work and don't work for you - being 'creative' does not mean being undisciplined.
- final review - if something in the previous sections was giving you difficulty - review it one more time before you end for the session
- cool down - just as important as the warm up.
For me - I do this in half hour chunks for each dance form I practice. The Burlesque stuff is often higher on the creativity and lower on the individual movements, but there's still quite a lot of combination and routine work - even though more than half of my material is an improvised solo. I may not manage every part of this practice every day - but I daresay that I manage all of these for each form every week.
It occurs to me that there's a few signal flares I have to dancers that I'm afraid I won't be able to work with - and one big one is a lack of understanding of the importance of practice and a lack of understanding of what is most necessary to practice. Don't get me wrong - ignorance is not a crime. But sometimes I get a vibe from dancers of "well I don't *need* that sort of practice" and that's where my shiny red button is. Everyone needs practice and if you are really serious - you need a lot of rigor and you need to practice with an eye for your own mistakes, no matter how advanced you are as a dancer. If you can't look at your own dance and see where your movement has not matched your intended goal - then you aren't practicing correctly, IMO.
This Pennsic I had a really good time practicing every day - I did so from 9-10:30ish every day in little half hour blocks of stuff. All of it Indian, since doing Burlesque at Pennsic kinda breaks the Lakshmi Headspace for me. When I got home, I got to do two wonderful weekend days of dance the weekend after Pennsic. My teacher has scheduled us to take part in the Waterfront Festival on Sept. 8th, and so between the 4 regular hours of dance, plus the new Kola Attam number for the festival, plus Indian Serendipity where the 1 hour Kalari class becomes two hours, plus regular Babydolls rehearsal - I spent easily 10 hours of time in scheduled dance activities, probably 12 hours if you count practicing.
And I loved every minute even if I hurt a bit on Monday. And my practicing paid off to my instructors, and I felt better in class for having done the work.
I'm keeping the momentum going this week - practicing most mornings and most evenings, too in a nearby park, because my dance room isn't big enough to do the Kalari Mei Payattu - which is a long exercise regime to build stamina and correct form.
So.. here's what I've been thinking about...
How to get good at dance?
As a student, performer, choreographer and dance captain this is something I ask myself nearly constantly and have been asking myself for probably the last 10 years - probably ever since I started studying dance as an adult. As a kid, dance class was something fun to do with my friends, and a way to wear a shiny costume and have everyone pay attention to me. As an adult - I get all those things from dance, but I could as easily get them from any number of other venues that are less work, less money, and less potential for injury. So... why dance? Because I like it, because it's a good way to keep my body in shape, because I want to be good at it. And that begs the question - how do you get good at dance?
I should start by saying I'm of the school of thought that EVERYONE can be a good dancer - you don't have to have some perfect body type, or have all your joints in good working order, dance is part of being human, so we all qualify. That said - we may not all qualify for all types of dance and we definitely don't all qualify for all dance troupes or dance venues. I, for example, will never be a Rockette - I'm too tall and too curvy. But, a Rockette will never look as good on a Middle Eastern stage as I do - she hasn't trained her body for that.
But... leaving aside style, body type and a whole bunch of things... what makes a good dancer and how do you get better at it?
That'll probably be the discussion of several posts, because I have to leave in a few minutes...
But...
The first that comes to mind is practice. When I talk to those I consider successful and talented, I'm generally awed by the length and rigor of their practice sessions. It has no bearing on what dance form you use - you need to practice and you need to practice HARD. Elitha (a fabulous shimmying goddess from Florida) says she aims to do "perfect practice" by which she means always, always, always doing the proper form, focusing on proper timing, and with full control of all her body parts. I think that's a pretty good one. Even if you're practicing your eyebrow movements (yes, I know a set of eyebrow movements), your posture should be good or no one will see how cool your eyebrows are.
It also occurs to me, that there are several parts to my practice regimes, no matter what art I am practicing:
- the warm up - any movement class will tell you how important this is. You need to get the muscles you'll be using ready to work or you can hurt yourself. It is also a good time to push your body to improve its flexibility and balance. A good number of my Bharata Natyam warm ups are actually as much about balance as muscle flex.
- working on movements - every dance form has simple movements and combinations that are the basic building blocks. I generally start doing these right after warm ups. That way I'm doing them at the least-tired stage.
- combinations and routines - these are the simple movements strung together. In any dance form, they start easy and get harder. Don't be afraid to go back and refresh the easy ones - having pushed your skill level up, you'll find more to refine when you revisit old material. Even if you prefer to dance improv, I think learning routines is an important skill. It's vitally necessary if you ever want to dance with other people, and the rigor of learning something complex and being able to replicate it allows you to add complexity, even when you are improvising. The more complicated my routines have become, the less repetitive my improv work has become.
- creativity - some dance forms leave this until the very end of training. I think that's a mistake. You have to play with your dance, or it will quickly become unfun. For me, it can be as simple as turning on music I like and dancing around. The thing is... even when you are doing this, you should have your mind on posture, control and timing. And you should keep an eye on what transitions work and don't work for you - being 'creative' does not mean being undisciplined.
- final review - if something in the previous sections was giving you difficulty - review it one more time before you end for the session
- cool down - just as important as the warm up.
For me - I do this in half hour chunks for each dance form I practice. The Burlesque stuff is often higher on the creativity and lower on the individual movements, but there's still quite a lot of combination and routine work - even though more than half of my material is an improvised solo. I may not manage every part of this practice every day - but I daresay that I manage all of these for each form every week.
It occurs to me that there's a few signal flares I have to dancers that I'm afraid I won't be able to work with - and one big one is a lack of understanding of the importance of practice and a lack of understanding of what is most necessary to practice. Don't get me wrong - ignorance is not a crime. But sometimes I get a vibe from dancers of "well I don't *need* that sort of practice" and that's where my shiny red button is. Everyone needs practice and if you are really serious - you need a lot of rigor and you need to practice with an eye for your own mistakes, no matter how advanced you are as a dancer. If you can't look at your own dance and see where your movement has not matched your intended goal - then you aren't practicing correctly, IMO.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 04:10 am (UTC)It sounds kind of cheesy, but I have seen a lot of highly-trained "professional" dancers in a variety of forms who simply have no soul. They can move with the music, but the music isn't moving them. They can carry themselves with poise and grace, but there is still something awkward in the way they wear their skin. I suspect that this is where the mental work of being a "good dancer" comes in.
Now, it may just be that I am some ultra-observant freak, but I can *see* when a dancer has unresolved body image issues, or a lack of self-confidence, no matter how long and hard they've been studying and practicing. I seriously don't think it's something that can be "trained out" physically. The dancer needs to have a level of inner peace (for lack of a better term) before they can get down to the business of expression through dance.
But this is, like all things, just my opinion. It's one I've thought about a lot lately, and is probably one of the reasons I'd rather watch a confident, enthusiast "amateur" (in any style) who's got soul than the most rigorously trained pro whose smile is forced and looks like they're going to jump out of their skin at any second.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-28 03:29 pm (UTC)But, I should say that part of my thoughts on continued thoughts in this direction is that practice should include *enjoying* your body. In a structured way that pays attention to form and such. But if you don't get joy from the moves, you either haven't found the right dance form or you aren't doing it right. On a perfect practice day, I can combine attention to doing it right, with a feeling of joy when the move flows through my body just the way it should.
And I think that part of that joy has come from resolving "body issues". No one is free of them - even really fun to watch dancers have one thing or another that they would happily change. But dance should definitely be about showing the world what we love about ourselves, not about hoping no one will notice that which we like the least.
Two comments
Date: 2007-08-26 06:10 am (UTC)But sometimes I get a vibe from dancers of "well I don't *need* that sort of practice" and that's where my shiny red button is. Everyone needs practice and if you are really serious - you need a lot of rigor and you need to practice with an eye for your own mistakes, no matter how advanced you are as a dancer.
Look at concert pianists, they practice their scales, or another story;
A few years ago, my lady Mellryn was taking a class with the Kung-Fu Master Jun Ri (spelling may not be correct). Anyway, this little old man is evidently an avatar in the Kung fu circles. He said that black belts of various levels come to him asking to be shown a 'new' technique. He tells them to go practice fundamentals. According to him, all of Kung Fu is summed up in seven fundamental moves, master those, and the flow from one to another, and you have mastered all of Kung Fu.
Secondly, you have those people who are not comfortable in their own skins. I work with some. Its not that the music doesn't flow though them, as there is no music, its as though their life energy is constricted somehow. There is a wonderful passage by Kahlil Gibran describing a dancer as one who sings with their whole body. Most of us have trouble reading out loud, much less singing.
Re: Two comments
Date: 2007-08-28 03:36 pm (UTC)So true! I have only seen one teacher who really specializes in this - Joe Paul Williams. His primary focus is really on getting the most power and beauty from any dance style and using it to move your audience in the way that you intend. Sometimes his advice is very mental - ways to move yourself to create an impression in the viewer. But sometimes his advice connects very viscerally with letting inner beauty rise to the surface so that the dancer is truly inhabiting her/his body.
I've seen other good teachers bring out the best in dancers - but often in the way that any friend or loved one would - with general encouragement and emotional support.
I'm enough of a technician that my primary focus is usually on transmitting knowledge of specific movements - but I love trying to figure out ways to bring out the best part of people. Burlesque makes me think of it a lot, because while some technique is important, attitude is probably more important. You can do Burlesque even if your only dance move is walking in time to the music. But you can't do Burlesque well if you don't look like you love your body.