August 7, 2007

The Interconnectedness Among Different Dance Forms

Two excellent posts about the benefits of learning multiple dance forms:

In a Time to Dance, Maria writes about how her modern dance and salsa training have each contributed to strengthening the other:

I have gained a lot of strength, control and a greater consciousness of my movements. Even the differences between modern and salsa enhance the other. In modern and ballet, we have to have a lifted, aligned core and relaxed but straightened, fluid upper body. In salsa, we are more grounded--our center is found by bending our knees and our shoulders and torso move in opposition to our hips and feet. While there is always the risk that too much modern and ballet will stiffen up my Latin motion, somehow the contrast between the two makes me more conscious of the unique characteristics of the way you should carry yourself in each style.

And in Addicted2Salsa, Dano writes "Thinking Outside the Box-step," in which he describes how swing, ballroom, Argentine tango and hip-hop have enhanced his salsa dancing. When highlighting the benefits of swing, Dano writes:

From Swing (Lindy Hop, East Coast, West Coast, Charleston, Shag, & Balboa): I learned the basic concepts of lead and follow. Leading with my body and not with my arms has helped me tremendously. I learned how to use a person’s momentum to help move or spin her faster. I learned about musicality and syncopations and how to play with the music. Were I to characterize this dance, I would describe it as smooth, jazzy, and relaxed half of the time, yet energetic and happy the other half of the time.

I especially like these two posts because they emphasize the interconnections among diverse dance forms and the benefits of being exposed to many dance styles.

I would enjoy seeing this topic explored more online both in written form and with video clips. If you start with salsa, for example, a mix of many traditions, as Maria explains, it would be fascinating to see side-by-side videos that show how different styles of salsa share commonalities with other social dance forms. By seeing these videos in relationship to each other, along with good text descriptions, viewers would develop a much richer understanding of how different dance forms influence each other.

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