Quote:
Originally posted by Gus
For once I may have to disagree (slightly) with Dave. |
Don't worry about that. Most people disagree with me. Even I don't necessarily agree with myself all the time.
The comment about moves was one made to me by a teacher at Camber last year. He wanted to start teaching something different (he said style and technique), but the pressure from his regular dancers was just to keep teaching moves. If you take Camber as being a good cross-section of dancers from around the country, his situation was not unique. Most people just wanted to learn one move after another, and the flashier the better.
I don't see anything wrong with this (for intermediate dancers). People dance to have fun, and Jive is one of the most enjoyable forms of dancing I know. All you need to do is know a few moves, and you can dance as often as you like, and it
feels great. The more moves you know, the more fun you can have.
But if you aspire to being an advanced dancer, you need to know more than moves. You need to understand how to dance, how to move, how to lead/follow etc. You need to understand the music. And you want it to
look good. Style is all about how your dancing looks to other people.
Everyone has their own style - it is simply the way you dance. You are the only person who can think, move, feel, act etc the way you do. But there are very few people who naturally have good style - ie who think, move, feel, act etc and make it look good without even thinking about it. Everyone else has to learn.
I think style workshops are a very good idea. Having someone say "I think this looks good. This is how you do it", or "This doesn't look good, so don't do it" can save you a lot of time. You will never dance like the teacher, but they will never dance like you. And it is worth it - you are on the way to being an advanced dancer, not just another intermediate dancer who knows a lot of moves.
To answer my own question -
can Modern Jive style be defined as how well you make a complicated move look?
For an intermediate dancer - yes. But for an advanced dancer, style is making a simple move look good, and a complicated move look simple.
(For me - I don't know any complicated moves, and I can't make the simple moves look the way I want them to. So I'm probably a beginner.)
From the sound of it, Gus and Franck should be congratulated for encouraging their dancers to learn more than just another move. And Viktor and Lydia should be congratulated for teaching it, and improving the standard of dancing around the country.
David