(mixed from two posts...)
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Originally Posted by David Franklin ~ I am honestly pressed to think of anything danced to 4/4 music that you wouldn't consider incorporatable into MJ. |
true. Nor can I. Why? Should there be a limit to what can be danced in MJ?
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...almost any MJ couple would dance...
...99.9% of MJ dancers dance exactly as taught...
... if everyone (or even a reasonable percentage) starts dancing slotted and with triple steps, I have no problem saying that's part of MJ....
...Defining a dance by the outermost boundaries when 99.9% of the people don't go anywhere near them doesn't seem very helpful...
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Hmmm... the majority of MJ dancers are beginners, novice intermediates or intermediates: The better the dancer, the fewer of them there are. Just because that top few ignore the boundaries that people try to use to define MJ does not mean that you say "the majority do this so this must be the dance."
[/quote]And if MJ had half the footwork in it that WCS does, I expect we'd have some MJ couples still in SDF...
[/quote]If the judges were not so blinkered in thinking that footwork = good dancing, then we'd have some MJ couples in SDF...
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...and it's {WCS} more slotted than almost any MJ couple would dance.... In the same way, 99.9% of MJ dancers dance exactly as taught...
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contradiction. Taught in slots, danced amorphous. Taught on every other beat, danced on whatever beat.
[/quote]MJ doesn't give people the tools (and teaching etc.) to dance like the top WCS dancers.[/quote]Correct: It gives them tools that {in theory} should enable people to dance
better than WCS dancers. No boundaries saying that "this is" and "this is not".
I've said it before, and I'll say it again; life moves pretty fast... {sorry, wrong quote...
} MJ is simply dancing.
It's defined more by what it isn't than what it is. Poor dancing of any form could be mistaken for poor MJ. Top level dancers in any form are restricted by the boundaries of their dance and could not express the music as well without breaking from the rigidity of the dance. Top level MJ should be able to take all these bits outside all the other dance forms and entwine them into an expression of the music.
To me, MJ is about enjoyment, musicality and dancing. In that order. Judging MJ against almost any other style will compare dancing before musicality - Asthetically, I don't really care if the splits don't meet the floor; as long as it was timed with, and suited, the music. You could execute a technically perfect cha-cha-cha with double synchronous turns; but if it didn't match the music or the timing, I would not think that much of it.