Quote Originally Posted by Gav View Post
Light and shade? Can you explain what that actually means?

That's a genuine request for help to understand btw, not a dig or sarcasm.
Night and shade in simple terms means adding contrast in your dancing, In very basic terms i would suggest trying to dance half time, straight time and double time.

Take the blues basic and rather than weight change on every beat, i would mix it up with different rhythms as suggested. add step taps, kick ball changes, triple steps or rotate during the basic will be adding colour and contrast to the movement.

An example would be dancing to a phrase of music. I see people who dance straight through a Major Phrase change and miss what the music is doing, however usually during the last set of 8 in a phrase of 32 you will mostly feel an acceleration in the music or it building up to the phrase change....So i would try and reflect this, so when swing dancing to a a 32 beat phrase i would mostly thinking to dance like this as a guide

1st set 8 - dance straight timing but attach to something lyrical in the song
2nd set 8 - straight timing, swing movements/shapes
3rd set 8 - Usually a change in the music so here i would look to slow things down
4th set 8 - The song is now building up to resolve or accelerating so i would add acceleration and speed to my movements looking to show or highlight the phrase change.

So with this method i will have covered the basic 3 of straight timing, half timing and double time in 1 phrase.

Hope this helps a little