2018年11月5日 星期一

The Minimal Principle in Dance Technique

Kandykane in class

So you see I can teach ballroom and Latin and as I have become more experienced, and as the dance knowledge enriched, these days when I am teach dancing, I am no longer confronting ballroom and Latin, rather I need to choreo for fusion dances, or something we named Latin Jazz, or Latin Funk, (I believe you can really understand what it is after googling this term), and also some easy jazz and Kpop too. I was asked if it is hard to remember different kinds of dancing, and how to achieve each type of dance. And here is an ultimate tip for you to dance all dances. 

To begin with Latin Jazz, is a mix of everything, Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, Swing, Lindy Hop, Blues get mixed into a heavy beat rhythm, maybe a subtler clave beat, do a little bit of break dance and Street dancing, there you go, it is what we call Latin Jazz or Latin Funk. 

My favorite technique remains quite important when you go funky dancing, however, it is harder to explain dance term and how to achieve certain movements to funky dance crowd. Since Funky Dance took over Hong Kong and even non-dancers talked about how easy Funky Dance is and how little they prepared themselves before classes and how much fun it was... 

There is no doubt that Funky Dance is fun, however, I really can't agree with the statement that there is no technique in funky. It is really easy to dance with your feet- it is a general truth not only applicable to Funky Dance. What makes your moving feet watchable is the way you move your feet. I could step a vine step and that's a vine step for sure. But if I just step the steps out, I am not dancing. I should move my body as well. Moving the body doesn't look like a great dancer, so I also improvise some arm styling, head flipping, hip rolling at the same time I do a vine step. Oh and I become quite spectacular and very watchable. 

So no matter I am teaching ballroom or Latin, or the funky, in group, solo or partnered, I always emphasize technique. All dances share some common technical base- body separation, centre and weight distribution, spotting and momentum, alignments and directions. Once you get these, you can dance everything. 


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