I've been dancing a long time, so i've seen a lot of things - not all - but a good amount.....when it comes to Lindy Hop. I personally am also into the dance the way it was danced by the African American people in the 30s and 40s, that's why i never found myself attracted to balboa, which to me, exemplifies a very white way of dancing to swing music, upright, controlled, small and less expressive. Bal-swing was not a thing in the 40s and 50s, it had always existed as a small portion of balboa, but even then balboa existed as a small portion of white/West Coast swing dance, and was not its own dance the way it is now. Nowadays both balboa and bal-swing are its own dance. It is kinda the same for solo jazz. Vernacular jazz was always part of tap or Lindy, but it didn't exist in the 30s and 40s the way it exists now, seen as a separate and discrete form of jazz dancing from the Lindy or Tap. Even amongst both the black and white dancers, the boundaries in general in the 40s and 50s were less defined than they are now. Nowadays the labels are very clear about what this dance is and so-on.
For me, Lindy Hop and the authentic vernacular jazz that comes with Lindy Hop, is about rhythm, and maybe that's why i got into tap as well - because it was a rhythm dance and i could identify a commonality across all the dances that i do now. Lindy Hop, Solo Jazz, Charleston, Tap....all these had rhythm to me. I am not a big blues dancer - because i don't perceive the rhythm in Blues. The movement is smooth and undefined rhythmically, and it slurs across the beats in a way that seems haphazard and random. Maybe i could have identified with that at one point of time, but after working with tap and working to be precise with timing and rhythm after so long, i feel blues rhythms to be amorphous and ambiguous, and i don't understand that. It seems like its more of a feeling than an accent, and if it's based on a subjective feeling, there's really no right or wrong - and that too is an ambiguity that i don't understand. In the dances I do, the rhythmic dances, there is very clearly a right and wrong in terms of things like - 1. if you are off rhythm in Lindy Hop or Tap or Jazz, you are wrong, there's no subjective interpretation about it. If there was a subjective interpretation about it, then there would be no use going to class, because in class teachers teach something objective. If what teachers teach in class is subjective, then there is no real purpose for class. Logically speaking - how can that make sense? 2. If you are on jazz-time while doing partnerwork, you are wrong as well, for example, starting a rock step on 8-1, instead of 1-2. If in the midst of dancing, you go off into jazz time, that's fine as long as you endeavor to reset your timing back to 1-2, instead of then always being 1 count ahead on 8-1. That's still happens to me. Sometimes i try a variation and it throws off my time, but because i'm listening to the music, i know i'm off and i find the earliest opportunity to reset. 3. In tap, if you double time the speed because the song is slow, each sound in the double-time is precise and has a specific position. The moment one sound is off, it's already technically wrong. As tap dancers we're not so unforgiving that if few sounds are out of place we get all anal about that, we don't. But we also come from the perspective that it's a slippery slope, and the more sounds are all of place, the worse the tap becomes. It's also the precision of being with the music, as a musician. In blues, i have seen dancers speed up their steps when the song is slow, but i cannot discern the rhythm they are using. Is it a double of the song tempo? or 1.5x? Or it is faster than that - just the leader deciding what speed he suddenly wants to squish all the possible steps and then stop at a moment of his deciding? Is the whole string of suddenly accelerated steps in one single accelerated timing or is it a mix of different sped-up timings? Are the points of the steps, like the rock steps or the turns supposed to hit some part of the music or just to be fast and fancy? That's what i don't get in Blues. And because it's a feeling, and a feeling is subjective, there is no way to call it out as right or wrong. i can only say, i don't understand your rhythm, i don't get your rhythm. (in tap we sometimes do that - try to be so fast that we are squishing steps and rhythms in a small period of the music, but even then, when we squished it so bad [like in tap we can divide a beat into 6 sounds] that we cannot count it no more, we are still very particular that it forms a rhythmic sensibility that another tap dancer can understand) I sometimes feel that way about lyrical jazz, modern contemporary or ballet. I can't see how the dance interacts with the music in a rhythmic way. But then, these are not rhythmic dances - these are expressive dances, that don't necessarily adhere to the idea of rhythmic dance, and also, they would not be danced necessarily to music with a strong rhythmic feeling. Jazz - in particular, the jazz that we dance to for lindy hop, is such a rhythmic/propulsive type of music that to not be part of that heartbeat, feels like you are ignoring the most important part of the song. 4. Rhythmic dances and dancers are very connected to the music. There's no way about it. Either you are WITH the music or YOU ARE NOT, there's is no grey area about that. In lindy or jazz, if we as lindy hoppers or solo jazz dancers, take a rhythmic break, we have to sure that the rhythm and syncopation we use is on time, solid and makes rhythmic sense. I repeat - There's no grey area about that. In social dance, we can make mistakes, and as social dancers, we forgive mistakes - of course - that's why we say there's no wrong on the social dance floor - but that DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT A RHYTHMIC BREAK WAS NOT IN TIME. Maybe people are misunderstanding what we as teachers mean by - "there are no mistakes on the social dance floor" or "there's no right or wrong on the social dance floor" or "you can do anything you want on the social dance floor"...or some variation of this statement. What we really mean is - it's ok to try new things, it's ok to make mistakes, it's ok to get things wrong, don't beat yourself up for not being perfect. Ultimately, we as teachers want you to benefit from the dance, and enjoy yourself while dancing, so we make a fuss over little things going wrong. What WE DON"T MEAN is : - for you to decide whatever you like is right and whatever that has been established as a rule or pattern in this dance is wrong - for you to dance in a way that is harmful or dangerous to others and justify that as "there is no wrong on the dance floor" - for you to dance off-rhythm and not to the music and justify that under "do anything you like" or "no wrong or right" on the dance floor. - for you to decide what you think is appropriate partner dancing rules and conventions as opposed to the general rules and convention of Lindy Hop - for you to decide that it's appropriate to dance your preferred style of dancing when you come to an explicitly labelled LINDY HOP social and ask others to dance with you in this preferred style, which could be something like boogie woogie, or rock&roll, or Ballroom, or West Coast (Swing). In a Lindy Hop social, we accept all the swing dances but our dancers are generally expecting to dance the Lindy Hop and as an organizer, that's why I organise the social - for Lindy Hop. If i wanted to organize a boogie woogie social, i would have done that. Don't use "the anything goes" justification to demand and expect that dancers in a lindy social dance shag or rock and roll or blues with you because that's what you like best. If you can't lindy hop confidently, please don't come to a lindy hop social. This list could go on somemore, but i think you get the gist. Those statements don't give you a free pass to do as you like, those statements are meant to encourage you to try harder and become better dancers, and to help and support you as you progress in this dance journey. Back to the topic at hand - Rhythm dancing. One of the things i always appreciated about the African American style of dancing the Lindy and tap was it's emphasis on rhythm. In the 30s and 40s, this was especially evident in tap. The black dancers could divide the beat more than the white dancers, and they had a generally better sense of rhythm when it came to the music (jazz) and their syncopations made sense and were on time. Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly are the 2 most famous white tap dancers, that were also big Hollywood Stars, but when i look at the stuff they did and the stuff the black dancers did, Fred and Gene were not really rhythmic dancers. Check out Baby Laurence or Teddy Hale. That's rhythmic tap dancing. Not Fred or Gene. I admire the inventiveness of the choreographies that they did, but in terms of rhythm precision, accuracy and syncopation, the black dancers won, hands-down! I take this attitude when i dance my Lindy Hop. One of the things which i understand instinctively but is hard to put into words, is that lead and follow connection/dynamics, has a rhythm. The way in which the energies of the lead and follow interact and create momentum and dynamic, follows a rhythm. This rhythm is not amorphous nor ambiguous, nor difficult to understand nor perceive. But you have to start with the mindset that lead & follow is a rhythm, then it becomes easier to perceive. Take the rock step for instance. Both partners have to execute the rock with a certain timing and precision to work. The follow has to perceive the signal before the 1-count, so that it can be executed by 1, hence the leader has to lead it before the 1-count. Somehow together, that precision of timing and execution leads to both the leader and follow executing a rock step on 1, and then by virtue of the dynamic, bouncing back in from the rock step on 2. There is no 3 in this rock step, nor is there a 1.5 - it bounces back in on 2 - without a doubt. That is a very specific and very precise rhythm - created by executing the technique well and with clarity. Can the rhythm of the rock step be changed to delay it or speed it up? Yes, it can, once again, tweaking the lead & follow dynamics give us the ability to do this. I won't explain it here, that's for a class situation, and its really difficult to explain here, but i would like to say that the rhythm of the rock step, no matter how it varies, must fall in line with the conventions of partnerwork dancing rhythm, which is to start on the odd number counts. It is in the wrong time to start on the even number counts. When Lindy Hop loses its rhythmic aspect, it becomes a very unenjoyable dance for me. It sort of separates itself from the music, from the beat. I am sure that all of you dancers have seen or have danced with beginners at some point in time. Or maybe you saw it as a wedding dance, where the bride and groom were dancing, with a song on but the way they were doing their footwork and their lead & follow had ABSOLUTELY NO RELATION to the music that was being played. The song was chosen because they liked the song. The groom raises his arm, the bride goes underneath, no timing whatsoever, and a twirl here and a twirl there, footwork not even on the counts...You can get this experience when you dance with very beginner dancers - now this is natural for beginner dancers - and we should neither condemn nor judge the beginners for this inability - but neither should they stay there, in this inability to be rhythmic. As a lead, u raise your arm and the beginner follower just kinda walks through the arch with no rhythm nor timing and the incoming rock-step will be off, or as a follow, you want to start on 1, but the leader is starting on 4 or 6, and along the way, the dance loses all sense of connection to the song and becomes the leader just dancing to his own beat and rhythm because as a beginner, that's what he/she can work with at that point...Once again, being very clear here, we are not going to be anal that beginners cannot be rhythmic nor that they are off-beat, but we do not expect them to stay there - we expect them to progress and learn to be on beat, and learn to work with the music. If they stay there, it becomes a frustrating and painful experience to dance with them, and that is not fair to the dancer who really wants a good dance, isn't it? Everything in Lindy Hop should have rhythm, it should correspond to a point or a beat in the song, even if its between the counts like on the "a" or the "&". One of the things that people don't think about is that even airsteps have rhythm. This is very hard to explain to people with little or no airstep experience, as well as people who are in awe of the acrobatic nature of airsteps. If an airstep has NO RHYTHM, IT"S NOTHING MORE THAN ACROBATICS, like cheerleading. The wonderful and unique thing about lindy hop, is that the our airsteps must have rhythm. Cheerleading is very popular, and they utilize a lot of throws and airsteps as well - but what differentiates cheerleading from airsteps? Simple - the ability to be in time with the songa nd to land with precision on a chosen beat or accent. Even in the air, during the jump itself or the throw, the twisting and tumbling through the air has a rhythm. Airsteps are not amorphous in their rhythm, if you don't understand that and you think that an airstep is only about the acrobatic nature of the throw or tumble, you are missing the point with airsteps. Frankie Manning disliked the term aerials, because to him it signified something in the air, he preferred the term airsteps, because he saw these acrobatic trips as part of the routine, as a step in the routine, with rhythm, with timing, with precision. Just like how one cannot be late for a tuck turn, or a swingout, and both these steps have precision and specicif rhythms, airsteps too, must be on time and with rhythm and flow into the next part of the routine. Just being able to execute airsteps is nothing - not really a big deal. Cheerleaders can do it. What makes you a lindy hopper, and not just a cheerleader or acrobat, is that you can do it in rhythm and in tempo to a song, not missing a beat or not having to buffer a wait time for the airstep because the execution is poor in rhythm. It's hard to imagine, but just like how you can sing the rhythm of a swingout to any given lindy hop song, you can sing the rhythm of the airstep to the song as well. The whole routine/choreography, should be something that you can sing to the song, airsteps included, because every part has rhythm and every part is in time with the music. Think about that one. I'm signing off here. As always, if you would like to chat, do come and look for me on the dance floor where-ever.
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