Non-dancing friends often ask me if dancing isn't anachronistic, in that
men are always leading, asking the follower for a dance. My answer uses
a metaphor that I've heard a couple of times: A dance is like a
conversation.
Interestingly, this metaphor can be taken quite far.
There are many parallels. In the following article I
want to discuss those aspects focussing on the parallels in leading /
following and how to put them into dancing.
I'll address the
leader as 'he' and the follower as 'she'. It's just a simplification,
the same statements would apply if I address leaders and followers vice
versa or if both are male or female.
DISCLAIMER
--
I wrote this article about 5 years ago, and have changed my opinion on many things quite a bit since then (e.g. using the non-matching terms follower and leader, instead of dancer in analogy for dancing :)). But despite that, it's a fun analogy and demonstrates an approach to many issues in the scene. It's open for discussion :)
--
A conversation isn't
just there. It doesn't fall out of the sky and you start talking. A conversation needs to be started. Someone needs to ask for a dance.
I've almost never run into the situation in daily life that only men
start conversations, so why should it be different in dancing? Anyone
can start the conversation.
To have a conversation you need a language
in which you can talk. Technique would be the equivalent in dancing.
There are a lot of techniques including some that just don't work
together, which is not to say that
one is better than the other. Once
the language is chosen you'll need a topic to talk about. The topic
often happens to be the music. Of course it can also be set by the leader or the follower.
We
haven't yet started talking, which is considered helpful for a
conversation. Let's start out with basics. Leading is talking and
following is listening. Leaders, be aware that unclear leading is like
mumbling. Your partner doesn't understand you and probably will be annoyed trying to decipher what you want to say. Followers you'll please every leader with a good ear.
Clear
communication in one direction is very basic. Usually conversations are
much more complicated and so is dancing. A one-sided conversation, in
which the leader talks and talks and just won't stop, is boring for the
follower. The inverse holds true too.
There are many ways in which a follower can talk. Sometimes talking
is a smile or an extra turn that wasn't lead. You have plenty of
options here followers; go and explore them. Finding new ones is very
satisfying.
So now that the followers know how to talk we have a
problem - we might have two people talking at the same time. Experience
will tell you that this doesn't work. So leaders have to learn how to be
quiet and to listen. How to be quiet as a leader? It isn't easy,
especially since you were probably taught to lead all the time;
maybe the follower even expects you to.
Followers,
generally speaking if there is something you really want to say at that
moment, go ahead. The same goes for leaders. Being quiet is definitely
not the same as listening. If you want to keep a good
conversation going you'll need to listen and show interest in what
your partner tells you. What is your partner doing? Switching topics? Be aware
also that not listening can easily be interpreted as rude. You profit though to not do
interpret it in that fashion.
Going
further: Sentences from two different people do not alone necessarily
make for a good conversation. What you need is not just pure talking,
but the content of what you are saying should relate to what your
partner just said. In a conversation, that can be an answer to a
question or a response to a statement. Responding can be done for
instance by taking over the new style that your partner introduced (e.g.
adding a bounce), but here again there are so many ways. Be alert and
play around.
Sentences should also be intra-connected content-wise. "I like bananas. Check out that Giraffe. Did you just fart?" are totally random. This happens when leaders just lead move after move. But if you start dancing then moves should become connected. I personally really like to keep the energy of a movement going, inverse it, increase it, decrease it, but in any case use the energy of the precedent movement. This is what will make your dance flow.
A careful reader might have noticed that I
suggested 'smiling' as a way to talk. Smiling is not a lead, so how come
I mentioned smiling? A good connection is not just physical. In a good
conversation there are quite often emotions involved. This is nice to
know when you are speaking because it adds an extra communication
level which will open a whole new mode of information transfer. It's not
so much about the amount, which of course grows too, but you gain the
possibility of transferring different types of information. There might
even be different information transferred simultaneously. This level
has the nice feature that both of you can transfer information at the
same time.
Something I've seen a number of times is the
repetitive use of one styling. If you think of everything you do in
dancing as talking then repeating yourself all the time is like telling
the same joke over and over again. At some point that joke just isn't
funny anymore.
If you can listen to the music, try to get new things out of
it or watch yourself and when you find yourself repeating the same things be open minded, look at other dancers, change the way you used to dance moves!
The
above addresses only the situation of two people interacting,
specifically the couple that is dancing together. But hey, I'm sure
you've had conversations with more than two people involved. Having more
than two people can be difficult in dancing simply because it's unusual
and seldomly taught. These conversations are usable as well as totally
in accord with the above.
Stealing is one of those situations. Assume
you have one follower and two leaders. Yes, it's very likely that the
leaders will communicate a lot trying to find even smoother ways of
stealing the follower which doesn't mean nobody is paying attention to
the follower any more. It is a different way. The follower is now the
topic of the dance and thus has quite a lot of influence on the conversation. You can make it easy to be stolen or hard or.... It's a new situation, a new playground!
Another situation with more people involved can include competitions,
when the other people involved might not even be dancing. Stay
open-minded on conversations with more than two people. They can be fun!
One
last parallel, probably the one which will draw most disagreement: If
you are asked for a dance it is often considered
impolite to refuse.
But looking at the metaphor of conversation, I do think there is at
least one good reason for declining a dance. Sometimes you get asked
by someone with whom you just have nothing to talk about. It happens.
That conversation would turn out to be very one-sided or pure small-talk
and therefore very unsatisfying. To turn down such a dance is in my
opinion totally acceptable.
Feel free to pick those parallels that
fit for you. I'm very interested in your views and feedback.
