Absolutely.
Imagine the following situation - you are learning a new piece of footwork, still struggling to remember where to put your feet, and the teacher is emphatically shouting something along the lines of "Feel the music!"
Distracting. Counterproductive.
Yet, we have all been to classes like this. There is no time to get any feeling into the dance, so we end up looking as if we are searching for the car keys. If we are out of time or off balance, it will not look good, no matter how we "feel".
This is a small dig at instructors who push their students to simultaneously do two very different things. It applies to teaching armwork together with footwork, demanding emotion during a new piece of choreography, or teaching styling on a combination students have only just been shown.
An impossible task.
Flavour and Flair
To achieve flavour, we must actually feel something when we dance. But dancing in a personal, musical way needs split-second reactions, so we can only use what is already in our muscle memory - familiar movements we can perform with speed and precision without thinking about what we are doing.
This is why we can see some beginners with flavour, and plenty of experienced dancers without it. You can do a lot with a little, and nothing with a lot.
If we do not get the emotional content of the music and interpret it personally, there is no way we are going to have the flair, no matter how good we are at hitting the breaks. Having the music explained and talking about it can help - understanding it in our heads can be a shortcut to emotional response.
Teaching Ideas
If you are a teacher and got this far without getting vexed and closing the page, I salute you. Below are a few ideas you rarely see in classes today, but I believe they could help immensely.
Technique
If you want students to express genuine emotion, let them do it with what they already know - familiar techniques, not the new one you are trying to teach. Otherwise, there will always be a conflict.
It is vital to understand why a technique works and why it is done that way. Nowadays, we are asked to "just repeat what I do" too often. Without any explanation, the moves end up being done from memory, which keeps the brain busy and stops the body from feeling. Understanding why things are done in a certain manner will ingrain this technique and further expand students' potential.
On the physical side, it is not enough to know that you turn around an axis to spin. The spin must be broken down into the parts that make up the whole. Then those same parts can be used to create other movements.
But more on technique in a future post. It deserves an article of its own.
Musicality
As for musicality, teachers could do a lot by caring and learning about the music they are playing, mentioning it briefly in class, respecting the skilled musicians who made it, and sparking some interest in their students. Unfortunately, even the few teachers who know something about the music often seem to assume no one is interested.
It does not require fancy moves to show feeling for the music, your partner, and the dance.
- Have you asked your students which tracks they like the most? Get them to bring in the music and play short bits of it during the class.
- Have you asked them which partners they enjoy dancing with the most? Get them to elaborate and explain why.
- Have you asked them which professional dancers they admire or enjoy watching? If they do not know any, suggest some names for them to go away and watch on YouTube or Instagram and report back next week.
- Get them to dance a simple basic or move to one section of the music, then make up their own continuation for the next phrase, using only what they already know. This works in partner hold or apart, facing each other. Have the leader and the follower interact and play off each other.
Making students learn more technique before they show their feelings holds them back and builds more barriers down the line. We do not always have to shimmy like jelly on a plate. Simple things can be done to express ourselves and enhance our dancing.
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo da Vinci
Final Words
I would love to see more people develop an emotional connection stirred by the music, and get in tune with their feelings and how their surroundings affect them. Once they can do this, it becomes easy to pick up what the music says by pure feel, without knowing the lyrics or having heard the song before.
In fact, when you are deeply in touch with your feelings and the music, you can sense the changes in a song you have never heard before, just before they happen. This has nothing to do with technique or music knowledge. It is about the ability to feel.
Do we need to speak someone's language to know we have fallen in love with them? Do we need to understand what the person says to feel that they are happy? To know what the music says, close your eyes and listen to yourself. Notice how every beat of the music stirs up feelings that guide your dance. Once you begin to sense where the feelings are coming from, concentrate on that location, take deep breaths, and soon you will feel like you are about to burst with emotion. Let your body carry those, and you will find the flair that cannot be physically taught.
It is a reaction we can all pick up. But modern society does not teach us to get in tune with our feelings. It teaches us to look outward and get lost in exoteric ideals - a material world that is only happy with possessions.
Let us change.
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