Ballroom as a Performance??

Let me just start out with the obvious. Ballroom dancing is a hobby/obsession for me. I’m clearly not a professional. Yes, I’m a dancer but not a professional artist type. That’s not what I’m implying with this quote. It does come close to how I feel sometimes though so I thought I’d include it.

Was on a lesson today with another student who seems to only dance for the big dance events. He was doing some serious technical work on certain patterns. Breaking it down step by step to try and figure out exactly what his feet and other body parts need to do.

Not saying I don’t do that either because there are times you have to go back and break something down into pieces. Typically, this happens to me when I know what the end position is supposed to be and I just kind fake my way through something to get to where I know it needs to get to. It works most of the time which makes it is bit dicey.

I wasn’t paying total attention to their lesson because we were working on all the things but it did seem like the majority of time was spent on the technical details of a particular step. And, while I know there are times when something has to be broken down like that, I also know I’d get super bored spending that much time on that. It is one reason why I don’t do serious competitions.

Which is why I love the solo routines so much. Yes, you are learning someone else’s choreography and there are a lot of technical things required and it can be hard to hit the parts in the music you need to hit. But there are more opportunities for free expression. More ways to put yourself in the dance. That appeals to me more than being technically correct. Not saying I want the technical stuff like frame and timing to go to hell because I don’t but I basically want to put on a good show.

Of course, some of that is unavoidably linked to certain concepts. Like using more body rotation, swing and/or sway and other things like contra body to create a more dynamic look. So I suppose I can never get away from all the dance things you need to learn and know to make something super appealing. The problem I find is that it seems to be a lot easier to talk about just the feet and where they should be pointed than it is to get into something where you need to be focused on multiple body parts.

And then they inevitably get to the “lifting of the rib cage”. See you can’t create shapes by dropping a side (they call this doing the little teapot if you remember that). It has to be lifting a side without letting the other side drop. Trying to figure out how to tell my body to lift a part that typically doesn’t do that is a bit of a challenge. But this is that next layer of the dance onion that I want to be working on so we do what we can.

What I was trying to describe with the quote above is that sometimes those things seem a little restrictive. Like what if I was really feeling the need to drop a shoulder. Would that be so bad?? Well I guess it would. Kind of a silly example but the point is really just trying to find a way to put myself in there somewhere although I’m not really even sure what I want to put in there. Ah the joy of having ideas that can’t really be expressed.

Anyway, I figure this is the best way for me to go because memorizing steps and patterns is less of a challenge. Really getting into the dance and finding way to express myself is more of a challenge for me simply because I tend to get a little self-conscious at times. This can lead to “dancing small” when you really want to “dance big”. Part of that is this battle in my own head about not wanting to be the center of attention and wanting to be the center of attention at the same time. I know that sounds odd but it is what pings around in my head from time to time.

I figure I’m kind of in the stage where I don’t know what I don’t know. And going down this somewhat undefined path towards more “performance value” should bring some of that to light. Could be a bumpy road ahead and the path is still a bit cloudy but there is at least a direction and something to be working on for future Showcases and things.

I like this one as well. It does have a tie to Ballroom. I’ve seen enough students with fake smiles plastered on their faces because everyone wants you to smile. Fortunately, for me, it tends to happen naturally. Except when something gets screwed up.