By Hirofumi Araki, Turtle Bay
In most good social dancing, the character of the music will influence the performance of the dancers on the dance floor. In competitive Standard (or as some more conservative dancers like to say: Ballroom) and Latin American dancing the “true” character of each of the ten dances is given by definition of the technique books and the tradition of teaching and performing. Therefore the use of music displaying the characteristic values of the dance concerned is essential. Unfortunately we envisage loads of CD dance music which are used widely, obviously liked by a majority of teachers and dancers and subconsciously considered as “good” because they are from “dance CD’s”.
"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power,
Most of these tunes sound great. This brings us into the danger of “liking” something which really “sounds great” but it may not necessarily reflect the desired characteristics. The dancing profession ought to discuss in a broader sense whether a samba with a very pronounced basic rhythm, but arranged for oriental instrumentation and sung in Hebrew can be somehow close to “characteristic” or not. It may be observed best in show dance or formation competitions what may happen to music when everything is changed but the time signature.
Generally in the world of competitive dancing we tend to agree that we are likely to be very tolerant about all characteristic elements of music except for the basic rhythm.The – as I think – absolutely vital intolerance against unclear, untidy basic rhythm is for some reason or another about to be abandoned. This is true for many of our ten dances, most of all for the Viennese Waltz. The majority of music used in practice or competition is NOT in character with the original Viennese Waltz rhythm or character and this is not even noticed by the majority of dancers.
Do we know it all? - of course not.
In most good social dancing, the character of the music will influence the performance of the dancers on the dance floor. In competitive Standard (or as some more conservative dancers like to say: Ballroom) and Latin American dancing the “true” character of each of the ten dances is given by definition of the technique books and the tradition of teaching and performing. Therefore the use of music displaying the characteristic values of the dance concerned is essential. Unfortunately we envisage loads of CD dance music which are used widely, obviously liked by a majority of teachers and dancers and subconsciously considered as “good” because they are from “dance CD’s”.
"To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power,
it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking." – Agnes de Mille
Most of these tunes sound great. This brings us into the danger of “liking” something which really “sounds great” but it may not necessarily reflect the desired characteristics. The dancing profession ought to discuss in a broader sense whether a samba with a very pronounced basic rhythm, but arranged for oriental instrumentation and sung in Hebrew can be somehow close to “characteristic” or not. It may be observed best in show dance or formation competitions what may happen to music when everything is changed but the time signature.
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| Submitted by Maile Yagi |
Do we know it all? - of course not.
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