Monday 11 January 2010

Moves or No Moves?


Had a tops time on Saturday night dancing to the Mad French Wolf  in Waterloo.

Rock 'n Roll! Literally.

I went with my friend Luke who didn't know anything about Rock 'n Roll dancing, and neither did I, so we made it up, and we had a total blast.

Everybody else Knew Moves so we found it rather difficult to dance with them.

So I'm thinking about Dance Moves.

They're both enabling and restricting.

Enabling: you get a shared language that enables you to dance music through your body in co-ordination with another person who can speak that language. It's great. I know the lindyhop language pretty well, and it's brilliant fun.

Restricting: once people get into knowing dance moves, we can go through a long period in which we seem to forget that we can do anything other than the moves!

How sad.

I've had some totally great times dancing with men who know The Moves. But I've also had a totally great time dancing with men who don't know the moves, and also with old men with few teeth who know the moves inside out and they're bored of them, so they put them as one tool in their toolbox, close the box, forget everything, remember their bodies, feel the music, and play.

And it's wonderful.

So, I think if the Fun Fed is going to get into partner dancing, I think we would sit in that space between moves and no moves, the space between form and free play.

And lifs...

Yes, lifts.

One thing I've noticed is that men quite like to pick women up. And women, well, this woman at least, quite like/s being picked up.

It's no joke picking me up. I weigh at least 11 stone and I'm 5'10. But people seem to like trying it. Having a go. All sorts of directions. Totally up side down. Flying me round in a circle. Kicking other dancers on the bum accidentally (sorry!). They usually manage it too. It's impressive. And fun!

So, I think we do moves, no moves, and Lifts... Somehow or other :)

No comments:

Post a Comment