music for dance , rhythm , teaching dance
This post is about rhythm and dance as innate natural abilities and how they get lost in “civilized” societies. Before I say anything else, I have to credit Jon Carroll for naming the syndrome in one of his columns. I love the name, even though I’ve met women as well as people of other races […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , Dance History , dance videos , leading and following , music for dance , teaching dance
Blues dancing has been around for decades in one form or another. It’s one of my favorite dances because it is so open to interpretation that it can look drastically different from one dancer to another. As long as the character of the dance remains intimate and, well, bluesy, you can trade on pretty much […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , leading and following , teaching dance
Back leading is a term for the habit of some follows to lead themselves through dance moves the leader has nothing to do with. If the leader has any skill, this is the kind of behavior that causes him to mark that follower off his list for future dances, or hire a dance teacher for […]
Continue readingConnecting Socially , dance videos , teaching dance
I teach a lot of freestyle dance because it’s the one kind of dancing you need as a basic social skill. It will never go out of fashion because it requires no skill except the very rare and useful attribute of not caring what other people think of the way you dance. The people who […]
Continue readingDance History , teaching dance
Engineering students at Northwestern University are learning to swing dance for a very specific reason. They’re taking a for-credit class called Whole Body Thinking, according to the Associated Press. The idea is to help future engineers break outside their comfort zones. The course is led by Northwestern University professor of dance (yes, such a position […]
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