Andre Busts My Main Fear About Dancing
Mainly I have been worried I will not be able to find the beat and stay on it. I struggle to listen for the beat. It takes much energy from my dancing and most all of the joy.
Andre said No. The girl dances to his beat.
Ah!
I love it. I also see it’s crucial–but we knew this already, we knew this in first grade on the swing set, watching the boys run–CHOOSE A GREAT PARTNER.
Ah.
This is such a huge breakthrough, relief. I was really, really struggling. Now I know I don’t have to listen to the beat, make sure he is listening to the same beat (not the bongos!), and also dance. Which was totally impossible! Too much to manage!
I can, in this case, go along for the ride, cut out the middleman (neurosis, managing everything).
Your Partner Is Your Beat!
[Which does not mean you give up any part of yourself. The opposite. Life-changing information.]
Andre pointed out the woman (this is a metaphor, remember), is always a tiny bit behind in the dance. It looks, when it’s done perfectly, as though the couple is absolutely together, one fluid entity, but she is a tiny tiny tiny bit behind the beat. In order for the fluid effect to happen, there’s all this communication going on–called, in dance, THE CONNECTION–and the communication takes time.
You have to get out of the whole gender politics thing to see the beauty in this. It’s not going to work as a dance if she is with him. All melded as one. Dance is a conversation, and he hits the ball over, does this tiny subtle thing with arm pressure, finger pulling, eye contact, and then she responds. It’s not boss-peon. It’s beauty, it’s energy, it’s poetry.
Andre says the guy as a frame, and the woman as the picture. Andre says they both have to work really hard to create the effect, and their work is very different.
He has to have a plan, a vision, know what’s coming up three steps ahead. He is both in the moment, and snagging the front-edge of the next moment. She has to know where they are right now, and fully inhabit that moment. This is how dancers make time.
Related posts: