We have all seen dancing clones, though you may not have been aware of it.  I am talking about those really formal dancers that move in a very mechanical way.  All the ladies have their pinkies fingers on their left hand curled just so, and the men have a look on their faces like they have just smelled something bad.  These are dancing clones.  They come from the hyper-technical cookie-cutter approach to dance teaching that tries to make every dancer an identical clone of the instructor.  When I started my career as a ballroom dance instructor, I was guilty of this type of teaching.  My life centered around studio activities and competition.  I seldom danced socially.  Then I met my wife.  She let me know in no uncertain terms that she had married a dance instructor and she was going to dance socially.  So I began going to clubs and dances.  I soon discovered a world where this type of plastic dancing is not considered attractive.

 

In the world of social dancing, one of the complaints against ballroom dancing is its formality.  It took years before I understood this complaint.  I eventually learned that they were referring to the styling techniques used.  Formal to me meant polished and refined, but formal to them meant plastic and artificial.  Their complaint involved dancing that  made the couple look like mannequins.   I began to realize they were right.  Mnay dance instructors spend their time creating clones, duplicates of themselves of their schools, and not individuals.

 

The Philosophical Reason

What causes a teacher to attempt the creation of a dance clone as opposed to a dancer?  The first reason is that they assume an untenable philosophical premise that there is an absolutely correct way to perform each dance.  They assume that dancing is an artistic science and not a scientific art.  As a scientific art, there is no absolutely correct way to dance but there are relatively correct ways to dance.  Science does not govern, but rather assists the artist in dancing.  Now there are several factors that control this relatively correct way in which a dance is performed.

 

1.  The first factor is the evolution of the dance.  Every dance has a history.  Each dance is invented in response to a type of music.  The first

      practitioners of a dance performed it in a certain way.  As the dances evolves, certain types of mvements and styling become accepted

      as correct.

2.  The second factor is the influence of the music.  This music has a certain rhythm.  It also has certain rhythmic and melodic accents.  These

      accents determine how the dance is performed.

3.  The third factor is the cultural bias.  In the dance community, certain ways of styling are acceptable while other ways are unacceptable.  In

      competition dancing, the judges represent this bias.  In exhibiton dancing, the audience represents this bias.  In social dancing, the current

      practitioners represent this bias.  Cultural bias changes like any fashion.  Even the standard ballroom dances have changed their look

      through the years.  Foxtrot today looks very different than it did ninety years ago or even twenty years ago.

4.  The fourth factor is the marketability.  This may sound surprising but the ease in which styling can be learned determines how it is

     performed.  There are several things that determine the marketability of a dance.  It has to easy enough that the average person can learn

     the basics.  It  must be flexiible enough to allow for improvisation.  Finally, it must have a potential for complexity in order to keep the

     interest of the more advanced dancers.  Every great dance exhibits these elements.

5.  The fifth factor is the science involved.  The human body must conform to the Laws of Physics and the Principles of Kinesiology.  Styling

      techniques must also work within the limitations of the dancer's body.  Every person is different in height, weight, and body type.  These

      limitations determine to the extent of the styling techniques.

6.  The final factor that determines good dance style is the personality of the dancer.  Some people are expressive sanguine types while others

     are meticulous phlegmatics.  Forcing ebullience on a taciturn dancer results in a plastic appearance.  In cases such as this, dance training  

     then becomes detrimental to the natural development of the dancer.

 

The Theoretical Reason

The second thing that causes a teacher to create dancing clones is a misunderstanding of some theoretical principles of dance. The study of character or styling is involved here.  They fail to recognise that there are two kinds of character.  These are generic an personal.  Generic character involves the accepted style of an individual dance such as Cuban Motion of the hips in the Latin dances.  Personal character involves an extension of the dancer's personality with such things as hand and arm gestures.  All generic character evolves from standard dance movement while the personal character evolves from the dancer's personality and body limitations.

 

Generic character traits are determined by the couple of elements.

1.  The flow of the music determines how a dance is styled.  Music that flows languidly lends itself to movement that flows languidly.  Music

     that flows turbulently lends itself to turbulent movement.  A good way to think of the flow of music is to imagine a river flowing to the sea.

     At its source, a river is shallow and flows in a rapid, turbulent way while at its mouth the channel is deeper and flows more languid and even.

2.  The body moving in a n efficient way and the development of an effective lead also contribute to the character or style of a dance.  For

     example, Rise and Fall in Foxtrot and Waltz are the direct result of the body responding to the projecting and flowing character of the music.

     When a person walks or runs, the movement generates an up and down pendulum action.  The dancer learns to control this action and uses

     it to accent the music, and Rise and Fall is the result.

 

There are several guidelines to help understand generic character traits.

1.  Learn efficient movement first and then learn to accent that movement for character.  All generic character traits such  as Cuban Motion;

     Samba,Swing, and Bolero pulse as well as Rise and Fall in the Smooth or Standard dances arise from this guideline.

2.  The second guideline involves the nature of a step.  The pressure into the floor as the body leaves the supporting foot is the source of

     generic character.  The key to understanding any of the generic character traits in dancing is this weight transfer process.  The way in which

     the weight moves from the supporting foot to the moving foot determines the way the rest of the body responds and helps fevelop

     character.  For example.  Cuban Motion results from the ball-flat transfer of the weight in a step.

 

There are at least eight more guidelines for generic character ranging from the study of line to the isolation of the accent, but this is the subject of  another essay.

 

Personal character traits are also determined by several elements.

1.  Personal character traits should be an extension of the dancer's personality and not the teacher's or the studio's.  This involves the use of

     hand gestures and personal style.  I frequently tell students that if they feel the urge to place their fingers in their ears, then they should do

     it since it would be an extension of their personality.  It may look good on them even though it would look stupid on me.  Personal character

     traits or styling should be like a tailor-made suit of clothes, designed to fit the person perfectly.

2.  Personal chracter traits should flow naturally.  Too many dancrs spend time practicing the precise placement of the hands utilyzing balletic

     hand and arm styling.  This makes them appear like mannequins.  In order to avoid this highly stylized methodology, I teach the dancers to

     pretend their arms are lose hoses squirting water.  This helps them form the habit of flowing through the getures instead of forcing them in a

     mechanical way.  This also helps them develop movement that is unique to their own personality.  A person who is sanguine wil be more

     expressive than a person who is phlegmatic.  Other useful techniques are to imagine that the arms are shooting beams of light or pulling

     energy in form the horizon to the center of the body.

 

The Methodological Reason

The third thing that causes teachers to impose their own styling techniques on students is the result of and inadequate supply of method.  Many teachers cease to learn new material once they begin teaching.

 

There are several reasons for this problem.

1.  They have the fallacious idea that since they only teach beginners, they do not know any other material.  Along with this attitude is the idea

      that they only teach one style or one dance and they do not need to learn the technique from any other style or dance.  I have heard

      teachers assert that since they only teach Salsa then they do not need to know anything from Foxtrot

2.  They have so much experience that they don't need to consider anything new.  They think they know it all.

3.  They are inherently lazy and do not want to avail themselves of the training available.

4.  They work in studios that do not focus on the development of their teachers.

 

One teacher I knew took great pride in the fact that none of his students ever advanced beyondthe beginner level.  He bragged once that he several students taking lessons from him for more than six years and still only knew the basics.  I would be mortified if this ever happend to me.  He would teach only one figure in one dance for an entire lesson and then in each subsequent lesson he would change dances so that by the time he returned to the first dance the students had forgotten the first figure he taught.  In this way he kept recycling the same figures and the same dances indefinitely.

 

I once worked at a studio that hired a supposedly experienced teacher from another school.  I knew of him but I did not know him.  The first day on the job, I volunteered to let him use some of my dance technique books.  He said that he had been teaching for over twenty years and already knew everything there was to know about dance.  With that one statement, I lost all respect for him.  A teacher who thinks he knows all there is to know about dancing is deceiving himself and doing his students an injustice.  As long as you are learning, you are growing.  As long as you are growing, you are alive.  When you stop growing, you start to rot from the inside out.  Another teacher I met claimed to have twenty-five year's experience when in reality she only had six months experience that she had repeated fifty times.  Her problem was that she worked all those years at a studio whose central philosophy was that people were not interested in learning to dance.  They believed that people were only interested in having fun.  None of their teachers ever acheived any degree of proficiency; therefor. neither did any of their students.  When teacher reach the limits of thier figure or movement knowledge, they begin teaching personal character traits making all their students look like mannequins.

 

Some teachers may seldom have the opportunity to work with advance students, but they should still continue their own training.  I mastered the Silver Level before I ever fully understood the Bronze Level.  I mastered the Gold before I ever understood the Silver.  I mastered the Above Goldlevels before understood the Gold.  I had to write my own syllabus before I began to understand the Above Gold Level even though I have very few Above Gold students.  Understnading the more advanced levels make me a better beginner teacher since I know why things hapen the way they do on the dance floor.  Understanding "why" is more important than knowing "how".  I recently encountered a student who was told to place her head in a hyper-extended position for Closed Dance Position.  The teacher who told her this saw it on a videotape.  This teacher had no idea that such a postion would shift her balance too far to the left, forcing her partner to counter by shifting his own head to the left as well.  He evidently did not know that the two major purposes of the head position are balance and styling.  Sacrificing balance for style is not a fair trade for a student who has no regular dance partner and never competes.  I also had a student who was making a overpronounced hand gesture.  I asked her where she learned it.  She replied that she was told it was the proper thing to do.  I asked her if it was comfortable since it did not fit her personality.  When she said no then I told her not to do it.

 

Good teachers will recognise the differences in thier students and attempt to work within thise differences instead of forcing all students into thier own or their studio's particular mould of how the ideal dancer should appear.  The teacher studies differences in bodies and personalities, trying to adapt each person's character technique to match. These differences are found in arm and leg length, fitness levels, age, height, weight, personal goals, physical handicaps, and emotional outlook.  They will know why certain techniques are used and will adapt these techniques to the individual instead of forcing the individual to adapt to the technique.  Teachers who try to create clones attempt to make every student alike instead of allowing the student to blossom and become iniquely individual.  The focus should never be on the technique.  Technique is like a window.  There are two reasons for a window, to look out or to look into.  Technique is supposed to showcase the inner personality of the dancer in the same way a window showcases the products in a store.  Good, efficient, and clean technique is like a clean window.  It more clearly shows what is on the inside, while poor technique is like a dirty window that clouds the objects inside.  Focusing only on technique is like focusing on the window and ignoring what is in the window.

 

A good teacher also views each student as a flower.  Attempting to create clones is like forcing every flower to become a rose.  A carnation can never be a rose but with the proper help, it can become the best carnation possible.  Dancers are the same.  Attempting to make every student a carbon copy of the teacher may gratify the teacher's ego but it is an injustice to the student amd makes this type of formal ballroom dancing unappealing.  Initation may be the sincerest form of flattery but when you imitate someone else, you are not there and neither is the person you are imitating.  A wise old music teacher related this truistic oun  to me many years ago.  "If I can only be one note on the musical scale; I would like it to 'B' natural".

 

© 1998 by Kenneth Howard- All Rights Reserved