This week is all about musicality, it's one thing to dance with your partner but it's another thing entirely, to dance with the music and your partner - rather than using the music as a simple metronome to count time.
As a school, we'd be the first ones to admit this is not one of our strongest areas, but together we'd like to develop with our students - so we're going to be putting much more focus on musicality over the next few weeks.
Musicality is a very subjective thing, so it's important to find your own way with it. Each person's body responds in different ways to the music, so it's about finding what works for you.
Some simple steps to better musicality:
- Listen to the music both while you are dancing and anywhere else that you can.
- Appreciate the different styles, structure, mood and instrumentation of the music you listen to.
- Use your body to respond to the music.
- For leads, keep your patterns simple and in control so that you are able to respond to the music.
- For follows, make sure that you are actively listening to the music and respond where you have the opportunity to add your own musicality to the dance.
