Appreciation Needs to be Taught

“That dress was aweful!”

“That singer isn’t any good”

“Their dancing is horrible”

or any number of the other caddy things students (or even teachers say). Is it wrong to have an option? no. But if it blinds you to not see the big picture then it’s a problem. If it prevents you from seeing what you can learn from these outside sources, what you can take from it, how it can improve your artistry, then it’s a problem. If it prevents you from enjoying your performance, then it’s a problem. If it prevents you from learning to do what you actually need to do, then it’s a problem.

Sadly with art being taught less and less in schools, people turn out more critical than ever. Art takes work. Learning art teaches appreciation.

Music

Often you’ll hear students complain that they don’t like one artist or another. They don’t like Britney Spears or Celine Dion or country music or hard rock or whatever. Often it has nothing to do with if the music is good or not but what they’ve been programmed by their piers to like or dislike, and it’s obvious. Do they understand what is going on in the music? no. Do they hear the layering, the editing that has gone into it, the production value, the rhythm patterns? no. And so can they dance the feeling of the music? no. Can they play with the music?

To truly dance to music you need to understand music. There are four major aspects to music: melody (pitch), rhythm (timing), dynamics (loudness), and timber (what instrument it is). Fred Astaire would say not to dance as a slave to the music, but dance as if you were another instrument accompanying the band. So at times you music go with it and times you must break from it.

Walter Laird would tell his students to “keep the music with you in a suitcase in your head”. I love that imagery. So beautiful. So wise. You must know the music enough in your head to recreate it, as if you were dancing to your own music all the time.

Do you listen to all the elements of the music? Do you dance with all of them? Do you play with them? Against them? Through them? Around them?

Costume

There’s a huge range of costumes out there on the dance floor. There’s an element of popular style that people follow from time to time, and thankfully still a good number of people that are brave enough to break the style, or push it.

I remember watching a competition and this girl had this really awesome dress on – neon bright, you couldn’t miss it on the floor, a very fun color. It had a ton of fringe so it really moved nice and showed her movement well. And a week later hearing some of my students just complaining horribly about it. And it was just out of spite and hate and not an ounce of appreciation. I felt ashamed of them being my students.

Go out there and wear wild costumes, be brave, have fun, be playful. If it’s not you and you don’t feel comfortable in it then don’t wear it. But if it’s wild and cool and exciting and bold, do it!

Dancing

Dancers watching other dancers can be so critical. Too critical. This is the most tragic loss. There’s something to learn from other people’s movement. Often it’s to the point that they don’t see the goodness out of someone else’s movement that they desperately need to add to their own movement, too their own performance.

One of the first coaches I had was very critical and taught that to his students. In a big way it was a big plus to him selling his own lessons – his students were all convinced he was the only one that could teach good dancing. Even when it was blatantly obvious to the non-brainwashed that the best dancers just didn’t dance like anything he said!

I am always amazed when ballroom dancers are hyper critical about ballet or modern -- “Oh I don’t what to do that, blah blah blah”. Or “oh I don’t like that abstract interpretive stuff”. It’s too bad because the average ballet or modern dancer learns to move in a couple years much better than the average ballroom dancer learns in 20 years.