Puzzled.I have been watching a tape of the IDSF World Championships 2002. Each of the six finalists danced a solo Foxtrot. I counted each contestant through each of their perfomances. Not once did I see a step that was not on the beat of 1 2. That was into Natural Pivot. Waves or whatever. Incidently on a Reverse Fallaway Slip Pivot . What as happened to 1 2. 3 and 4. or S. Q. and Q
That keeps you on 1 2 for the next figure. Why would anybody deliberatly choreograph a routine that has you dancing back to front when it is just as easy to do it the correct way. To dance in phrase. that is something else. A demonstrator will always be in phrase with the music, they are the only ones on the floor. Us mere mortals unless they are very clever will find it difficult if we have to come to a stop. But it can be done. In the Samba it has to be danced in phrase otherwise it looks disjointed to say the least.
Could go on forever on this subject especially on the Tango and V. Waltz. They are another story.

Hi Don. If that is how they want to intrepretate the music, fine.

Puzzled. I've been going through my collection of information. I knew that somewhere I had some info from one of the greats on music and musicality. He says that on the back of a disk cover you may see 4+64 This is how music is constructed. That means there is a four bare intro, plus eight chapters of eight bars, making 64. Think of the music as you would a written story. There are comas and full stops, otherwise the story would not be able to be read with any expression or feeling.We are now refering to Waltz. Each bar of music is not just a follow on of the previous bar. The First bar is Strong. The second Soft. The Third is Strong. Four is Soft. Five is Strong but not as strong as the first bar. Six Soft. Seven Very Strong. Eight Soft. Phrased music must be danced to. Just for the record. At 30 bars a minute you have two seconds to dance a bars of music. And because of the way music is constructed we should all be able to tell when a new phrase starts, or the phrase we are on is ending. All we need do is listen and count. When our routine is finalised and we know the count, it will be then that some expression can come into our dancing and we will always know where we should be with the music. Otherwise we can pull out all the full stops and comas and dance like a Machine Gun.

How the ‘Giants' of the past would have loved to know that all figures have to be danced in phrases of the music. Don't you think for one moment that someone never considered this. After all it makes everything nice a nd tidy. If it was never considered, why? Easy. English style is not sequence dancing! You are a free spirit. If you want to dance with a ball and chain fastened to your ankle, you can do so. Let's read a routine in the Slow Foxtrot demonstrated by a founder of the English style partnering the late Bobbie Irvine, MBE, the late great, Miss Josephine Bradley: Feather Step SQQ. Swoop to Going Through Oversway, ending in PP. QQSQQ. Curved Feather from PP. SQQ (Sorry ladies you can't do that. Starting a Curved Feather on beats 3.4 of a measure.) Open Impetus SQQ (Still out of phrase, ladies) Reverse Weave from PP. (Again starting out of phrase) SQQQQQQS. This amalgamation was taught at the ISTD Summer Congress, 1963. Please don't write and tell me that the English style has developed since then and also that you danced at the monthly get-together in Scarsdale Lodge. I have not wrote this message to be sarcastic in any way whatsoever. I will write no more on this.

Starting a figure on 34 does not mean you are out of phrase. What is important is that your dancing show an awareness of the development of the music. A simple way to do that is to dance each figure on measure aligment, but a more advanced dancer can show more complicated relationships, targetting the end of the entire phrase with a group of figures that will resolve in the same place.

Also realize that when demonstrating for some specific charactersistics, others not the subject of emphasis may be neglected for convenience.

Hi there,
Just to get things sorted in my developing dance knowledge, you say it's OK to start a new figure on beats 3 and 4, such as a feather step in the S/F.

That depends on who you talk to. Some people find it acceptable, while others regard it as unmusical. I'm in the latter camp.

As for you, whether or not you allow yourself to dance starting halfway through the measure should depend on context. If you're out social dancing, you can decide for yourself what feels good and go with it. At a competition, however, I wouldn't recommend it. As I said, there are some people who find it acceptable but some who don't. So if you do it, realize that you're risking losing marks from those judges who do consider it to be off-time.

Regards,
Jonathan

I think it's okay to hemiola a figure (put it across the bar line) if you are aware of the fact that you are doing it, and find a way to weave it into a grouping that makes sense. Carefull use of the odd unit figures can let you put a novel stress on one or two bars, then fit right back in.

But if you just blindly consider any two beats the same as any other... then you demonstrate that your dancing is not yet musical.

Suomynona,

Excellent comments on musicality and muscial interpretation.

Rha

The question about Pendulum swing has gone completely off course. I wrote before that the fist three of a Natural Turn in the Modern Waltz was introduced by Victor Silveser over eighty years ago, and still it is argued on how it should be done. This was according to a UK Dance Journal. And that is just three steps. It seems step two might be the problem. We can step straight to the side, a bit on the flat side and then get a pendulum feel as we bring the right foot in. Or we can get a Pendulum feel to the left side which requires a flexing of the right knee to acomplish this. The right side just follows on with a sway on three. The pendulum swing of my clock takes place on both sides which makes step two a smaller step than I was taught to do years ago. There is still the same amount of movement there, but one is going along, the other up, which makes timing no problem with the second example.