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In working on my "Danse du Jour" entries, I've been watching a lot of dance videos and honing up on my general dance education. The other day, I got thinking about folk dances, and decided to look up square dancing. I remember doing it as a kid, and way back when, my parents were part of a square dancing group called the Pine Tree Twirlers in Kamloops, BC.
But what I found in the way of square dancing clips doesn't register to me as dance as much as it does a complicated movement game. This is not to say I don't think the dancers are skilled. They are. And this is not to say I don't think the potential for dance is there. It really is. But I believe square dance, as it exists now, is to dance as paint-by-numbers is to painting.
If I remember correctly, ballroom dancing started out the same way: as dance for non-dancers. You put your left foot here, your right foot here, turn, etcetera.... But ballroom dancing has evolved into a highly creative and complex dance form, moving past its origins.
Perhaps the same thing is happening with square dance. I just haven't seen much evidence of it, yet. If you can point me in the direction of some innovative dance clips, I'd love to see them!
That being said, some innovation is going on. At a youth camp somewhere, a camp counsellor got a group of teens doing a fusion of square dancing and moshing. I don't think it's particularly worth watching (it isn't handled skillfully), but the idea has merit. Like square dance, moshing is a folk dance, and it's interesting to see the two apparently disparate forms coming together. The kids are having fun, and the head-banging, thrashing promenades have potential. It is a seed of change.
I think square dancing actually has a fair amount in common with American Tribal Style belly dance, and I could see a fusion of the two emerging with ease. Like square dancing, ATS works with set combinations and cuing. I don't think it would be a very far stretch for an ATS group to work with a vocal caller, in addition to, or in lieu of, the dance leader with his/her physical cues.
What do you think? I know I want to see it....
But what I found in the way of square dancing clips doesn't register to me as dance as much as it does a complicated movement game. This is not to say I don't think the dancers are skilled. They are. And this is not to say I don't think the potential for dance is there. It really is. But I believe square dance, as it exists now, is to dance as paint-by-numbers is to painting.
If I remember correctly, ballroom dancing started out the same way: as dance for non-dancers. You put your left foot here, your right foot here, turn, etcetera.... But ballroom dancing has evolved into a highly creative and complex dance form, moving past its origins.
Perhaps the same thing is happening with square dance. I just haven't seen much evidence of it, yet. If you can point me in the direction of some innovative dance clips, I'd love to see them!
That being said, some innovation is going on. At a youth camp somewhere, a camp counsellor got a group of teens doing a fusion of square dancing and moshing. I don't think it's particularly worth watching (it isn't handled skillfully), but the idea has merit. Like square dance, moshing is a folk dance, and it's interesting to see the two apparently disparate forms coming together. The kids are having fun, and the head-banging, thrashing promenades have potential. It is a seed of change.
I think square dancing actually has a fair amount in common with American Tribal Style belly dance, and I could see a fusion of the two emerging with ease. Like square dancing, ATS works with set combinations and cuing. I don't think it would be a very far stretch for an ATS group to work with a vocal caller, in addition to, or in lieu of, the dance leader with his/her physical cues.
What do you think? I know I want to see it....
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Date: 2007-02-26 08:25 pm (UTC)From:you, yourself, take elements from elsewhere (not always dance related) and "fuse" them. Not everybody would consider taking poi (to many, a form of "juggling") and mix in some martial arts moves or belly dance moves or tribal or..or..etc.
(All?) Performance art is based on this.
...and yeah, the kids (in the vid) were having fun. A rough birth of a new idea.
...and the "call/response" works (in one form or another) in any forum:
school, music, stage, dance, riots, religion, sex, politics...you name it. Learning how it applies and using it correctly (asthetics, teaching, directing, socializing, entertaining, fucking, organizing etc.) is the only challenge.
The older I get the more I enjoy seeing ideas, once thought separate and very different, mixed and jumbled together. music/dance, technology, food...lol...nothing is safe.
IDIC (Spock)