This past weekend I was visiting Beloit College, my alma matter, to run a series of dance workshops when I picked up a copy of The Round Table, the college’s student newspaper. Inside I found an article highly critical of ballroom dancing in general and competition dancing in particular. As an alumn, I sent the following letter to the paper:
Ballroom Beauty
Alex Jacobs – Beloit Alumnus
This past weekend I had the joy of returning to Beloit College, my alma mater, and teaching a series of ballroom dance workshops. I was disappointed, however, when while flipping through a copy of The Round Table I came across an article denigrating ballroom dance. At first I thought the article was part of the April Fool’s Day parody but the more I read the more the author’s sincerity was impressed upon me to the point that I felt the need to write a response.
The author’s premise was that while ballroom dancing (an umbrella term used to refer to all structured partner dances, such as waltz, swing, salsa, cha cha, foxtrot, tango, etc.) are beautiful examples of dancing, the focus on technical perfection and rote execution of pre-choreographed sequences makes them unsuitable social dances, and that competitive ballroom dancing is a particularly egregious insult. The author claims club style dancing is a superior form of dance because it is a more social experience and can adapt and improvise better than ballroom dances can.
Let us begin by addressing this issue of improvisation. While there are many styles dance that fall under the author’s umbrella of ballroom dancing which encourage and reward improvisation – west coast swing and Argentine tango in specific, but also lindy hop and salsa – for the purposes of this discussion we will cede improvisation to the author: let us assume that ballroom dancing contains no improvisation and that club dancing does (though I’m not certain that’s true; a glance around at a typical dance floor in a club reveals very little variety in anyone’s dancing).
Even if we accept that ballroom does not improvise, I’m not sure why that’s supposed to be a slight against the form. A Royal Shakespeare Co. production of Hamlet contains significantly less improvisation than a Second City comedy show, and is hardly the worse off for it. The Twelfth Night is no less humorous for the jokes having been written three-hundred years ago. Othello is no less relevant today despite being written for Elizabethan England.
Improvisation is a creative tool, nothing more and nothing less. Whether in dance, music, theater, or any other creative area we should regard improvisation as a device in service to the form but not a standard in and of itself. One can prefer greater or lesser amounts of improvisation but we must acknowledge them as preferences. The author prefers more but has no basis for insulting those who prefer less.
Then there is the social aspect of dance. We will admit that it is extremely difficult when first starting ballroom dance to be highly social while dancing. For a beginner who is concentrating on where to put his or her feet, keeping time with the music, remembering patterns, giving clear lead/follow signals or listening to the leader’s signals, navigating around the floor, and the multitude of other tasks that accompany dancing a dance, sustaining a conversation will prove incredibly taxing. If one persists with ballroom dance, however, most of these tasks become automatic and instead ballroom proves incredibly social as it becomes possible to talk while dancing; much more so than at a club or house party where blaring music makes it all but impossible to do more than trade names with one’s partner (assuming one even has a partner).
Furthermore, the author ignores the fact that ballroom dancers rarely spend the entire evening on the floor. A dancer may dance for a song, sit one out, get refreshments, etc. all of which are generally done in the company of others and provide opportunity for socialization. Furthermore, because ballroom dancing is a skill that must be developed on an on-going basis, the dancer will socialize more at lessons, practices, group outings, etc. The dabbler may not see the social aspects as readily, but the dancer knows and embraces them.
Finally, there is the area of technique. To an outsider, ballroom dancers often appear obsessed with technique and perfection, and we’ll be the first to admit that this perception is often true. The corollary, however, is something I emphasized over and over again in my workshops: technique only matters insofar as it improves your enjoyment of the dance. This can mean better partnering, having an easier time with the steps, or simple enjoyment of mastery. There are many skills one pursues purely because they are fun to pursue, and ballroom dancing is one of these skills.
One would never hear a ballet dancer criticized for caring about perfecting his or her technique but the author presumes that because ballroom dancing includes a social aspect that technique should be subservient to the social aspect. What the author fails to realize is that the two are intimately related: we practice our technique to be better partner to the people we meet while social dancing.
As for the criticisms regarding competition dancing, I have very little to say for a simple reason: social ballroom dancing and competition ballroom dancing look similar but are two very different beasts. Criticizing competition ballroom for being technically focused rather than socially encouraging or improvisational simply doesn’t make sense. The purpose of competition ballroom is to compare technique. All one can say in response to the author’s points is, “So what?”
The author’s criticisms of ballroom appear to be less founded on problems inherent to ballroom dancing than the author’s own mistaken assumptions about ballroom dancing. As with any art, there will be people who “get it” and love it, “get it” and don’t care for it, “don’t get it” and ignore it, and “don’t get it” and criticize it. I’d put the author in the latter category but would encourage everyone on campus – including the author – to take the intro to ballroom course and see what social ballroom dance is really about.
April 8, 2010 at 7:38 PM |
Thank you. I don’t accept that ballroom doesn’t improvise though. What else would you call all the free-style crap I pull on my partners during a WCS? :-) And most of them love it.
April 9, 2010 at 1:45 AM |
Ballroom dances certainly improvise and, as you point out, it’s one of the main appeals of west coast swing. I was ceding the point for rhetorical purposes since my main point was that improvisation in and of itself is not the sole determining factor in the quality of a dance, but I would argue that all ballroom dances, from WCS and salsa all the way to slow waltz can involve improvisation.
April 9, 2010 at 1:12 PM |
I didn’t really think you thought that. But, I don’t think I could have been disciplined enough to concede that point, even in the spirit of argument.
April 13, 2010 at 7:54 PM |
Good points about techinque and social dances !!!!!
“Technique only matters insofar as it improves your enjoyment of the dance.” —- Enjoyment may come a bit later, because it’s a hard work to improve. This may have to do with why some social dancers doubt anything more than purely “social”.
“we practice our technique to be better partner to the people we meet while social dancing.” —-This is why I try to improve my technique while I only do in social dancing and not compete(Salsa, WCS, Swing, Lindy —-).
Indeed the most impressive improvised dances that I have seen were by those top pros who perfected their technique by learning, practicing, and teaching those social dances. While ago, I watched a WCS Jack and Jill (among pros) competition and was amazed at how great those pros (among them were John Lindo, Parker Dearborn etc. ), were, and I learned later that they were dancing with non-regular partners, and the music was, of course, a surprise, so they could not have known or prepared the moves, and still put out such musical dancing, therefore, I was blown out of my mind.
My whole point is that, the best improvisational dancers are, according to what I’ve seen, the top pros who perfected their technique, and danced thousands of hours to use it on the floor regardless of social or competitive nature of the dance.
May 2, 2010 at 12:10 AM |
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