The Dancer’s Guide to Red Tape

December 5, 2010

This morning I registered for a competition with my girlfriend.  There were some difficulties using the online registration form so I downloaded the paper form and as I was filling it out I had two thoughts.  The first was, This is the easiest registration form I’ve ever filled out. This was immediately followed by, Why aren’t they all like this?

Registering for a competition can be a lengthy and confusing process, and if done incorrectly it can be an expensive one as well.  Worse, it’s a needlessly expensive hassle that is almost never addressed.  Today: how to register yourself for a competition and save hundreds of dollars in the process.  For purposes of example, we’ll use one of the local competitions in my area, Philadelphia Festival Dancesport Championships.  Let’s go to the forms and registrations page (link) so we can all follow along together.

Why is this so complicated?

Before we get into how to register, one needs to understand that the complexity of registration is deliberate.  Not maliciously so, but deliberate nonetheless.  Why would someone make registering for a competition needlessly complex?  To understand that, one needs to understand how the competition industry is organized.

Now before I start accusing competition organizers and dance teachers of being shiftless, money-grubbing capitalists who are only out to make a quick buck, let me state that I hold no such beliefs.  Ballroom dance is a very hard industry in which to make a go of it, and if all one desires is to make money, dance is about the worst business one could have chosen.  I hold it absolutely true that the overwhelming majority of people in the dance industry, no matter what capacity they operate in, do so out of a genuine love of dance.  There are a few bad eggs out there, as there are in any business, but by and large, dancers do not receive their principle motivation from profit.

That said, any successful business person, in the dance industry or elsewhere, must be aware of the fact that without profit he or she cannot survive in that business.  A competition does not consistently turn a profit, or at least break even, will die unless it receives some outside sponsorship, and a dance instructor who does not profit from his or her dance must find some other line of work with which to support him or herself.  This can hardly be considered a shocking revelation but it must be ackwnoweldged because it allows us to state the mandate of every competition and instructor must include the stated goal of making money.

From the Organizer’s Point of View

Competitions and instructors do this in different ways.  Competitions make money by attracting competitors and selling entries.  As in most businesses, it is usually very difficult to attract new patrons (competitors) and is comparatively easier to self additional entries to the competitors already planning to attend.  This is an example of the 80/20 rule in action.  In many respects it is fairly easy to sell additional entries.  The dancer is already at the competition, and likely wants to do as much dancing as possible rather than sit on the sidelines.  The organizer can accomodate the dancer by offering additional opportunities to dance and by charging per event rather than for the whole competition.  If those opportunities are not present, the organizer must create additional events to manufacture opportunities.

A common case of manufactured events is offering both single-dance and multi-dance events.  A beginning bronze dancer may know standard waltz, tango, and quickstep.  If these are all danced as a multi-dance, averaging the scores in each dance, the organizer only receives one entry fee.  If they are offered as single-dances, the organizer receives three fees.  If the organizer offers both single-dance and multi-dance events, there are four fees.  The organizer can even create different events by offering the same event as was earlier danced but with a prize, which is exactly what the Scholarship event is (otherwise pro-am multi-dance).

Another way events are created is by offering different levels of and allowing dancers to enter more advanced levels than they are rated.  Dancers are generally allowed to dance up, such as a bronze dancer competing in both bronze and silver.  This doubles the potential number of entries, but it extends beyond such simple doubling.  While the syllabus (pre-bronze, bronze, silver, and gold) and open (novice, pre-champion, champion) levels are generally well-known, there are others that exist only within the competition world such as Advanced Bronze, Pre-Gold, or Open Silver.  We’ll get into the details of these categories below, but they all exist for the purpose of creating additional entries.

Then there are age categories.  Just as one dance “up” levels one can also dance younger.  It’s obvious that a 16 year old dancer will probably have very different physical capabilities than a 90 year old dancer, and so normally dancers are separated into age categories.  Some dancers may want the challenge, or just the opportunity, to dance against younger dancers and so competitions permit dancers to dance down in as many age groups as they like, down to 18 years old (adults competing against children is not permitted, but often children can dance older to dance against adults).

This is why the forms have so many different options: competition organizers create lots and lots of events so that the dancers in attendance do lots and lots of dances, paying separately for each one.

From the Instructor’s Point of View

The dance instructor makes his or her money in a different way.  The instructor and his or her studio have made money selling lessons, but the competition itself presents a different financial situation.  If the instructor is at the competition, either dancing pro-am or continuing to coach and advise the dancers, he or she is not at the studio teaching lessons (thus not making the studio money), to say nothing of the costs involved in attending the competition, such as hotel, travel, and food.  As such, the instructor needs to pay for his or her expenses and make up the missed lessons.

Hence, the instructor or studio will often add a fee to the competition registration when a dancer registers through the studio.  This may be an overall fee (usually done for the studio), a per-dance fee (usually for the instructor, and almost certainly applied if dancing pro-am), or both.  I’ve seen overall fees of $50 to $500, and I’ve seen per-dance fees of $10 to $20.

Before I talk about how to avoid these fees, we should at least acknowledge that they can ocassionally be worthwhile.  Studios have access to several perks that individual dancers lack, including:

  • Preferential Seating – When studios register they are often given block seating in the audience or reserved tables.  In addition to being able to sit with your friends and teachers, these seats usually provide a better view than most of the general seating.  This is particularly advantageous when watching professional competitions or evening showcases.
  • Studio Support – Instructors attend competitions to take care of their students.  A student who registers separately is telling the instructor, “I don’t need you,” and the instructor will hear the message.  He or she will spend the competition time, when not on the floor, looking after the students who are paying for the instructor to attend the competition (see above costs), not on the students who’ve removed themselves.  It can be very helpful, especially at early competitions, to have an experienced hand guiding you about where to go, when to queue up for heats, deciphering schedules, assisting with costumes, and all the myriad difficulties of competitions.
  • Pro-Am – If oone is dancing pro-am, one will have to register through the studio, and pay their fees, since the student and pro must register together.  In these instances the extra fees make it possible for the instructor to attend and compete with the student.
  • Eligibility – By registering with a studio, your performance is factored into your studio’s and instructor’s averages, making them eligible for top studio and top teacher awards, and making you eligible to participate in those awards.  Likewise, one must register with a studio in order to compete in team matches.
  • Assistance Registering – When you register with a studio, they often take care of all the paperwork for you.  While this article will attempt to explain how to do your own paperwork, sometimes it’s just easier to turn it over to someone else.
  • Bonus Perks – Studios that support competitions for many years often have additional perks thrown their way by the competition’s organizers.  For example, one studio I know when attending a certain large competition is often given the presidential suite to host parties, and for students and instructors to relax in.

Are these benefits worth the extra costs?  That’s up to you.  I’ve registered independently and I’ve registered with studios and the benefits are often justified, but not always.  Compare your studio’s registration prices with those of registering independently, and if the costs are out of line, don’t be afraid to ask the studio’s competition coordinator what you get for the extra money.  Don’t say, “Why does it cost so much more to register with you?  Why shouldn’t I just go sign up on my own, dance, and pay $200 less?”  which is both confrontational and rude.  Instead say, “I noticed that our studio has added some extra fees to register.  What are the benefits to registering with you and paying the extra money?”

If they can’t say anything more than, “Well then you get to be part of our studio at the competition,” I’d run.

Okay, I’m Going on my Own.  How do I Fill out the Damn Form?

Maybe you don’t think the studio is worth the extra money to register with them or maybe they’re not supporting the competition you want to go to.  Either way, you need to sign yourself up.  How do you do it?

What Forms do I Need?

More difficult than filling out the forms themselves, the biggest hurdle is often figuring out which forms need filling out.  Let’s go back to the Philly Festival website again.  There are thirteen downloads, some of which are clearly forms and some of which are not.  Rather than guess which ones we’ll need based on vague titles, we’re going to go through them one-by-one.

1) Package Information is not actually a form.  Instead, it provides information on package registration that include hotel reservations, admission to the ballroom, preferred seating at events, and so forth.  These can actually be very good deals but, as you see, the page does not include prices which would have been sent to the studios so that they could add their own mark-up without students being the wiser.  call or e-mail to get the price (in fact, do this even if registering with the studio so you have something to compare).

You will note that while package information is given, neither this form nor any of the others allow a way to order said package.  One should e-mail or call the competition organizers to place an order for a package.

Next we have 2) Pro Am Entry Form.  We’ll skip this one since we would only fill it out if registering with a studio, in which case they would fill it out for us or with us.  Moving on, however, we come to 3) Am Am Single Dances, one of the most important forms for an amateur competitor.  Going from the top we have the names and contact information for the competitors which isn’t too difficult.  We also have a line for NDCA#.  Most competitions require dancers to register with either the NDCA or USA Dance (depending on who is sanctioning the competition).  This can be done on each organization’s website for a small fee (between $30 and $80 depending on one’s specifics) and numbers usually arrive in about a week.  The most difficult line in this opening section is “Teacher” and is used to calculate Top Teacher awards and for Scholarship events (see below).  Unless one is competing as part of a studio with a teacher bringing dozens of students, that teacher is unlikely to win top teacher and scholarship is usually reserved for pro-am.  Fill it out honestly or leave it blank; it doesn’t usually matter.

Next on the form we come to the meat and potatoes: the entries themselves.  Let’s go through column-by-column.

The first column is level and is, probably, the most confusing part of this form.  The legend at the bottom helps a little but not much, so let’s just define each level:

  • Newcomer – Seemingly the simplest category, everyone knows you’re a newcomer when you start but it’s hotly debated when you stop being a newcomer.  I’ve seen definitions that include, “Your first comp and only your first comp,” “Has been dancing for less than 6 months,” “Has been dancing for less than 1 year,” “Has taken less than 50 hours of private lessons,” and “Has never placed (top 3).”  I recommend always doing newcomer if it’s your first competition and get your teacher’s opinion after that.  If you can, stay in newcomer until you place in the top 3 or they kick you up.  Interestingly enough, there are no restrtictions on figures in Newcomer, but dancers are strongly advised to limit themselves to basic (pre-bronze) figures.
  • Pre-Bronze – This category is often combined with Newcomer at competitions.  When separated, it’s a category for dancers who aren’t allowed to compete in Newcomer because that category is limited to first-time competitors or is limited by a maximum time or number of lessons, but who don’t feel they’re ready for Bronze yet.  Usually figures are limited to the first half of the syllabus (specified as pre-bronze in international.  Varies in American).
  • Intermediate Bronze – This category has the same figure limits as pre-bronze but is for dancers who’ve placed in pre-bronze.  I don’t recommend dancing intermediate bronze unless you’re trying to do every dance you can; very few dancers enter it.  Even if you don’t know full bronze figures, go to Full Bronze and dance your pre-bronze routine.
  • Full Bronze – This category allows the entire bronze syllabus and is the definitive bronze category.
  • Open Bronze – This is a strange category.  Open work is normally limited to the open post-syllabus categories (Novice, Pre-Champion, Champion) and in open dancers are not restricted to school figures (a.k.a. syllabus).  Open Bronze allows dancers to compete with that freedom but against other dancers at their same level.  It provides an opportunity to dance with minimal restrictions much earlier than would otherwise be possible.
  • Pre-Silver – This level is not listed on the Philly Festival entry form, but I’m including it for the sake of completeness.  Pre-Silver allows Bronze dancers to dance with Silver technique and some Silver figures (usually the first third of the syllabus) but they only compared against other bronze dancers.  It provides a way to try out a higher level a little bit early.
  • Intermediate/Full/Open Silver – As Intermediate/Full/Open Bronze for Silver dancers.
  • Pre-Gold – As Pre-Silver, for Silver dancers.
  • Gold/Open Gold – As Full Bronze/Open Bronze, for Gold dancers.
  • Gold Star – Some studios include a syllabus that extends past the Gold level.  Regardless of their names, they are usually competed as Gold Star and are danced like Full Bronze, for Gold Star dancers.

The next column is age.  As we said before, age category is designed to increase the number of total entries, making the event more lucrative, so one may enter one’s own age category and lower.  It should be noted that the base age category is based on the younger partner.  Thus a 65 year-old man and 60 year-old woman could enter C category (51-60 years) but they could also enter B, A1, and A.  They could not enter D because the woman is too young.

The next column is where one specifies dances.  The dances are abbreviated under their categories by the first initials and include smooth waltz, tango, foxtrot, Viennese waltz, Peabody, rhythm cha cha, rumba, swing, mambo, merengue, samba, bolero, hustle, west coast swing, salsa, standard, waltz, tango, Viennese, foxtrot, quickstep, and Latin cha cha, samba, rumba, paso doble, and jive.

In each line, one should select the level and age group, the enter all the dances the couple will be entering under those headings.

Next, total up the number of entries and fill in the appropriate spaces to determine how much one must pay for single dances.  WARNING: THESE COSTS CAN QUICKLY SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL.  It is strongly recommended to avoid entering unusual categories (i.e. Open Bronze, pre-silver, etc.) to save on numbers of entries.

There is also a section for exhibition dances.  These are solo performances with your own choreography in a style of your choice to music of your selection.  Typically you will receive written remarks from the judges as well as individual scores.  If you are planning to do an exhibition dance, mark the entry here.

Next there is 4) Pro/Am Scholarship Form.  This is a multi-dance event and is the only event in which amateurs can win money (however the money may only be used for lesons.  In fact, the check is made out to the student’s teacher!).  That said, because it is a pro/am event, we will not be discussing it here.

5) DVIDA Entry Form is for another pro/am scholarship event, the prize money for which may be spent on Dance Vision products (the prizes are awarded as gift certificates).

6) Professional Entry Form is for professional competition.  As a student, you won’t need it.

7) General Admission Ticket & Grand Banquet is potentially a very important form.  Many competitions do not include general admission when registering competition entries, and one should call or e-mail the competition organizer if at all unclear where your competition falls (this competition does not include general admission).  One should refer back to the competition schedule to figure out when all of one’s entries will be run, and then figure out what sessions will be needed.  It should be noted that many packages (see Form 1) include these general admissions and banquet tickets.

Of particular note are items 4/5 and 5, the banquet & competition and pro competition entries.  Saturday evening is when most competitions have professionals compete, and often precede this with a dinner.  If you are interested in seeing the professional competition, one should order either the banquet & competition or the professional competition, but not both.  Personally, I don’t find the banquet worthwhile and can get a much better meal for less, even from the hotel restaurant, but many people prefer the convenience and camaraderie of the banquet, as well as the opportunities for social dancing (though they are often surprisingly limited).

8) Awards Page simply contains prize information for top teacher and top studio.  We need not concern ourselves with it.

The following page, 9) Dancesport Series is for an ongoing qualifying pro/am event.  If you’re dancing pro/am, ask your instructor about it, but even then you won’t need to fill this out on your own.

10) Visit Philadelphia and 11) Hotel Information contain tourist and lodging information respectively.  The Hotel Information form is somewhat useful but does not need to be filled out.

The last form for us is 12) Adult Amateur Form.  The form is filled out similarly to the Am/Am single dance form but is greatly simplified.  Note that each event is multi-dance, meaning every couple dances all the listed dances in each style, the scores of which are considered collectively.  There are fewer levels and age categories as, because this is multi-dance, each event takes longer.  The form notes that dancing multiple age categories is not recommended as events may be run simultaneously and, in my experience, they often are.  Take this warning seriously.

The last form is 13) Rules & Regulations.  I strongly recommend taking the time to review these rules thoroughly.  For example, these rules state that Newcomer is for dancers who have never competed before only and that you may only dance in two different age categories, both of which may require us to revise our entries.

So there you have it: these forms aren’t particularly confusing once the terminology is explained, but they do require some understanding.  Remember, they are not written for the independent competitor, so if you are going it alone, don’t be afraid to contact the competition organizer and ask for help.

After all, it’s your comp too.

wyndstormhuntress@gmail.com

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Comparing Syllabi

October 3, 2010

Years ago, when I was studying martial arts, one of the popular discussions was to compare different styles.  Given two equally skilled practitioners, could tae kwon do beat karate in a no-holds barred street fight?  Would a defensive style like aikido really protect you from a kung-fu master?  How much did these schools actually matter?

When the UFC came out it answered the questions pretty decisively in most students’ eyes: all styles quickly devolved into half an hour of crotch punching.  The conclusion I took away: what you’re studying matters much less than how serious you are about studying it.

Ballroom dancing has similar disagreements, though they’re rarely resolved through such agressive methods (though my competition partner has been talking about a new routine to Tom Leher’s “Masochism Tango”).  These discussions often focus around which school in an area produces the best daners, who are the best coaches, and so on.  These are important, but far less relevant than many people believe.  A good school or a good coach cannot make a good student.  Indeed, it is far more likely that, geography permitting, the good student will seek out the needed coach.  That said, I thought it would be interesting to compare some of these different training programs.  Thus, I sat down and did a side-by-side comparisson of my experiences studying three different syllabi: DVIDA, USISTD, and Arthur Murray.

I compared only the bronze levels of each syllabus and only American style.  In addition, I restricted myself to the nine competitive styles within American style which provided a common frame of reference across all three syllabi.  While I did not set up a particular scale to compare the syllabi on, there were several things I was looking at.  Natural progression of technique was an important factor.  The usefulness of what one was learning – how likely a student was to be able to use their knowledge – was another.  Whether a syllabi included fun, unique steps was something I considered but did not weight very heavily.  Clear explanations were extremely important in determining how useful the syllabus was.  I only compared books, not video, though in the case of Arthur Murray this was entirely from memory as I am no longer affiliated with that organization.

Drum roll please, let’s see how these guys stacked up:

Smooth

Waltz – Major props to Arthur Murray here for a very innovative collection of steps that not only have exceptional variety, but do a great job of layering technique while also providing clear movement across the floor. ISTD gets the movement aspect right but has very little variety, including leaving out some fairly common figures for social dancing. DVIDA has decent variety, though not as much as I’d like, but doesn’t provide nearly enough movement until the latter half of the syllabus; on the other hand, theirs is the best set up to learn proper waltz technique.
Winner: DVIDA.

Tango – DVIDA’s tango is interesting but thrusts people into tricky moves far too early and is awful at teaching promenade. Moreover, it changes alignment constantly and requires great accuracy of orientation, making navigation rather difficult. Murray’s is just weird, rather dull in the first half, filled with strange variations, then random movements in the second half. ISTD, on the other hand, focuses on core, useable actions, and arranges patterns in a very natural form of development.
Winner: ISTD.

Foxtrot – DVIDA loses this one right off the bat. Far too much of their bronze foxtrot syllabus tries to awkwardly shoe-horn in SSQQ timing, their awkward versions of feather and three-step are perplexing at best, and what the Hell did they do to the grapevine? Arthur Murray actually does a fantastic job, including developing alternate timings, natural uses of dance positions, and interesting variations to keep everything fresh. ISTD starts off well enough with excellent progressive steps, but the full-bronze portion simply feels like a rehash of waltz.
Winner: Arthur Murray.

Viennese Waltz – This is a hard one to evaluate as there are so many different approaches to American Viennese and so much disagreement about what the dance is supposed to look like at this level. DVIDA takes the approach of slowly developing the speed and drive the dance requires, then teaching the core Viennese movements, and only then developing the uniquely American patterns. Arthur Murray takes the opposite approach, beginning with these strange patterns almost right away. ISTD takes the worst of both worlds, teaching the core Viennese patterns, then the unique American patterns to develop the Viennese technique, and then to the difficult American patterns. On the other hand, ISTD has the best technique descriptions of any of the syllabi. It’s a toss up, but gradual development wins out.
Winner: DVIDA.

Smooth Overall – Each syllabus won at least one dance, though DVIDA narrowly won a second, but they suffer from their overwhelming defeat in foxtrot and often poor descriptions of technique. Arthur Murray has excellent patterns but the technique is often lacking from the syllabus, relying on a franchisee to impart on the teacher how the dance is supposed to work. ISTD has the best technique but tends to lack for interesting steps.
Winner: Three-way draw.

Rhythm

Cha Cha – ISTD begins with a very traditional, almost conservative, selection of steps. DVIDA’s is only slightly more varied. Arthur Murray, despite a few unique variations, doesn’t add that much to the dance’s repertoire. The decision must be made by technique. Due to its variety of open actions, DVIDA just slightly edges out here due to its ability to use (and acknowledgment of the legitimacy of) straight leg actions.  If I had the opportunity, I’d probably decide which to study based on their silver syllabi.
Winner: DVIDA

Rumba – Arthur Murray bronze rumba? Dull as Hell early on, then confusing in the latter half. ISTD gets points for expanding a little bit and having great technique descriptions, but not enough. While DVIDA starts out shakey, with a strange side-basic and overuse of side-close actions (rather than 5th position endings), the full syllabus includes some amazing patterns that still fit the bronze mold – and even those side-close endings start to grow on you.
Winner: DVIDA

East Coast Swing – DVIDA is a bit strange here, leaving out several key steps (outside turns, lindy whips, points and kicks), and while the result is danceable, it might be very hard for a follower to dance with a partner with different training. It does, however, give great description of technique and feels quite jive-like. ISTD has a good mix of moves and good technique as always, but the controversial start on a triple makes some steps problematic, particularly whips. Arthur Murray, on the other hand, uses a good mix of steps with solid technique that result in a fantastic swing for social or competitive dancing.
Winner: Arthur Murray

Bolero – The ISTD syllabus feels largely like a rumba knock-off, and while one can uses those steps to learn the technique without learning new figures, it still doesn’t feel like bolero. Arthur Murray’s bolero is rather convoluted and becomes awkward; furthermore, requiring dancers to wait until full-bronze before even starting the dance can be infuriating. DVIDA has an amazing selection of steps, though the written versions often use dumbed-down technique; still, it’s a fun and fascinating syllabus to dissect.
Winner: DVIDA

Mambo – Props to DVIDA for a fun collection of steps but they lose said props due to very strange endings on many figures (side break after a back spot turn?  Why?). Arthur Murray does a good job with timing and technique, but ultimately their mambo just lacks variety. While ISTD starts off slow, the second half of the syllabus is simply fun.
Winner: ISTD

Rhythm Overall – DVIDA clearly dominates the rhythm syllabi and I can’t make an argument why they shouldn’t. Even when they weren’t number one, they usually had a solid case.
Winner: DVIDA

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Watching Competitions on the Cheap

September 9, 2010

Watching dance competitions live can be an incredible experience.  There’s the joy seeing incredible dancing, true, but there’s also something wonderful about seeing these competitions as they’re executed that DVDs or YouTube can’t quite capture.  Anyone who watches other live sporting events or attends theater will understand this.

Unfortunately, attending competitions is pricey and inconvenient, something that many professionals have speculated is a cause for ballroom competition’s failure to reach mainstream audiences despite the success of many dance-based reality TV shows.  Tickets start at around $30 to watch beginner events on weekday mornings, and tickets to evening professional competitions can run be $50, $100, or even more for prime seats at major events.  While this is a reasonable cost for an evening’s entertainment – this is a price on par with Broadway theater or dinner at a high-end restaurant – it is still an exhorbitant cost for most people, especially for something they’re unsure of.

Fortunately, there is another alternative.  Many dance competitions are starting to offer live streaming of their events, some for free and some on a pay-per-view basis; many are doing both, offering free streaming for daytime syllabus events, then switching to pay-per-view for pro or open amateur evening events.

Tomorrow evening I’ll be watching my first live online event, the United States Dance Chapionships, which will determine the US representatives to the world dance championships.  The whole event can be ordered from http://starstreamers.com/ for $9.95 and I believe they have the afternoon events for free as well.

Keep watching these streamers.  It’ll probably be a bit shakey for the next year or so, but companies are ironing out the technology and I expect this will become a popular choice in the next few years.  Global Dance TV has already had a lot of success broadcasting other events, which means we’re seeing economic competition and incentive to get this right.  What a great time to be a dance fan!

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Getting Out What You Put In

August 3, 2010

This post is late because I’ve been busy teaching and busy dancing.  I don’t apologize for that.  Isn’t that why we all became dancers?  To dance?  Those of us who became teachers did so to spread our love for dance.  In my view, that’s exactly the reason this blog should be late – in fact, it’s the only reason.

It does afford me an interesting opportunity, however, to talk about why I’ve been so busy.  In addition to teaching, I’ve also been studying.  In fact, I’ve been much more dilligent about this than usual.  Back in April during a recent sale, I bought a bunch of Dance Vision DVDs to help prepare for my rhythm examination.  Since then I’ve been slowly working my way through the 16+ hour sereis.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

I would not call this time productively.

This isn’t the first time this has happened.  I have perhaps a dozen other videos with exercises, technique, figures to review, etc. that I either haven’t watched (i.e. Toni Redpath’s wonderful Solo Smooth Exercise DVD) or that I’ve watched but should go through again to apply more advanced technique (i.e. Jim and Jenelle Maranto’s waltz syllabus).  Yeah, those videos are really helping sitting on my shelf like that.

Yesterday, however, I had an unexpected cancellation.  Suddenly it was 9:30 AM and I didn’t have another appointment until 11:30, when my partner and I were scheduled for practice.  Rather than go to a coffee shop and surf online for two hours, the way I would have if it had been thirty minutes free, I went to the studio early and got in two hours of east coast swing study and practice with the DVD I’d purchased three months ago.  By the end of it I was tired, my head was full, and I was bursting with ideas for lessons, to say nothing of how much more I understood for the exam (really!).  Sure, I was a little tired when my partner showed up and I had to do an hour of samba, but it was one of the most productive dance days I’ve had in months.

It’s very easy to take the right actions and expect that to carry us through.  We can go to lessons, buy books and DVDs, watch competitions, and our dancing will improve.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

To really benefit from these things we can’t just take the right actions, we need to put in the right effort.  It does me no good to take private lessons if I don’t practice the material afterward.  My books and DVDs only work if I use them and practice the material as I do so.  If we just relax and sit back, expecting the fact we’re “learning” to make us dancers, we have no right to expect progress.  Dance is a mirror: by putting in greater effort, I get out more and better improvement.

And the swing lessons I taught last night?  Some of the best I’ve ever taught.

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Different Teachers for Different Lessons

July 4, 2010

Imagine going to a university and signing up for classes.  You’re a biology major.  Your advisor is Dr. Joe Bagofdoughnuts.  The good doctor is an excellent teacher and you learn much about genetic diversity, physiology, immunology, and so on.  You love Dr. Bagofdoughnuts’ teaching style and are thinking about attending graduate school to pick up your master’s of neuroscience.  This requires you to take microbiology, which has a basic chemistry prerequisite.  You sign up for Chemistry 101 taught by Professor Susie Creamcheese, then ask Dr. Bagofdoughnuts to sign your course card.

“What’s this?” he asks.  “You’re taking Susie’s class?”

“I need to learn chemistry,” you say.

“I know chemistry,” says your professor.  “You should learn it from me.  I’ll set up some tutoring sessions.  You can just pay my overtime.”

Sound crazy?  Unfortunately, this is how ballroom dance is often taught.  Instructors can become incredibly competitive over students and actually get offended if one dares to take lessons from another teacher.  I recall two friends from a university team whose coach actually kicked them off of his team because they dared to take a lesson from another teacher who was a national champion.  Those two dancers, by the way, would go on to consistently place top in the nation in collegiate silver standard events.

Why are dance teacher  so competitive with one another?  Money is an enormous part of it.  Obviously teachers want to sell lessons, and that requires students.  If a student is learning Latin from another teacher, they’re not paying to learn Latin from you.  Ego is another big factor, particularly among dance teachers.  The coach I referenced before was quite well off by dance teacher standards, but he was offended that his students might find another teacher’s instruction to be more or even equally beneficial.

Good teachers should not be threatened by this.  Good teachers will be confident in their ability to teach and will trust the quality of their instruction to stand up against other teachers.  Good teachers will even encourage their students to seek out other teachers who have different specialities.

So why risk it?  What is the benefit of seeking out multiple teachers?

Different Teachers Explain Things Differently

This one should be obvious but it isn’t always.  Many of us are familiar with the situation of a concept that is hard to understand when one person explains it, but easy when another person explains it.  My favorite example is the Monty Hall Problem, which has an incredibly counter-intuitive explanation; the four different Aids to Understanding in the Wikipedia article, however, illustrate the idea that an explanation that helps one person may not help another and so we often need multiple explanations.

Different Teachers Have Different Specialties

I currently take lessons from four different teachers, most of whom know about the others.  One of the teachers is admittedly a far less experienced ballroom dancer than the others.  Why do I take from her?  Well, it doesn’t hurt that she’s one of the top hustle dancers in the world.

If you want to learn a speciality, it makes sense to learn from a specialist.  These can be speciality dances (i.e. hustle, west coast, salsa, Argentine tango.  See our article on Speciality Dances for more information).  It could be a particular technique; maybe there’s a dancer you like who does better pivots than anyone else or has more developed Latin motion.  It could be they work well with specific goals, such as producing winning competitive couples, popular social dancers, or do the best choreography.  Work with your teachers’ abilities, and don’t be afraid to go to other teachers to pursue those abilities.

Different Teachers Are Different People

I take from two instructors from the same studio.  They teach very similarly but have an important distinction: one’s a man and the other’s a woman.

Both know the leader and follower parts quite well, but it makes quite a difference what they’re used to dancing.  My partner and I take lessons from the male teachers, but I continue to take private lessons on my own from the female teacher because it makes an enormous difference having the experience of dancing an entire lesson with a professional dancer.

Are Two Teachers Worthwhile?

These are the benefits of multiple teachers.  The downside is that you must pay for multiple teachers.  Often the best way to get that benefit is to take private lessons from one teacher and take group classes from another teacher, with the ocassional private lesson to supplement the instruction.  Always go to these lessons with a specific purpose: you’re already paying one teacher, so be very clear what you want to get from taking extra lessons with another teacher.  Share these goals, and don’t be afraid to let both teachers know.  If they’re a good teacher, they’ll recognize how this helps your dancing.

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You’re Not Going to be the World Champion

June 6, 2010

When I first started to dance most people were either encouraging or just didn’t care.  If it was something I enjoyed, they supported my dancing but they weren’t particularly involved one way or another.  As I dancing became a larger and larger part of my life, however, their opinions shifted.  While some – most in fact – remained supportive, quite a few people told me, “I don’t like your dancing,” or “You’re not very good.”  While I wasn’t happy to hear them say these things, I wasn’t particularly hurt by it.  Mostly, I was confused.  Why did it matter how good I was?

I don’t just mean why did it matter to them, but why did it matter at all?  At the time I did only social dancing and, regardless of whether I was good or not, I must have danced well enough because my card was always, always full (or would have been had I attended venues that used dance cards).  Barring the few dances I didn’t know – advanced and speciality dances which at the time included Viennese waltz, west coast swing, and Argentine tango – if I wanted to dance for a song, I did.  I was clearly good enough to attract partners and they enjoyed the dances enough to repeat them and sought me out for additonal dances throughout the evening and at future events.

Was I the best person at these venues?  Not by a long shot, but I was good enough for my goal: get people to want to dance with me.

Thus I was confused by these comments.  How good a dancer was I supposed to be, if I was already having fun with my dancing?

I lay a lot of the blame on the performance dance world.  Theatrical dance, such as ballet, jazz, contemporary, etc., is so competitive to advance in that people are used to only seeing the very best performers.  There is very little opportunity to perform theatrical dance unless you are one of these top tier performers.  Ballroom, on the other hand, wasn’t intended for performance.  It was intended to be social and accessible.  If one wants to study ballroom dance with the intensity of a professional ballet dancer, one has that option, but it isn’t required to enjoy the dance.

There are people in the ballroom world who study with that intensity.  In fact, if you want to be the world champion (and congratulations to Michael Malitowski and Joanna Leunis for winning the professional Latin division at Blackpool this past Weds.) it’s required.  Just like those world-class theatrical dancers, it’s also required to start when you’re a child.  If you’re past the age of 14 it’s probably too late,  and if you’re past the age of 20 it almost certainly is.  You are never going to be the world champion.

So what?

By definition, the overwhelming majority of participants in any field cannot be the best.  They just can’t be.  Only one couple, two dancers, can be the best ballroom dancers in the world, and by sheer probability it’s very unlikely that you’re that couple (that said, if Johnathan Roberts is reading this, you are the best in my opinion.  Please e-mail me so we can set up coaching).  You’d better have another reason for wanting to dance besides being the best.

There are a bunch of reasons to dance that we’ve talked about before: socialization, technical mastery, exercise, the opportunity to perform, and simple joy of movement are but a few of these reasons, but there are good reasons to compete as well.  I know that I’ll never be world champion, and I’m okay with that.

But how close can I get?

In the years since those early people told me they didn’t like my dancing quite a few have come around with wonderful things to say about it.  Moreover, I can tell that I’m improving.  My potential lies somwhere between the “awful and awkward” point where I started and “best in the world,” which I will probably never reach.  Until I reach for that point, however, I won’t ever know what my capabilities really are.

If you want to advance your dancing, competition is a great way to do so.  Maybe you’ll lose.  Maybe you’ll win.  Maybe you’ll be stuck at Bronze or maybe you’ll push through to the open levels.  The only way to know, is to try.

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Review: The Glamour Addiction

May 2, 2010

Cover

This has been a hard post to write.  When I read the description of The Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry, I was intrigued, particularly regarding the book’s claim to explore “economics that often foster inequality,” so I ordered a copy and read it cover to cover.

What I read infuriated me.

The author, Juliet McMains, was one of the top professional dancers in the United States and, it must be acknowledged, understands what she is talking about.  Dancers may choose to pay the often exorbitant costs of ballroom dancing or may choose not to, but we are rarely surprised by them; a non-dancer is far more likely to be shocked at the notion of paying $3,000 for a gown but a dancer understands the costs associated with specialized worksmanship that appeals to a limited customer base and is less likely to be outraged at the notion of paying that much for a gown, even if she chooses not to purchase it.  For someone with McMains’ experience to come off as critical of ballroom economics as she does, we cannot blame sticker shock.

I keep dancing around the issue without describing the book, so let’s get to it.

Preface

McMains begins by describing her own dance history, beginning with her training in ballet and performance dance in secondary school, then beginning ballroom and competing on the school team when she attended Harvard as an undergraduate.   After completing her bachelor’s degree, she took a position at a Fred Astair studio that appears to have embodied the worst of all the chain studio stereotypes.  She continued teaching and competing professionally even while attending graduate school, the continued moving around the country to pursue competition training and partnerships, until the biography abruptly ends with her partner quitting dance altogether and McMains’ own future uncertain.

Introduction

This section, brief though it is, gives us the key terminology to understand McMains’ work.  An important, but ultimately secondary role, is to explain the mechanics of how dance sport competitions work: what is meant by pro-am, how judges are appointed, and so on.  The primary purpose of this section is to explain Glamour, the key term that is central to McMains’ thesis of abusive and harmful practices in the dance industry.

I’d hoped to be able to use a quote here, but upon re-reading this section, I can’t find any place where McMains actually says, “Glamour is…” and defines the term.  Rather, she describes Glamour’s components and methods of production, but seems unable to say what it truly is.  It is possible that this is because McMains considers the term ephemeral, shifting to suit the industry’s needs and thus incapable of being defined.  It is also possible that she is unclear on the concept herself, though given her strong academic background and dance background, I cannot accept that McMains is so ignorant regarding her core term.

Glamour, as McMains uses the term (with a capital G) refers to the processes used by the dance industry and its chief product.  Glamour encapsulates all the ideals and dreams that sell dance lessons and that people claim to take away (pleasure, grace, class, socialization, spectacle, beauty, admiration, artistry, etc.) and all of the mechanisms that produce them (lessons, competitions, costumes, parties, performances, etc.).  She goes into the history of glamour as an industry, including other social artifacts that have sold themselves through Glamour, such as the Zieffeld Girls from the early 20th century.

Having explained, if not defined, Glamour, McMains becomes critical of it, taking the stance she will maintain throughout the entire book.  Her opposition to Glamour is based on three tenets:

1) Glamour is impossible to fully achieve.
2) The dance industry exists to sell Glamour.

(one can already see the problem McMains is driving at)

3) The dance industry is forced to engage in immoral practices in order to achieve point 2 while hiding point 1 from its patrons.

Chapter 1: The Glamour Machine

This chapter focuses entirely on the Dance Sport experience, from competitions to training, amateur and professional, dancer and judge.  McMains not only describes in great detail what competitions are like, but delves into the history of Dance Sport in America in order to explain how things became the way they are.

The most interesting part of the chapter is the beginning in which McMains creates composite characters to represent each type of person who participates in Dance Sport.  She claims none are solely anyone in particular, but rather are composites of people she’s met, though it’s obvious that one is clearly a stand-in for her.  These characters are fascinating because they very clearly illustrate the difference between the image that Dance Sport projects (Glamour) and the harsh, comparatively ugly reality which underlies the image and is required to produce it.  For example:

It’s been two years since Karen graduated from Yale, where she was very successful on the university ballroom dance team.  Ballroom dancing had been her main activity in college, the haven where she found like-minded friends who would rather spend their Saturday nights dancing foxtrots and cha chas in an old ballroom than guzzling beer at a dorm party.  Since graduation, she has been work at a small marketing firm in Manhattan and has grown progressively more obsessed with DanceSport competition.  She spends all her disposable income on lessons, and most of her free time as well.  If she’s not practicing ballroom, she’s taking class in ballet or flamenco.  Her Korean immigrant parents don’t understand her interest in dnace and are unsure of its value in the American social system.  They didn’t pay for their daughter to go to Yale and become a dnacer.  She has been studying ballroom for only five years, and she recognizes her disadvantage compared to the Russian kids who started when they were five years old.  Karen believes she could be just as good as they if only she had a partner, which is why she is here.  Karen hopes that by dancing the pro-am scholarship, the highest level of pro-am competition and the only one in which amateurs can win money (which can only be used for additional dance lessons because teh check is written out to the student’s teacher), she will increase her visibility in the industry, improving her chances of landing an amateur partner.  Despite its roots in social dance, DanceSport is not practiced informally in social settings.  To participate, one must be in a partnership – an agreement to train and compete together negotiated after several try-outs.  Competitors do not dance casually or indiscriminately with friends or acquaintances – partners dance only with each other.  There is no DanceSport practice session where one can drop in alone expecting to dance with whoever is available.  In between partners, amateurs can only continue their training if they take pro-am lessons.  Professionals have even fewer choices and between partnerships are likely to dance only with their students.  Partnershpi searches may constitute a significant portion of a competitor’s career.

The problem with McMains’ claims is that she’s wrong.  There are many Dance Sport competitors who dance socially as well as competitively.  There are competition partnerships that meet social dancing (I’m in one right now).  While between partners one is not required to compete pro-am; true, lessons will focus on your skills and technique rather than the partnership, but that’s not a bad thing.  In fact, that’s why many amateur partners continue taking individual lessons.

This type of negative focus is characteristic of McMains’ book.  She seems convinced that there is one way to approach Dance Sport, and that is her way, the Glamourous way, a way that she doesn’t like.  With another of her composite characters, McMains notes, “It was eight months before Misty accidentally stumbled into a National Dance Council of America competition and began to realize that DanceSport extended beyond the dominion of Fred Astaire Studios.”  It seems like McMains has yet to realize that dancing extends beyond her path.

Chapter 2: Representations of Social Dance: A Genealogy of Improvisation

In this chapter McMains criticizes social ballroom dancing in general for being false and lacking in improvisation.  These are criticisms we have heard before and responded to.

McMains goes beyond criticizing the aesthetic of practiced social dance, however, and attacks the system that produces it.  The reason, she says, social ballroom relies on patterns and practiced technique is because one cannot sell improvisation.  If dance students were told they could do what they wanted, what would dance teachers sell?  How can you sell lessons if what one teaches is irrelevant?

There are two problems with this view.  The first is that improvisation can be taught, or at least encouraged.  Anyone who’s ever taken an advanced class in hip hop, salsa, Argentine tango, or west coast swing, or even a beginner class in contact improv is aware of this, and anyone who’s ever gone social dancing on a crowded floor is aware of just how much ballroom dancers do improvise.  The second probelm is that even if ballroom dancing had no improvisation whatsoever, that doesn’t invalidate it as a form of social dance.  Folk dancing contains no improvisation, but folk dances are the oldest dance forms of social dance we know and are still practiced today by millions of people.

It is in this chapter that we begin to see that McMains truly has an axe to grind.  She’s trying to make ballroom dancing into something else, but she’s doing so without taking the time to understand what it is – something I find very strange given her status as a national rising star finalist.  What she’s trying to do, however, doesn’t become clear until the fourth chapter.

Chapter 3: Brownface: Representations of Latinness in Latin Dance

This chapter is actually an expansion of an article McMains published in 2001 in The Social and Popular Dance Reader.  It is both simultaneously the most and least interesting chapter in the book, in that it presents a fascinating history but doesn’t say much of particular relevance.

McMains goes into the history of Latin dancing and how various South American dances were co-opted by the ballroom dance community, then distorted in such a way as to be scarcely recognizeable.  Her descriptions of Afro-Cuban cha cha and rhumba and Brazillian samba are fascinating but leave me saying, “so what?”

Her main contention is that the dance we call “cha cha” isn’t real cha cha and is so different from Afro-Cuban cha cha that we should all be outraged.  To be fair, this is an argument I’ve heard before, particularly from the Brazillian community regarding samba, and they are justified when a dance that is a cultural icon is taken, altered, and presented as authentic.  It must be acknowledged that the ballroom Latin dances have very little in common with traditional Latin dancing, which may explain why outside of competitions they are rarely danced to actual Latin music.

Still, this argument always leaving me with a, “so what?” feeling.  So ballroom rumba is different from Afro-Cuban rhumba – so what?  In what way does that invalidate ballroom rumba as a dance?  So ballroom samba bears little resemblence to Brazillian samba – does that mean one cannot or should not dance ballroom samba?  The ballroom Latin dances are unique styles and if they lack historical legitimacy, that doesn’t mean they lack artistic legitimacy.  If one enjoys the feeling of dancing ballroom cha cha or the visual aesthetic of watching ballroom tango, how is that a problem?

McMains seems to ignore the whole question of value.  Her argument is based on historical authenticity and she does at last present a solution rather than a complaint.  She recommends that dancers who want to learn authentic Latin dancing study salsa, though she points out the “disturbing” trend of salsa teachers becoming more like ballroom teachers.  Curiously, she ignores the history of salsa, which evolved in New York City and is not a truly authentic Latin dance.

Chapter 4: Exceeding the Limits of Competition: Innovations in Theatrical Ballroom Dance

In the final chapter McMains presents some of her ideas for improving the world of ballroom dancing.  Of all the chapters in the book, while I disagreed with this chapter more than any other I found that I supported her ideas more than any other section.

McMains presents some examples of creative approaches to ballroom dance in the exhibition category of competitions and then illustrates how dancers and choreographers attempted to transition these dances out of the ballroom and into theaters.  While the pieces she cites are intriguing, she seems to be missing the point.  Early on, in the first chapter, McMains describes a ballroom competition by saying, “competitors and audience memebrs continually exchange places, furhter blurring the dubious distinction between observer and observed.”

This is one of the greatest strengths of ballroom, and one of its appeals.  The rise of performance dance – by which I mean ballet, jazz, contemporary, etc. – has created the notion that some people are dancers and some are not.  Likewise, many of these performance dances have become so esoteric and technical in terms of their artistry that they are all but inaccessible to the common viewer.  The advantage of ballroom is that anyone can take a class or lessons and then go out for a fun night of social dancing.  Ballroom dance can have an audience, though it is not required to have one, and an audience can appreciate the aesthetic of the dances without having a formal training in said dance.  Most of McMains’ suggestions seem to be aimed at making ballroom more theatrical, which I believe would lead ballroom into the same ghetto that performance dances are in: unaccessible to anyone except their practitioners and (mostly) incomprehensible to anyone except their small elite group of patrons.

My Impressions

McMains has some very strong points about problems in the dance industry.  She is right that advancement in Dance Sport is often impossible to anyone who isn’t prepared to spend thousands of dollars on the sport, but what she fails to acknowledge is that that range is largely limited to Dance Sport’s super-athletes.  For a social dancer who has no interest in competing, such an investment is hardly necessary.  For a casual competitive dancer or a collegiate dancer, one cna participate at far less cost.

Is ballroom seductive?  Absolutely.  Who doesn’t dream of being the next Johnathan Roberts or Yulia Zagoruychenko?  But why does that mean we must be these super heroes in order to enjoy dancing?  One can enjoy singing karaoke at a bar without insisting on winning American Idol, so why shouldn’t one be able to enjoy ballroom dancing, even competitive dancing, without an insistence on being the Best There Is?  By definition there can only be one Best and most of us aren’t going to be it, so we’d better find another reason to enjoy dancing.

I belive McMains’ blinders come from being burnt out on dancing.  Her background was performance dance, her early experiences competitive, her later experiences professional, and it seems that sacrificing so much for the sake of competition became too much for her.  Not only has she been living in the high-stakes world of upper-echelon professional ballroom dance for most of her dance career, but she never got to experience the lower echelons.  McMains’ was never a pure social dancer so she doesn’t know what it’s like to consider oneself a social dancer.  Her beginning competition experience was for one of the top ballroom competition teams in the country – no small pressure there – so how could she not integrate that pressure into her dancing?  And then it was only a brief period before she entered the professional world.

McMains went right to the top of the dance world without building a solid foundation of how to enjoy it.  Is it any wonder her pleasure wound up on shaky grounds before crashing altogether?

The Glamour Addiction is a fascinating book for its insights into the reality of what Dance Sport is like in terms of what happens at competitions, how teachers spend their days, what competitors do between lessons, how the current system came to be the way it is, and so on.  One should be very careful about the value judgments presented, however, and remember that they are presented by what appears to be a bitter and burnt out fomer star.

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Ballroom Beauty

April 8, 2010

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.

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The Climb

April 4, 2010

We’ve all met them.  They may be great friends or barely tolerated acquaintences.  They can be awful dances or wonderful.  They can be old or young, male or female, and come from any style of dance.  They can be encountered at sudios, socials, and competitions.  Sometimes it seems like they’re everywhere, bearing down on us, threatenin to make us One of Them.

Who are they?  They’re the people who take class after class, who you see on the dance floor year after year, and yet who never seem to improve.  They put in loads of effort and dance more than anyone, but nothing seems to change.  No matter what they do, they dance the same way this year that they did five years ago.  Then one day it hits you: “Am I going to end up like that?” you ask yourself.

Meet Bob

If you want to avoid being a non-improver you need to understand what makes a non-improver and how he or she became one.  In my experience – and I’ll warn you that much of what I’m about to say is annecodatal or comes directly from the backgrounds of dancers I’ve known personally – the non-improver began to dance quite dedicated to mastering the art.  Let’s imagine Bob.  Bob started to dance in the late 90′s when he saw an advertisement for classes at a chain studio.  He went to the studio, had a fun introductory lesson, and signed up for the standard beginner package.

Bob made great progress with that standard package and enrolled in a junior bronze program.  He learned quickly, did well in his group classes and private lessons, came to all the studio parties, and even did a showcase performance with his teacher, though he never tried competition due to financial reasons.  Even after moving up to bronze, Bob would still drop in on the newcomer classes whenever his schedule allowed.

One day, some students are talking after class and they tell Bob they’re going to a dance party outside the studio.  It’s being held at a local church but isn’t associated with the church.  Would he like to come?  Of course!  This is why Bob wanted to learn to dance in the first place, to make new friends!

At the church Bob dances with people from outside his chain studio for the first time.  At first it’s awkward.  While the fundamentals are the same, most of the ladies don’t know all the patterns that Bob has been taught because they’re only in the franchise’s syllabus.  He gets more comfortable as the evening progresses, however, especially when he meets students there who used to go to his studio.  They can follow his studio-specific patterns but he has to lead them better because they’re less familiar with them than they used to be.  Later when Bob dances with other dancers his lead has improved and he grows much more comfortable.

Bob can’t wait to tell his teacher about his experience.  She’s so excited for him!  She tells him how this proves he really can dance with anyone.  The next few private lessons she helps him improve his ability to lead and each week when he returns to the dance party at the church he does better and better and has more and more fun.  The church has an independent instructor teach a lesson before each dance; Bob starts going to these lessons and learns lots of new moves.  What fun!

Then Bob finishes his junior bronze package with the chain studio.  Will he sign up for another package?  No thank you.  He can go out and have a fun night of dancing and meeting new people.  He’s met his goals so why continue to pay for more lessons?

Bob continues to go to the Church and finds other dance venues that he enjoys.  He always does the lessons beforehand – they’re usually free with the dance, so why not? – and thus continues to learn new patterns.  From time to time he may enjoy the instructors beforehand and sign up for one of their classes or may even become a regular.  He’s actually considered one of the better dancers there.  Regardless, his dancing stays at the same level.  He forgets the new patterns he learns or has trouble leading the ones he does remember.  His technique never improves.  When he meets students form his former studio, most have surpassed him.

What happened?

Meeting Your Goals

Some people will point out that Bob stopped taking lessons, but that’s not true.  While he did stop taking private lessons, he continued to do the pre-dance lessons, where he could at least learn new patterns, and even took regular group classes.  Some people may point out that Bob stopped going to practices, which probably contributed to his stagnation but I doubt it actually caused it.

More important than the changes Bob made is the reason he made those changes: he’d met his goal.  His dancing had gotten to the point that he could enjoy it so he was no longer pushing himself to improve it.  Any further improvement Bob has will be incidental; he is no longer actively seeking to improve his dancing, so why should we be surprised when he doesn’t?

This brings up one of the most debated issues in ballroom dancing, especially for social dancers: should you continue to pay for lessons once you’ve met your goal?  I’m going to raise some hackles here, but I’m inclined to say no.  Dance lessons are costly, time-consuming, and exhausting.  If you don’t have a compelling reason to go to that expense and effort, it’s possible you shouldn’t do so.

Before Bob reaches that decision however, and before you do, he must consider if his goals have changed.  One can be an excellent social dancer – in the 90th percentile, in fact – with only a pre-bronze dance education, but will Bob be content just being a pre-bronze social dancer or will he want something more?

At this point, Bob is most likely a competent partner but is unlikely to wow anyone, and over time he will be surpassed by more and more dancers who continue to develop their skills.  If Bob is okay with this, that’s not a problem.  If he wants ot be a celebrated social dancer, however, he needs to find new goals and work toward them.  If Bob pursues full bronze training and moves on to silver, even if he never gets to use his silver steps on the social floor his technique will improve and the bronze steps he leads will feel infinitely better to his partner.

Re-Evaluation

The message we should take away from Bob is that we must constantly re-evaluate your goals.  The law of biology is, “evolve or die,” and the law of dancing is,  “improve or stagnate.”  If you’re not improving it’s because you’re stagnating.  As we saw with Bob, stagnation doesn’t come from not taking lessons, but from taking the same lessons that don’t yield different results.

Bob is in a slump.  He could break out of this slump by starting his private lessons again, taking workshops and attending seminars, training toward medal tests, studying new DVDs and dance manuals, or trying competition.  All of these, however, require re-evaluation of his goals, at which point they become tools to achieve those goals.

If you’re worried about stagnating, ask yourself what you’ve done lately to improve your dancing.  Chances are it’s just the same thing you’ve been doing previously, in which case the message is clear: try something else!

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miTunes

March 7, 2010

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Twelfth Night Act 1, scene 1, 1–3

When we begin dancing we want to practice, and that means we need music.  For many of us, this is our first experience purchasing music for a specific purpose, a very different expereince than purchasing music to listen to for pleasure.  When you buy music for pleasure, all that matters is if you like it.  Ballroom music is much more involved.

How strict is the tempo?

If you go to Amazon and search for ballroom music, one of the first things you’ll come across is the term, “strict tempo.”  Unfortunately, very few places that sell ballroom music explain what this term means.  “Strict tempo” is used to designate music that falls in the specific range of measures per minute defined for that dance in competition.  Theoretically, it’s also guaruteed not to vary from that tempo with extra measures, hesitations, or breaks, but the reality of the situation is that it often takes such liberties.  Often it follows very simple phrasing of eight measures throughout the song, to make it possible for dancers to use their choreography in competitions even when they don’t know the song they’ll be dancing to in advance, and it usually has a very strong beat.

The benefit of strict tempo music is that you know you’ll be able to dance to it.  You know that it will be the right speed, you know that it will be the right tempo, and you know that it will be easy to find the rhythm in the music.  The downside is that strict tempo music can often sound very, very flat, though there are some excellent strict tempo CDs as well.  If you’re planning to purchase strict tempo music, I highly recommend previewing it beforehand; else you’re liable to end up with what is often literally a home recording of someone in his or her basement with a synthesizer and a metronome.

Strict tempo music is excellent for practice, even if it’s not exciting, but for social dancing and performances there are often better choices.

Real Music

While strict tempo music is made for ballroom dancing, if we could only dance to strict tempo songs, ballroom dancing would have very limited utility.  Fortunately, there are many non-strict tempo songs, or “real music” that has great rhythm for ballroom dances.  George Lindholm has assembled a fantastic list, although he doesn’t update it any more.

Unless you’re preparing for a competition, I actually recommend practicing to real music more than strict tempo.  Why?  Because you’re going to hear real music in the real world.  If you’re at a ballroom social, most DJs play mroe real music than they do strict tempo simply because it sounds better, and if you’re at a non-ballroom event that still features dancing, such as a wedding or party, there’s no way you’ll ever hear strict tempo music.  Learning to dance to real music beforehand ensures you’ll be better at adapting to rhythms that are too fast or too slow (“Open Arms” as a waltz), that stop and start (“Lotus” as a waltz), or that change speed mid-song (“Free Bird” as a bolero, rumba, cha cha, and swing).

Buying Music

For real music, one look no further than the closest record store or iTunes.  If you can hear a rhythm in a song.

Strict tempo music requires going to ballroom speciality sources.  While there is strict tempo music through larger retailers, such as Amazon and iTunes, ballroom suppliers usually have better collections of music one would actually want to listen to.  I recommend Dancevision, but a simple Google search of “Ballroom Dance Music” will turn up many other suppliers.

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